Echo Dot (newest model - 2024) Glacier White

The Echo Dot 5th Gen Glacier White is the pale one, and Amazon call this generation their best sounding Dot.

• The Echo Dot 5th Gen Glacier White and the temperature sensor
• Routines are the reason it stops being a novelty
• White, and where it belongs
• What it will not do
• Multi room, if you buy more than one

Tap the top to snooze an alarm or pause music without saying anything.

One button turns the microphones off electrically.

The Echo Dot 5th Gen Glacier White and the temperature sensor

There is a thermometer inside this small speaker, and it is the feature nobody mentions when comparing it against a Bluetooth speaker. A routine can start a fan or an air conditioner once the room passes a level you set, so the cooling runs on the actual temperature of the room it is in rather than on a timer or on somebody remembering. In this climate that single capability tends to pay for the Dot faster than the music does.

Routines are the reason it stops being a novelty

A voice assistant that only answers questions gets used for a fortnight. One that runs the morning by itself gets used for years. A routine can bring a lamp up gently, read the forecast, start the radio and switch the fan on, all from one alarm or from one sentence. That is set up once in the Alexa app and never touched again, and it is where the value of these actually sits.

White, and where it belongs

Glacier white disappears into a bright room, a white kitchen, a pale bedside table or a shelf against a light wall, in a way that the charcoal one does not. On a dark surface it does the opposite and stands out. It is the same speaker inside; the only question is which way you want it to read against the wall behind it.

What it will not do

It has no Zigbee radio. It controls Wi-Fi and Matter devices, so Zigbee bulbs, plugs and sensors still need a gateway alongside it. And a 1.73 inch driver, however good for its size, is not going to fill a large sitting room. For that, the sphere or the Studio are the products.

Multi room, if you buy more than one

Two or more Dots play the same music in step across rooms, or different music in each. It is the cheapest way to get music through a whole house, and it is worth knowing before you spend the same money on one larger speaker for one room.

The same Dot comes in charcoal and deep sea blue. If it is going beside a bed, the version with the clock shows the time through the fabric. Wikipedia covers how Alexa works.