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Which Dot is in front of you
Amazon has sold five generations of the small round Echo since 2016, in two quite different shapes, and the quickest way to tell them apart is the ring of light: whether it sits on the top face, around the top edge, or hidden underneath.
| What it looks like | Which one it is | Where the ring is |
|---|---|---|
| A low plastic disc, hard shell, about the width of a drinks coaster | First or second generation, 2016 and 2017 | On the top face, around the buttons |
| A flatter disc wrapped in fabric | Third generation, 2018 | Around the top edge, as a thin band |
| A fabric ball, roughly the size of a grapefruit, flattened underneath | Fourth or fifth generation, 2020 and 2022 | Underneath, glowing out onto the surface it stands on |
| Any of the above with numerals showing through the fabric | The Dot with clock version of that generation | Unchanged; the numerals are separate |
| A ball in a bright printed pattern, or with a character on it | A Dot Kids of the fourth or fifth generation | Underneath, as on the standard ball |
The distinction matters for one practical reason. On the ball-shaped generations the ring is beneath the device, so it reports by casting light onto the shelf rather than by showing you a band. Placed on a dark surface, or on a shelf with something overhanging it, a Dot can appear to be showing nothing while it is in fact reporting perfectly clearly.
What is on a Dot, and what is not
Every generation carries the same four buttons on its top face and nothing else. There is no display of any kind on the standard versions, no keypad, and nowhere to enter anything.
- ActionA single dot or circle. Wakes the device without speech, and answers an alarm.
- Microphone offA circle with a line through it. Switching it on turns the ring red and the device stops listening entirely until it is pressed again.
- Volume downA minus sign.
- Volume upA plus sign.
What is absent matters more than what is present. Having no display, a Dot cannot show you a list of networks, cannot ask you to type a password, and cannot present a web page. That single fact governs everything about how one is introduced to a network, and it is the difference between a Dot and the models with screens, which can be set up on the device itself with no handset involved at all.
There is also no battery in any generation. A Dot runs on mains power for its whole life and stops the moment it is unplugged, which is why every one of them lives within a cable's reach of a socket. Third generation onward, power arrives through a small round plug from the adapter in the box rather than through a USB lead.
What a Dot needs before it can join anything
Four things, and the same four for every generation. None of them is entered on this page, and nothing here can see any of them.
- A socket it can stay in
- Not a temporary one. The device holds nothing in reserve and goes dark the moment power stops, so wherever it is plugged in during the introduction is effectively where it lives.
- A handset or tablet in the same room
- Something with a keyboard and a screen has to do the reading and the typing on the Dot's behalf, and it has to be near enough for a short-range radio link. A computer will not serve for the first introduction. A borrowed handset will, and nothing of the lender's stays behind on it.
- An Amazon account
- The device attaches to an account rather than to a handset. That is why a replacement phone finds everything already in place, and why a Dot given away has to be released from the old account first.
- A household network it is allowed to sit on
- An ordinary home network, with a name and a password. The characteristics that rule a network out are set out in our guide to how the connection is made.
Where a Dot ends up living
The Dot is small, quiet and cheap, and it therefore ends up in the places the larger models never reach: on a bedside table, on a kitchen windowsill behind the kettle, in a shed, in a spare room at the back of the house. It is the only Echo people routinely buy three of.
That habit has a consequence worth knowing before choosing a spot. A device tucked into a corner two floors from the router is working considerably harder than one in the room next to it, and the little that is asked of a Dot afterwards is asked continuously — it sits waiting for its name all day. Solid interior walls, floors, a mirror, a boiler and a full bookshelf each take rather more out of a wireless signal than their size suggests, and a metal shelf or a radiator directly behind the device takes a surprising amount.
Nothing about this is particular to Amazon's equipment. A wireless printer in the same cupboard behaves identically. It is simply less obvious on a device with no screen to report the matter.
A Dot that has had a previous owner
More Dots change hands than any other model. They are given as presents, handed down when somebody upgrades, and sold second hand in large numbers, and each of those routes brings the same question with it.
A Dot belongs to one Amazon account at a time, and it goes on belonging to that account until it is deliberately removed from it. A device that arrives still attached to a previous owner's account will not present itself for introduction under a new one. The remedy sits entirely with the previous owner, who removes it from their own account, and it cannot be performed from the receiving end.
Read the other way round, the same rule is a reason to act before a Dot leaves your house. Until it is taken off the account, it is still carrying your network name, your network password and a link to your account, wherever it has gone. Detaching it takes moments and is far easier arranged before the device is wrapped than after it has been opened at the other end.
What a Dot does once it is on the network
Very little of what a Dot does afterwards involves the handset at all. Music, timers, alarms, the weather, reminders, radio and questions all pass directly between the device and Amazon's computers, with the phone uninvolved and quite possibly switched off in another county.
The handset is wanted again on three occasions only: when another device joins the household, when something about this one needs altering — what it is called, the room recorded against it, the music service it defaults to — and when the network beneath it changes. Between those occasions the application can sit unopened for months without the Dot noticing.
Questions
Questions about the Echo Dot
Each one expands where you tap it. Nothing is recorded.
Is an older Dot still usable?↓
The generations from 2016 onward all still join ordinary household networks and still answer. What changes across the generations is sound and speed rather than whether the thing works. A first-generation Dot on a shelf is not obsolete equipment.
Does the Dot with clock behave differently?↓
No. The numerals show the time, a timer counting down, and the outdoor temperature, and they play no part in getting the device onto a network. It has no more of a screen for that purpose than the plain version does.
Can a Dot be introduced without any handset?↓
Not on any generation, because there is nowhere on the device to enter a network password. The models with proper displays are the exception to that, and it is the clearest practical difference between them.
Why is the ring underneath on the round ones?↓
A design decision that came with the spherical shape in 2020. The light is thrown down onto the surface and reflects up, which reads well on a pale table and poorly on dark wood or under a low shelf. What each shade signifies is unchanged from the earlier generations.
Can a Dot run from a phone charger?↓
From the third generation onward the socket on the back takes a small round plug rather than a USB lead, so an ordinary phone charger will not fit it. The adapter supplied in the box is the one it is built around, and it is worth keeping the two together if the device is moved or passed on.
Is a Dot restricted to the slower Wi-Fi band?↓
It is not, and every generation can use either. Our guide to how the connection is made sets out why the advice to use the slower one persists anyway, and when it is the sounder choice.
Does a Dot need its own account, one per device?↓
No. One account carries as many of them as a household owns, which is what allows them to be addressed by room and to play the same thing together. Several devices on separate accounts cannot be arranged that way.
Is there a number here to ring about a Dot?↓
There is not, and there never has been. Nobody is employed here, and nothing on this page has sight of your device, your network or any account. Amazon's own material sits on amazon.com, and equipment that has genuinely failed belongs with its maker or the shop that sold it.