Not only does it feature a fun design that immediately catches the eye of the recipient, but the sound quality also impresses. It works, too: my kids used to have to repeatedly ask Alexa the same thing to make themselves understood; since the update, Alexa responds quickly. Sure, the new version does sound slightly better thanks to its new design, but that design comes with some real compromises in where you can put the new Dot. And it’s rounded off by selection of premium Alexa skills (Numberblocks and Harry Potter’s Wizarding World Book Quiz to name two) and alarms from various characters.

As the global publisher of Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts stories in digital formats, Pottermore Publishing’s audio team works with some of the best narrators in the world, including Stephen Fry, Noma Dumezweni and Jude Law alongside many others.Whether that's enough will be your personal choice, but even at its most basic, the cutesy smart speaker has its uses: setting an alarm to wake up in the morning or letting your child ask school questions if they get totally stuck on homework. Anyone who remembers the presentation from last September will notice, however, that one big feature is missing. Over 170 Audible Books — Kids will enjoy hours of entertaining and educational Audible books performed by some of their favourite characters and authors such as Paddington Bear, C S Lewis’s The Magician’s Nephew, The Snowflake read by Claire Foy, books by David Walliams, Sir Michael Morpurgo and more.

Some mention that it is a wise investment for parents who want to introduce the product to their children, while others say that it's a total waste of money, useless, and has poor quality. If you need advice or support for your product, please in the first instance contact the support provider using the number on this support page. We had some fun with the new spherical shape and created new Panda and Tiger designs and animal-themed alarms. Reading sidekick is a tool that – in the US, at least – is designed to help kids improve their reading ability by reading a book along with the child, listening in, assisting with pronunciation and providing encouragement.

Alexa is here to help - whether your child is working on a project and wants to check their spelling, or they're just feeling curious.

And if you want to set a time on how late your children can listen to music, you can create limits and review their activity using the parental controls. We found getting to grips with the Echo dot kids really easy – you simply plug it in, download the app and pair with the device. This speaker has to be judged for its intended audience and the sound quality here is more than good enough for younger kids; mine certainly had nothing to complain about. Household Communications — Gone are the days of shouting up the stairs for the kids to come down to dinner.Of course, all of the content that a kid can access is filtered by the age you set in their profiles.

The new Dot also doesn’t do the real-time room tuning of the larger model, nor does it have Dolby Audio processing. So with those features (and limitations) in mind, the Echo Dot Kids certainly seems like one of the better options if you are considering a smart speaker for your child. Voice apps are quickly becoming a key part of families' daily routine and "Bing Time" has been carefully crafted to enable our young audience to engage with Bing through songs, audio-stories and games.In addition to using sustainable materials, Echo Dot Kids also has a Low Power Mode* to intelligently conserve energy during periods of inactivity and deliver energy savings over the lifetime of the device. They also mention that the design is charming and appealing to kids, and it'll keep their little ones occupied. Or, let everyone know dinner is ready by making an announcement to every room that has a compatible Echo device. Every smart device now requires you to agree to a series of terms and conditions before you can use it — contracts that no one actually reads. All of the new Echo models support this, including the full-size Echo and the standard 4th Gen Echo Dot.