Amazon Echo Dot Max review: Alexa+ gets room to stretch

Best Prices Today: Amazon Echo Dot Max

The first wave of “made for Alexa+” devices has arrived, and among them is Amazon’s flagship Echo speaker—the Echo Dot Max, the successor to the earlier, fourth-generation Amazon Echo speaker. 

The Echo Dot Max is both a direct replacement for the more than six-year-old Echo speaker as well as an upgrade over the ever-popular Echo Dot, which is still very much a part of Amazon’s Echo speaker lineup. Amazon has also unveiled new Echo Show 8 and 11 smart displays as well as the music-focused Echo Studio. (We’ll have full reviews of the eight-inch Echo Show and the Echo Studio soon.) 

I’ve been testing the Echo Dot Max ($99, the same price as the older Echo speaker) for roughly two months now—I also have several other Echo devices scattered around the house, including the fifth-generation Echo Dot and most recent Echo Show 8—and I’ve also been kicking the tires on Alexa+, the AI-enhanced version of Alexa that’s still in a free early-access mode. 

Is the Echo Dot Max an automatic upgrade from the Echo Dot? Not necessarily.

After a couple months with the Echo Dot Max, I have mixed feelings. The speaker comes packed with smart-home functionality, including Zigbee, Matter, and Amazon Sidewalk hubs, although its lack of Z-Wave support keeps it from being a universal smart home bridge for hardcore smart home users. It’s upgraded audio is certainly better than that of the $49 Echo Dot, but it also pales compared to some competing smart speakers at the same price point.  

And finally, there’s Alexa+, the AI-enabled revamp of the “classic” Alexa, which arrives with great promise but plenty of rough edges. But while the Echo Dot Max was “built for” Alexa+, the AI-upgraded assistant is not exclusive to the speaker—in fact, you can use Alexa+ on all of Amazon’s current Echo devices, including the much more affordable Echo Dot.

So, should you buy the Echo Dot Max? Should Echo Dot owners pony up for the upgrade? Here’s where my head’s at after two months of testing.

Note: Alexa+ is also free while in its early preview period; so for this review, I’ll be focusing more on the Echo Dot Max’s hardware and features rather than Alexa+ itself.

Design 

Amazon is sticking with the spherical design that it introduced in 2020 with the fourth-generation Echo Dot. Come to think of it, all the major smart speakers are now shaped like softballs, including the upcoming Google Home Speaker, the Apple HomePod mini, and the Echo Dot Max we’re reviewing here. 

Measuring 4.27 x 4.27 x 3.9 inches (WxDxH) and weighing a little shy of 18 ounces, the Echo Dot Max is considerably smaller and lighter than the fourth-generation Echo (5.7 x 5.7 x 5.2 inches, 34.2 oz) it’s replacing. At the same time, the Dot Max is just slightly larger than the current fifth-gen Echo Dot (3.9 x 3.9 x 3.5 inches, 10.7 ounces). The size difference between the Echo Dot Max and Echo Dot is apparent when you place the two speakers side by side, but the Dot Max looks decidedly Dot-sized. 

While the basic shape of the Echo Dot Max hasn’t changed, the details have evolved. Aside from the larger weave of the fabric around the Dot Max compared to the Dot, the newer speaker (along with its bigger sibling, the Echo Studio) moves the volume and mic-mute buttons from the top of the device to a shallow dish on its face, surrounded by the telltale Alexa ring.

The Dot Max also jettisons the Action button, which was mainly used for stopping alarms, timers, and notifications; now, you just tap the top of the speaker to perform the same function, same as on the fifth-gen Echo Dot (which still had an Action button). 

Moving the Echo Dot Max’s buttons to a more visible spot on the speaker was a good idea on paper. But while the speaker has some heft to it, it’s not heavy enough to stay in place when you try to press one of its buttons; instead, it will scoot backward with the force of a button-press unless you hold it down with your other fingers or another hand. 

In the back of the speaker is a barrel-shaped socket for the power cable, which terminates in a relatively compact wall wart. As with the fifth-gen Echo Dot, there’s no 3.5mm jack for connecting a wired speaker, meaning you’ll have to settle for Bluetooth if you want to pipe the Dot Max’s audio to another device. 

Setup 

Getting Amazon’s various Echo speakers up and running has always been a breeze, and it’s no different for the Echo Dot Max.  

First, you plug in the Dot Max; after a few seconds, the Alexa ring should glow yellow, indicating it’s awaiting activation. Then, fire up the Alexa app, and the new speaker should pop up automatically; if not, just tap the “+” button in the top-right corner of the screen to add a new device, then follow the prompts.  

Among the setup screens you’ll need to traverse are various privacy disclosures and terms-of-service agreements. You’ll also need to designate which room in your home the Dot Max will reside in, as well as set default music services. All told, the setup process takes between five and 10 minutes. 

Smart hub connectivity 

The Echo Dot Max is taking over from the older, fourth-generation Echo speaker as Amazon’s workhorse smart speaker, and as with its predecessor, it comes with everything—well, almost everything—you’ll need to connect to your smart home devices. 

Aside from Wi-Fi, the Echo Dot Max boasts a Zigbee hub, good for connecting to Zigbee-enabled sensors, light bulbs, smart locks, smart plugs, remotes, and other low-power smart devices that thrive in mesh-network environments. The Dot Max also acts as a bridge device for Amazon Sidewalk, the so-called “neighborhood” network that leverages other nearby Echo and Ring devices to connect smart devices that might otherwise be beyond Wi-Fi range. Finally, a Thread border router allows the Dot Max to connect Thread-enabled Matter devices to the internet and to each other. 

The missing link is—and remains—Z-Wave, a popular mesh protocol similar to Zigbee that offers its own rich ecosystem of devices ranging from light switches and dimmers to smart locks and garage door openers. Amazon’s previous flagship Echo speakers are missing Z-Wave hubs, too. Amazon-owned Ring brand does offer some Z-Wave sensors that work with its Ring Alarm and Ring Alarm Pro base stations, but those sensors have recently been supplanted by a new generation based on–you guessed it–Amazon Sidewalk. 

While not strictly in the category of smart hubs, the Echo Dot Max does act as a repeater for Amazon’s line of Eero mesh Wi-Fi routers, boosting their range by up to 1,000 square feet. It’s worth noting that the cheaper Echo Dot will also work as an Eero signal repeater, but it lacks the Dot Max’s Zigbee hub and Thread border router features.

Smart sensors 

The Echo Dot Max comes loaded with a variety of onboard smart sensors—including ambient temperature and light sensors—that are mainly aimed at detecting the presence of nearby people. Specifically, Amazon touts its new “Omnisense” technology, which pools data not just from the temperature and light sensors but also from the Dot Max’s microphone array.  

Also available on the larger Echo Studio as well as Amazon’s latest-gen Echo Show displays, Amazon bills Omnisense as a way to help Alexa—and particularly Alexa+ — to “intelligently act on various events happening in and around your home,” such as triggering custom routines for specific people, or proactively letting you know that your garage door is unlocked at bedtime. 

Alexa+ and smart home functionality 

One of the biggest draws of the Echo Dot Max is that it was built for Alexa+, the long-awaited AI revamp for Alexa. Specifically, the Echo Dot Max runs on Amazon’s custom AZ3 chip, which powers the speaker’s four-microphone array and is designed to enable more responsive chat with Alexa+ by filtering out background noise and boosting wake-word sensitivity. You don’t need to stick with “Alexa,” by the way. You can change it to “Amazon,” “Computer,” “Echo,” or “Ziggy.” 

And then there’s Alexa+ itself, a new version of Alexa with generative AI smarts. Still in an early-access phase and therefore free for now (it will eventually be included with a Prime subscription, while non-Prime users will need to pay $19.99 a month), Alexa+ promises more natural voice exchanges, agentic functionality (that is, the ability to carry out multi-step tasks on your behalf), more adept handling of media playback, and smarter smart-home control. 

The reality of Alexa+ is a mixed bag. (As Alexa+ is still in early access, I’m not giving it a full review yet.) Sometimes it’s quite smart, as when it creates routines based on voice prompts (“Alexa, make a routine that turns the bedroom lights on at 8 a.m.”), or when it correctly guesses the name of a song based on a vague query (“Alexa, what’s the name of that song that was the title track for the TV show called The Hills?”). Other times, not so much—and frustratingly, Alexa+’s success and failure for various tasks changes over time.  

For example, when I asked Alexa+ to play that tune from The Hills–”Unwritten” by Natasha Bedingfield—it told me that it currently lacks the functionality to play music from such a query on Apple Music, my default music service for Alexa (presumably because Alexa+’s Apple Music API doesn’t have that ability yet). When I told it that the living room carpet was dirty, hoping it would send my Roomba out for a quick vacuum job, it instead gave me a treatise about eco-friendly trends in the living room carpet “industry;” looking back over the chat logs, I learned Alexa+ had misheard my initial comment. 

And while Alexa+ was able to quickly create routines based on voice commands (“Alexa, create a routine that says ‘Welcome to the office’ whenever I enter the room,”), I had a heck of a time getting the routine to trigger properly, and Alexa+ only offered limited help in terms of debugging the routine. 

Amazon has been careful to point out that Alexa+ is still in early access modem, and that it’s not charging for the AI-enhanced voice assistant. Also, you can always go back to the “classic” Alexa (“Alexa, exit Alexa+”) if you prefer it, and the original Alexa remains quite capable at carrying out smart home commands, managing shopping lists, playing music, and performing other household duties, albeit without Alexa+’s loquaciousness. Finally, it’s worth noting that Google’s competing Gemini at Home suffers from its own annoying foibles—and unlike Alexa, there’s no reverting back to Google Assistant from Gemini. 

Still, in its current form, Alexa+ elicits as many groans of frustration as it does gasps of delight—or at least, that’s been my experience over the past couple of months. As with LLMs like Google’s Gemini, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and Anthropic’s Claude (Amazon is a major stakeholder in Anthropic), I do expect to see improvements in Alexa+ over time. 

Music playback and audio quality 

Aside from its new AZ3 processor, the Echo Dot Max comes with an all-new acoustic setup, including a 0.8-inch tweeter and a 2.5-inch high-excursion woofer tuned to deliver three times the bass of the smaller Echo Dot. The speaker can also handle lossless music tracks. 

If you like, you can create an entire 5.1-channel home theater experience with up to five Echo Dot Max speakers and an Echo Sub, so long as you pair the speakers with a second-generation Fire TV Strick 4K, the second-gen Fire TV Stick Max, the Fire TV Stick 4K Plus, or the Fire TV Cube (3^rd-gen).  

So, how does the new Echo Dot Max actually sound? I don’t claim to be an audiophile, but I do have extensive experience with a variety of smart speakers as well as Sonos wireless speakers, and I found the Echo Dot Max’s audio performance to be a) better than the Echo Dot (as it should be, given that it’s double the price) and b) still somewhat mediocre. It certainly does pack more bass than the older Echo Dot, but I still found its overall sound a tad small and mushy. At the same price point, I much prefer the clear, detailed, and punchy sound of Google’s Nest Audio speaker, although that device is for a very different ecosystem.

If you’re looking for an Echo speaker that strives for top-shelf audio, consider the $219 Echo Studio (2025 release), which offers a trio of full-range drivers, a woofer, and support for spatial and Dolby Atmos sound. We’ll have a full review of the Echo Studio soon. 

As far as music streaming support goes, the Echo Dot Max supports Amazon Music Unlimited, Apple Music, Deezer, iHeartRadio, Pandora, SiriusXM, Tidal, and other streaming services. Two notable omissions: YouTube Music and Qobuz (the latter service’s Qobuz Connect is mostly compatible with higher-end audio devices and systems). 

Should you buy the Amazon Echo Dot Max?

The Echo Dot Max is a natural evolution of Amazon’s Echo line of smart speakers, taking the core of the older Amazon Echo and upgrading it with cutting-edge hardware, including a processor designed specifically for Alexa+.

If you’re starting your smart home journey and are ready to go all-in on the Alexa ecosystem, the Echo Dot Max makes for a great foundation. It packs a Zigbee hub, a Matter hub, and an Amazon Sidewalk bridge. Most users will get by without Z-Wave support, and you can always add a separate Z-Wave hub that will work with Alexa. The design with the buttons in front is also an improvement, and its audio performance is solid, if short of superior.

As for Alexa+, it might not be fully baked, but it’s free for now, and I’m certain it will improve as time rolls on. If you don’t want to (eventually) pay for Alexa+ or you’re dissatisfied with its abilities, you can always fall back on the “classic” Alexa, which will remain free.

Is the Echo Dot Max an automatic upgrade for Echo Dot owners? Not necessarily. The Echo Dot supports Alexa+ just like the Dot Max does, and while it lacks the the beefier speaker’s Matter and Zigbee capabilities (which you might already be getting from other devices in your home), it will double as an Eero mesh extender (assuming you have an Eero router or a Ring Alarm Pro and you use the Eero router inside it).

In short, the Echo Dot packs a lot of heat for just $49, it’s frequently on sale, and it remains our Editors’ Choice for best budget-priced smart speaker. If you already own the Echo Dot and have other devices that serve as Zigbee hubs and/or Thread border routers, it might make sense to give the Echo Dot Max a pass.

This review is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best smart speakers.

Best Prices Today: Amazon Echo Dot Max