The Amazon Echo Pop Review is fun to look at

The Echo Pop: An Upgrade from the Echo Dot to a Smart Speaker with a Lower-Density Speaker for Small Rooms

If you are sitting in a small room, you should listen to music and listen to a radio if you are near it. It’s noticeably better when stereo paired with another Pop. But this is not a device to buy for banging tunes. While the Dot isn’t, either, and actually has a smaller front-firing speaker, it has a richer sound and better bass, so if that’s a consideration — spend the extra $10. Plus, with a Dot, you can tap it to pause music quickly. With the Pop, you have to use a voice command.

When it’s next to the Echo Dot (5th Gen), the Echo Pop looks to be the same size—that is, if you’re looking head-on at the Pop’s flat, circular face. When you look at it from the side, you can see it’s two-thirds as deep. The size difference can be seen at the bottom. The EchoPop’s base is nearly an inch thinner than theEcho dot’s, making it a slim, round base.

The smaller base and size helps it be more convenient to put it around your home. It’s a good fit for desk corners, side tables and small shelves due to it’s half moon form and single flat face.

If you’re more interested in a stylish speaker and less worried about fantastic sound, this is Amazon’s best option and maybe the best choice out of the world of cheaper speakers. I have three different smart speakers at my desk, and out of all the tiny offerings from Amazon, Apple, and others, I would rather use theEcho Pop than any of them.

It’s a good upgrade for older echos, even if they were released before the third-gen came out. It’s worth upgrading from the third-gen, too, if you don’t need that 3.5mm jack, as the Pop is faster, sounds better, and looks way nicer. I would not replace a fourth- or fifth-gen Dot with a Pop as you lose features.

The Color, Size, and Shape of the Echo Pop with Siri, Amazon’s Alexa Voice, and Smart Home Device Interactions (Extended Abstract)

The cloud verification process takes place between the cloud and the voice interactions. The voice recordings and transcripts are stored in the cloud. You can review and choose to delete this information at any time through the app or Amazon’s Alexa Privacy Hub. If you want to allow Amazon to use your recordings, you have to allow it.

The primary data collected by the Echo Pop are voice and smart home device interactions with Alexa. The speaker’s microphones are always listening for the wake word or trigger sounds unless you mute the device using the physical mute button or by telling Alexa to mute. Once it hears the word, then it starts analyzing what you say.

Bringing connected devices into your home also brings with it concerns about how the data they collect is protected. The Verge asks each company whose smart home products we review about safeguards it has in place for your data.

There is also no option for a clock display with the Pop. My favorite Dot is the Echo Dot with Clock, which uses a dot matrix display to show the time and a few other bits of useful info. That’s not an option here, although Amazon did relocate the Alexa LED light from the bottom, where it is in the Dot, to the top, where it appears as a small strip (you can adjust its brightness in the Alexa app).

Size and shape: I prefer the look of the Pop’s to the Dot’s. The design is better suited to a desk or bedside table because it is only marginally smaller. I like the new purple color and have always liked purple products. The teal is a bit muddy looking, more gray than green, but also more discreet than any of the other Dot colors.

The Pop lacks some of the advanced sensors that the Dot has, like an Eero mesh wi-fi system, Matter Controller, and a Sidewalk bridge. There’s no temperature sensor or ultrasound motion detector, and the accelerometer that powers the tap-to-snooze feature only works for alarms, not for pausing and resuming music as the Dot can. I also accidentally discovered you can’t snooze or dismiss an alarm by tap or voice if the internet is out, so that will be a pull-the-plug moment.

It has Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant baked in and can do all that brings with it — stream music, set multiple timers, trigger Alexa Routines, control connected smart home devices, play silly games, and tell even sillier jokes. It also works as a home intercom and telephone.