The Original Echo: Voice Control with a Beefy Speaker

The Echo Dot: Small and Compact, but with Poor Audio Quality

The Echo Dot ($50) is a tiny, inexpensive version of the original Echo—it can do everything a regular Echo can, but without taking up as much space (although it’s missing the nice, big speaker). However, to make up for the lack of speaker, it contains a line out port that lets you hook it up to your stereo or other big, high-quality speaker. Keep in mind, though, that all of the newer Echos have a line out port now.

The original Echo Dot contained a volume wheel along the top, just like the original Echo. However, that was shortly discontinued, and replaced with a cheaper version that contained volume buttons instead.

The Echo Show: Echo with Video

The Echo Show ($230) can do everything the original Echo can, but it contains a touch screen that can show the information, as well as say it. You can also watch videos on it, see a feed from your security cameras, video chat with other Echo owners, and do a few other things that require a screen.

The Echo, Generation Two: Smaller & Cheaper with Better Sound

The Echo Plus: A 2nd-Gen Echo with a (Not Very Good) Smarthome Hub

The Echo Plus ($150) uses the same wine-bottle-sized form factor as the original Echo, but with the newer microphones, woofer, tweeter, and line out port of the second-generation Echo (though the tweeter is slightly larger). It’s also available in black, silver, or white, and contains a built-in ZigBee smarthome hub.

If you aren’t sure what that means, check out our explainer on smarthome hubs—essentially, the Echo Plus will allow you to use generic ZigBee devices without a separate hub like the Wink. Devices with their own proprietary hub, like Insteon, will still require their original hub. The Echo Plus appears to only work with ZigBee products—there is no mention of Z-Wave anywhere. This makes the Echo Plus’ smarthome hub pretty weak, since many sensors, smart locks, and other smarthome devices use Z-Wave (Philips Hue being the one big exception that uses ZigBee). There are other ZigBee devices out there, of course, but they are slightly less popular than their big name Z-Wave counterparts.

As for the sound quality, it’s about on par with the regular second-generation Echo with maybe ever-so-slightly better bass, but I couldn’t tell a huge difference. In other words, you don’t really need to pay $50 extra for the Echo Plus unless you really want the built-in smarthome hub.

The Echo Connect: Your Phone Landline, Connected to Alexa

All Echos can make calls to US phone numbers today, but it uses an IP calling service that doesn’t hook up to your existing landline. For that, there’s the new Echo Connect ($35), available for pre-order and shipping on December 13. It’s essentially a box that connects your existing landline to your other Echo devices, allowing you to make voice calls that actually come from your phone number. It also means you can call 911 and call international numbers, which is nice.

The Echo Spot: The Echo Show in Alarm Clock Form

The Echo Spot ($130) is similar to the Echo Show, but with a circular 2.5″ screen that acts as a clock when not showing you other information. Designed to be set by a bedside, the “clock” can also show you the weather, play music, make video calls, and perform other similar tasks as the Echo Show.

Echo Buttons: A Weird Gimmick for…Trivia Games, I Guess?

Other Devices with Alexa

That’s a pretty big lineup, but we’ve found them to be a lot more useful than they seem, especially if you have other smarthome products. We’ll be testing out more of these new Echos as they’re released, so stay tuned.