Echo Spot (2024) Ocean Blue

The Echo Spot 2024 Ocean Blue is a smart alarm clock with a speaker worth listening to rather than tolerating.

• The Echo Spot 2024 Ocean Blue on a bedside table
• The alarm is the job it is really doing
• A screen that stops at what is useful
• No camera, and a speaker worth having
• What else it does

The Echo Spot 2024 Ocean Blue on a bedside table

Blue is the version for a bedroom you have actually decorated. Against white bedding, a wooden table or a painted wall it reads as something chosen rather than something delivered, which is not a small consideration for an object that will be forty centimetres from your face every night for years. The black one is for when you want it to disappear instead.

The alarm is the job it is really doing

Ask for a time and Alexa sets it. Build a routine and the morning arrives gradually: music coming up from quiet, a lamp brightening, the forecast read out, rather than a noise at full volume in the dark. Tap the screen to snooze. This is the part that replaces a phone on the bedside table, and getting the phone off the bedside table is the reason most people buy one of these.

A screen that stops at what is useful

Time, weather, the song playing, a timer running down, on a clock face you choose in a colour that suits the room. It is deliberately not a small tablet, and that restraint is why it works as a clock. You can also reach up and dim the lights on the screen without waking up properly, which is a better interface at 2 am than talking is.

No camera, and a speaker worth having

There is no lens on this device at all, which is the argument for the Spot over any of the Show displays in a bedroom. Underneath the screen is a front firing speaker with real bass and clear vocals, so it is something you would choose to play music on rather than tolerate.

What else it does

Controls compatible smart devices by voice or on the screen, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and a button that cuts the microphones. It suits a bedside table, a desk or a kitchen counter equally.

The same Spot in black is the discreet version. If you want a camera for video calls and a larger screen, that is the Echo Show 5, and the cheapest bedside clock of the lot is the Echo Dot with clock. There is a plain summary of Alexa on Wikipedia.