Amazon is discontinuing my favorite Echo — the one with a dot-matrix clock

I person six Amazon Echo astute speakers successful my house, and I’ve tested more, but my favourite is the Echo Dot with Clock. I emotion however the fabric-covered LED dot matrix show makes clip unobtrusively accessible, beaming its gentle achromatic airy from my dresser crossed my blackout-curtained acheronian bedroom. (It decidedly beats asking Alexa the time.)

So I’m atrocious to beryllium the bearer of atrocious news: Amazon has discontinued the Dot with Clock successful favour of a much expensive, little eye-pleasing model.

Amazon didn’t archer america wherefore it’s going away. At first, I mistakenly thought it mightiness beryllium owed to hidden defects — my ain Echo Dot with Clock began mysteriously freezing a fewer weeks back, wholly unresponsive to dependable commands and with images stuck connected its display. Multiple resets didn’t help.

But aft I successfully argued for Amazon to recognition maine for a replacement Echo, it began moving again. (I had to hard reset it, past spell done the setup process multiple times successful the Alexa app to get it working.)

When I went looking for a replacement $60 Echo Dot with Clock, I was amazed to find Amazon didn’t banal it anymore — lone refurbished models were disposable erstwhile I checked, adjacent though the bluish exemplary is disposable again astatine Amazon and Target today. So instead, I took a accidental connected the company’s spiritual successor: the $80 Echo Spot, which replaces the dot-matrix show with a screen.

But contempt being much expensive, I’m uncovering the Spot inferior for my purposes. While its surface isn’t excessively agleam for a dim bedroom, it’s not what I’d telephone visually pleasing. It ne'er lets maine hide I’m staring astatine a inexpensive screen. Plus, the full surface is tilted upwards, presumably for nightstand use, not my gangly dresser. I person nary nightstands successful my bedroom.

My workfellow Jennifer Pattison Tuohy is presently moving connected a afloat reappraisal of the Echo Spot, and she likes it a bully spot amended than me!

But she says it doesn’t dependable rather arsenic bully arsenic the Dot either (though audio’s much directional), and it inactive doesn’t fto you bash thing arsenic basal arsenic mounting an alarm with interaction similar you tin with different astute displays. The main benefits are euphony playback controls and the quality to show time, date, temperature, and the upwind simultaneously.

Now that my Echo Dot with Clock is moving again, I’ll beryllium returning the Spot — and the wealth that Amazon credited me.