hello I'm Wanderer001 and
this is my review of the echo dot
version three I have previously done a
review of the predecessor to the version
three here at the echo dot version
two our view can be found over in the
corner but they came out with a new one
the big selling point of this one is the
bigger better speaker then the version
two had so let's just quickly go over
the specs of the version three here so
you are looking at a device that is
three point nine inches wide by three
point nine inches high because it is a
circle and has a depth of 1.7
it is considerably heavier than the echo
dot version two at ten point six ounces
or 300 grams the top of the device is a
matte plastic finish you'll notice that
you have four little pinholes there
those are for the four speakers at the
echo dot version three has as opposed to
the seven speakers that the echo two
version two had I'm just gonna start
calling them that because saying it
every time is going to be a mouthful on
the top of the device aside from the
little pinholes you have for the
microphones you
you also have this LED light ring which
will light up I'll show you a little
later when you activate the echo with
the activation or trigger phrase you
will also notice later that the light
will change a slightly lighter portion
as its following you around to let you
know which microphone is listening to
you so you have your volume up hard key
your volume down hard key your trigger
phrase activation so you don't always
have to use your voice to activate it
you can just push on that and ask your
question and then a dedicated hard mute
button sadly even though echo has come a
long way and made a lot of changes when
I first got the version 2 to the version
3 here they still will not let you
actuate the mute action by voice you do
have to use this hard button right here
now coming down the big change that the
echo version 3 here has is this this is
your speaker grill and it
goes pretty much all the way around the
device except for that little cutout now
this is fabric so very similar to the
Google home mini review over there so
they kind of have up scaled a little bit
compared to I'm just going to grab off
camera here the echo dot version two
which you can see is just a shiny bit
there and if we come up to the top
you'll see the perforated cutouts for
these seven microphones up here notice
that the version three is considerably
thicker so while this one was about the
size of a hockey puck this one is
chunkier and that's because of the
bigger speaker that outperforms the echo
dot version two in every way shape and
form coming around to the back here you
will notice that you have just two ports
similar to how you had just two ports in
the back of the echo dot version two you
will see a major difference they both
have the 3.5 millimeter output so you
can attach these hardline to a better
speaker which you probably wanted to do
with your echo dot two echoed out three
maybe not so much but you'll notice the
echo dot two here has a microUSB port
while the version three has a dedicated
power line so sadly unlike with the
version two where you could just grab
any old microUSB cable and plug it in
this one if you screw up the power cable
that comes with it you have to get
another dedicated power cable from
Amazon now flipping it over to the
bottom you have a rubberized texture all
around and it does pick up dirt and dust
rather easily but it helps it to stay in
place so notice I'm putting a bit of
force behind it just to see what it'll
do and it's not moving so let me show
you the power cable since I happen to be
talking about it just so you get an idea
of what you're looking at so you have
here a six-foot cable and there is your
dedicated in with a power brick that is
one point five by one point five by two
inches so it is definitely
different than the previous plug that
you had with the version two it does sit
considerably closer to the wall however
the footprint is much bigger than the
old version so that is something again
to keep in mind you do get more cable
 than you did with the original echo
2 but you do have trade-offs so to speak
one of your next questions aside from
you know differences between the echo
version 2 and version 3 would probably
be how easy is it to set up the echo
this may be your first device that
you're getting to help you with home
automation or just to have a voice
assistant so let me show you how easy it
is to set up the echo version 3 okay
this is gonna be setting up of the echo
dot Persian 3 start off by plugging it
in and waiting
and this is all in real time to give you
an idea just in case yours takes this
long that you don't panic
[echo] hello your
device is ready for setup just follow
the instructions in your Alexa app
alright so I turn that down a little bit
so that it's not overwhelmingly loud so
we're gonna go into the echo app that
shall not be named and we come down and
select in the lower right hand corner
the devices area and then we come up to
the plus sign here and select that we
have a new device and then we have
choices Amazon echo lights plugs we are
going to select an echo and this is the
echo dot I see that they have lots of
different choices but they don't
differentiate dot one version two or
version three so we're gonna select
version three okay so here it actually
does show you the difference which is
nice so Version three or version one and
two you can skip this step if you wanted
to but I'm not going to we're gonna say
version three and then here is the
available device I'm gonna select that
and it's asking us to select our Wi-Fi
so we are going to put it on Hal there
cuz that's where I put all of my I o T
devices and now we wait for it to
connect the dot so you can kind of see
in the background there put the phone
over to the side so maybe it'll be a
little easier to see as it's spinning
with color so there you go your record
dot is now set up
tap continued rise is ready yeah
so they forgot says the device is ready
so we click to continue and then here we
go we got extra things so connect cable
bluetooth use echos built-in speaker so
we are going to say use the built-in
speaker and now it's just bringing me
back to the main login page so this is
actually set up so if I said Alexa what
is the weather in Gettysburg in
[Echo] Gettysburg Pennsylvania it's 48 degrees
Fahrenheit with cloudy skies today you
can look for lots of clouds with a high
of 49 degrees in a low of 39 degrees and
that's the setup alright so like you saw
it that's simple yes it did take a
little more time but that's in real time
you'll notice now that I also have the
echo plugged in so we're gonna talk
about some of the brains of the
operation after the few little extras
that we have to talk about with the
actual device because the thing is the
echo ecosystem everything is done in the
cloud so realistically we're looking at
the peripheral here this is a means to
get to all of that amazon data so you
are looking at being able to support
dual band Wi-Fi so 802 11 a BGN and AC
as well as 5 gigahertz same thing ABG
and AC so I would recommend sticking
with the 2.4 gigahertz spectrum so that
you can place us further away while the
five gigahertz spectrum can be faster
it limits you arrange with these things
now I have also limited the amount of
data that this can use over my network
mainly because I have a lot of home
automation things plugged in and I don't
want them choking my network so keep in
mind that anything that I reference with
the version 3 to the version 2 I have
also done to the version 2 so I've
limited the network capability to 1.5
Meg up and down for this as well as I
did for the version 2 now I still have
to
other echo dots in my house this has
replaced the one that was sitting in my
bedroom so I still have the one in my
kitchen and the other old echo dot
version 2 is now going to live in my
second bedroom now one of my concerns
with the new version gonna do that for a
second new version versus the old
version is the build quality the build
quality is excellent with this but
similar to my complaints with the Google
home Mini this fabric limits my
placement of where I can put this
because I don't want to get this dirty
the other echo dot that I have lives in
my kitchen there's grease splatter over
everywhere and I just wipe it off wipe
it down and I don't have to worry about
it with something like this around the
device it kind of makes it so that I'm
concerned about where to put this if
you're putting this in a living room or
a bedroom situation you won't have to
worry but if you're considering putting
it in your kitchen you're definitely
going to want to consider where in your
kitchen you're gonna put this just
something to think about now you did see
me mute the device you can see this red
ring around there that indicates that it
is no longer listening and from this
point in the video on I will be saying
the trigger phrase quite frequently now
with the trigger phrases you have
choices it doesn't just have to be what
you hear on the TV which is Alexa you
can also use computer or Amazon now I've
tried using computer cuz well I'm a nerd
and Star Trek but you're going to
probably utter the word computer or hear
computer ordered uttered on your TV set
a lot more than you would alexa or
amazon now since I mentioned TV set
placement of these is key I do have one
that lives under my entertainment center
and it does get triggered occasionally
from people talking on the TV now that's
not them saying the trigger phrase it
just arbitrarily goes off every now and
then still haven't figured out why every
time it happens I send in a report and I
go false-flag it shouldn't be doing that
why is it doing that so keep in mind it
may turn on by itself all you have to do
is said trigger phrase stop or trigger
phrase turn off if you happen to be
watching a program something like South
Park
that Rick rolled a whole bunch of people
who had echo devices buy their TV sets
just keep in mind that is a possibility
you can always just mute it but you have
to use the physical button so we're
gonna take the mute off and I'm going to
start saying the trigger phrase a lot so
please keep that in mind starting off I
say Alexa and you will notice blue light
all around now I'm going to shadow that
just a little bit because I want you to
see I'm gonna say stuff and the light
will change slightly Alexa so when I
come over here you can see that light is
slightly moving because it's trying to
figure out which microphone which
microphone to use to listen to me and
you did hear her maybe say because I
have the lapel mic on so you can't
really hear it that well I really don't
know that one because she couldn't
figure out what I was talking about now
aside from the built-in mics on this it
also has technology called far field
communications so if you happen to have
more than one of these in your house it
will be able to determine which one is
closer to you and use that echo in order
to actuate a particular skill which is
very helpful so you don't have two of
them trying to run the same skill at
once and that's also why all the other
echoes that are still plugged in are
muted in my house so I don't have to
worry about that there are a lot of
things that you can do with the echo
here it has basic knowledge information
you can run queries you can do math all
that fun happy stuff that I talked about
in the other echo
version two video has not changed it
still is capable of doing that because
the brains the Alexa all lives say I can
use the button to turn it off if I
wanted to it all lives in the cloud but
because it lives in the cloud a lot of
the things that I was talking about have
changed they've made improvements mainly
being routines routines is something
that I wanted but didn't know how to
talk about it in the last video I wanted
to set up a routine for my bedtime where
I would say trigger phrase action and
then things would turn themselves on and
off in my home automation system at the
time they didn't have that
but now they do with routines you can
set up multiple actions to happen where
things turn on and off just by saying a
single trigger phrase now in this case
the trigger phrase that I use is
goodnight when I say goodnight things
happen now because it's smart also when
I say goodnight it does not say the
acknowledgement phrase so if I said
Alexa turn on living room lights I'm
gonna turn that up a little bit
Alexa turn off living room lights okay
notice how she says okay when I say the
goodnight one she does not say anything
now you will notice that I did turn up
the volume a little bit the volume scale
is based off of one to ten unlike in
previous versions you can actually now
tell it to Alexa increase the volume
which will move it up by one in the slot
of ten which is kind of nice that it
does that now another thing that they've
added is shortened acknowledgments I
don't use that because I don't mind it
saying okay however I do like the fact
that it has whisper mode so if you have
this in a child's bedroom and you say so
[whisper] Alexa turn on turn off bedroom lights
[echo] *whisper* a few things share that name which one do you want
[whisper] bedroom light
echo] *whisper* ok
you can whisper to it and it will
whisper back to you and I I really
appreciate this one especially since I
have a light in my bedroom which my wife
sometimes comes in to bed a little later
than I do and the one light is a tp-link
light over there smart light so she can
use this to turn it on and off and not
wake me up because it's nice and quiet
the other thing that they did is create
they created groups so I have one group
in my entire house which is just
everywhere and that is every echo device
that I have I can tell it to play some
music and it will play that everywhere
on all the devices all at once another
thing that I complained about was I wish
I could trigger music from
this device but to play on a different
device well guess what Amazon does that
now I can trigger something from here
over there now the one thing that still
arcs me a little bit is I want to be able
to have a flash briefing which is just a
grouping of skills that kind of is like
a bulleted news report
start on one finish on another or
trigger it from one to the other that
one will not work also and I think I
figured this out is because flash
briefing is a skill if I were to do that
skill and then try and trigger a tp-link
skill to turn something on or off
it kills the flash briefing if you were
playing music and went to a trigger
skill the music would move down and then
the skill would happen and the music
would come back so that's that's kind of
nice so one of the things that still can
be an issue you may have noticed I don't
know if you heard it for sure
with the whisper mode activated there
were things that shared a similar
namesake but I have found especially
since it's around the holidays with my
Christmas tree you don't have to be
exact with the wording that you say to
trigger something of that nature so let
me show you what that looks like
Alexa
turn on Christmas tree okay
Alexa turn off Christmas tree
okay Alexa turn on Christmas lights okay
Alexa turn off Christmas lights okay
Alexa turn on Christmas okay Alexa turn
off Christmas so not terrible it as you
saw it's just a little little thing to
consider now a lot of the features that
I've been talking about that the echo
dot version 3 here can do require you to
use the Amazon II app now to keep this
video short I do have a full review or
walkthrough of the Amazon application
which can be found in the corner there
so if you wanted to see how to set some
of these things up like whisper mode
or flash briefings you can go check that
video out and that'll show you how to do
that so what I'm gonna do now is I'm
going to bring the lapel mic over to the
echo here to give you an example of what
the sound actually sounds like now I'm
not gonna crank it all the way up we're
just gonna start it up and let you hear
something Alexa play rock music
[echo] here's a
station for rock music classic rock on
Amazon music
*rock music playing*
Alexa play latest episode of daily tech
news show
[echo] getting the latest episode of
daily tech news show here it is from
tune in
[DTNS]  thanks everybody who supports independent tech news directly if you're
not already become a DTNS member at
patreon.com slash DTNS
so there you
have a few examples of what the limited
volume of this sounds like now that
wasn't all the way up just keep that in
mind this does crank much better than
the echo version 2 did now one of the
things I do want to talk about is the
perceived delay that I noticed between
the version 3 and the version 2 it is
noticeable that it does take a little
longer it seems to process your request
it's not terribly long so it's not going
to screw with your workflow at all but I
did notice when we first got this that
it would take a little longer to process
and it's not terrible
just slightly noticeable so one of the
new things that they also have done not
necessarily with the version 3 here but
Amazon echo devices now support multiple
accounts now they did before
you just had to switch between the two
but now similar to Google home this will
recognize multiple vocal patterns and
determine whose account should be used
and that is very useful even though my
wife doesn't use this quite as much as I
do except to turn things on and off so
aside from the speaker one of the big
things that is different between the
version 3 and the version 2 is the power
cable and power consumption the version
3 because it does have a larger speaker
it does use a little more power so when
idling it uses between 1.4 and 2 watts
and when you actually play something it
uses between 2.6 and 2 point 9 watts now
when you get your initial LED flare up
there it does use a spike of a bit more
on both but it's just limited to when
the mics are being active and the LED is
going so not terrible it's it's low
enough and power usage that you can have
a couple of these stacked around your
house and
have to worry that they're going to chew
up a lot of electricity now I did try
and limit being redundant between things
that I covered in the echo version two
review I suggest if you're looking for
like all of the skills and stuff that
these devices can do that you go check
that out
I was trying to do a balancing act
between the new things that the version
3 can do and just specific things that
the version 3 has but if you are looking
for something that is your first foray
into a voice assistant or a home
automation hub because you can use this
for home automation and for the most
part it talks to everything in anything
although Amazon has started down the
road of producing its own home home
automation equipment over there is a
review for a Amazon branded smart switch
so this is a platform for them they're
using it but they're starting to limit
who they talk to which has me a little
concerned but it still talks to enough
other vendors that I'm not terribly
concerned so the echo dot version 3 here
is well worth considering even though
depending on when you get this the price
can fluctuate it's sitting at the normal
price of what the past normal price of
the echo dot version 2 which is anywhere
between $50 and $25 on sale I have seen
it as low as $20 during some of the
Christmas time stuff for 2018 but then
you also have to consider the echo dot
version 2 is going on sale as well and
it's slightly cheaper so the question is
that 5 or 10 extra dollars do you want
to spend it on the version 3 well to you
I say do you need the better speaker if
your dot is buy something that you can
plug into and have better speakers that
no you don't need this personal opinion
but if you need the better speaker then
the version 3 is what you want to get
now with that said I have been
Wanderer001 if you have any questions
or comments please leave them in the
area below as always thanks for watching
