Amazon Echo Dot (2nd gen. 2016)

Comprehensive parental controls ; Kid-centric features, stories, and functionality ; More durable than original Echo Dot ; FreeTime unlimited is a great value

More expensive than regular Echo Dot ; Privacy problems could be an issue for some

If you’re already weary of having a smart speaker in your home for privacy reasons, though, you’re not going to buy an Echo Dot Kids Edition anyway. If you are invested in Amazon Alexa and have children who are interacting with Alexa on a regular...

Small, subtle design ; Stellar voice recognition ; Line-out functionality is useful

Sound quality could be better ; No digital audio output

The Amazon Echo Dot is a great product. Despite shrinking in size and price, it maintains almost everything that made the original Echo so great.

Most affordable way to get Alexa functionality ; Fast, accurate voice recognition ; Aggressive roll-out of new skills

No digital audio output ; Audio cable not included ; Multi-zone audio support not supported

Very inexpensive ; Works with a broad range of smart-home products and services ; Compact in size

Alexa is less sophisticated than Google Assistant ; Microphones don't cope well in environments with loud ambient noise ; Lousy speaker (add your own)

I predict that Google Home will be the better digital assistant for the smart home—eventually. Google has better speech recognition and a stronger AI effort. And you can ask contextual follow-up questions without having to say “Okay Google” again. But...

The second-gen, mini-sized Amazon Echo Dot smart speaker is just as smart as the first at nearly half the cost, and it's better at hearing you, too. It's also the only Echo product you can connect to an existing audio setup.

Amazon's Echo products still can't offer audio that syncs across multiple devices in multiple rooms.

The new and improved Echo Dot takes Amazon's best-in-class smart home speaker and wraps it in an ultra-affordable package.

Once you’re accustomed to your digital assistant answering questions and carrying out orders, you’ll probably want to use it to control things around your home.

Easy to use, minimal design so it'll save space, fun to ask or say stuff and get a response

Some minor latency, but can be fixed

For the price of $49.99USD you really can't go wrong if you don't mind getting a smaller version of the Amazon Echo.