Amazon Echo Plus Honest Review (After 1 Year!)

I bought the Amazon Echo Plus with built-in hub back in December of 2017 as a gift for my wife and kids. At the time, I honestly was not sure we would get much use out of it. A year later, I filmed this review because I wanted to give you a real, unfiltered account of what life actually looks like with this device sitting on your counter, not a polished sales pitch.

What follows is based entirely on my personal experience after 12 months of daily use in a household with twin three-year-olds, a busy cooking schedule, and a smart home setup that I was still figuring out. If you are on the fence about the Echo Plus, this is the honest account I wish I had found before I bought it.

What You’ll Walk Out With

A clear picture of how a real family uses the Amazon Echo Plus every single day
An honest look at the speaker and microphone quality after extended use
The one wake-word issue that caught us off guard and exactly how we fixed it
What the built-in smart home hub actually does and how we use it for our smart lights
The minor privacy consideration you should think through before setting it up
A straightforward recommendation on whether this device is worth buying for your home
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What Is the Amazon Echo Plus with Built-In Hub?

The Amazon Echo Plus is a voice-activated smart speaker powered by Alexa, Amazon’s voice assistant. What separates the Echo Plus from the standard Echo is the built-in Zigbee smart home hub. That hub lets you connect and control compatible smart home devices directly through the Echo Plus, without needing a separate hub device on your network.

Out of the box, the device is set up to respond to the wake word “Alexa.” You say “Hey Alexa” followed by a question or command, and the device responds. It connects to your home Wi-Fi, integrates with the Alexa app on iOS or Android, and can answer questions, play music, set timers, control smart home devices, and a wide range of other tasks through Alexa Skills.

I purchased this particular unit for our family and set it up for everyday household use. At the time of purchase it was offered at what I considered a fair price, and after a full year of daily use I can say it delivered genuine value for what we paid.

How Our Family Uses It Every Single Day

I want to be specific here because “we use it every day” is easy to say and hard to believe without context. So here is exactly how our household puts this device to work on a daily basis.

Weather updates: We have two small kids. Knowing whether it is cold, raining, or hot before we head out is actually a meaningful time saver in the morning. Instead of picking up my phone, unlocking it, and pulling up a weather app while kids are running around, I say “Hey Alexa, what’s the weather today?” and I have the answer in three seconds. That single use case alone earns its counter space every morning.

Timers while cooking: Whether I am grilling outside or cooking on the stove, setting a timer hands-free is genuinely useful. When your hands are covered in seasoning or you are focused on something on the grill, shouting across the kitchen to set a five-minute timer is the kind of small convenience that adds up over a year.

Music and dance breaks: Our twin three-year-olds love to dance. They hear a song somewhere and immediately want to hear it again. With the Echo Plus, they can ask for a song and get it almost instantly. The speaker quality is good enough that music actually sounds like music, not like it is coming out of a small plastic box.

Kid questions: Little kids ask a lot of questions about animals. Our kids are really into different types of animals, and they can ask the Echo what a cow sounds like and the Echo will accurately produce the sound. That kind of interactive learning keeps kids engaged and takes some pressure off of parents who have already answered the same question six times that morning.

I use the device personally at least three or four times per day. My kids use it in addition to that. We probably have not tapped into half of what it can actually do, yet it earns its place in our home every day through the basics.

Speaker and Microphone Quality After One Year

The speaker quality surprised me. I was not expecting a smart speaker to sound genuinely good, but the audio is clear and the volume goes high enough to fill a normal-sized room comfortably. When we play music, the audio is clean. We have never had an issue with distortion or poor sound quality during our year of use.

The microphone is equally impressive. We have one Echo Plus upstairs and one downstairs, and each one can hear us from just about anywhere on its respective floor. I do not have to raise my voice or move closer to the device to get a response. It picks up normal conversation volume reliably.

One side effect of having a very good microphone is that it sometimes picks up more than you intended. If the television is playing and the word “Amazon” or “Echo” comes up in the program, the device chimes in. If someone on a YouTube video says “go to Amazon.com” the Echo will respond. This is a minor annoyance, not a dealbreaker, and I will cover it more in the drawbacks section.

The Wake Word Problem We Did Not See Coming

Here is something that is not in any product listing and that I have not seen mentioned in most reviews. One of our children has a name that sounds very close to “Amazon.” When we first set up the device, it was configured to respond to “Amazon” as the wake word, and every time we called our child, the Echo would respond.

We fixed this quickly. The Echo allows you to change the wake word to “Alexa,” “Echo,” “Computer,” or “Amazon.” We switched ours to “Echo” so there would be no conflict with our child’s name. The process of changing the wake word took only a few minutes in the Alexa app. If you have a child or a pet whose name sounds similar to any of the available wake words, it is worth thinking through which option to use before you set the device up.

As a bonus side effect of this setup, our kids learned to say “Hey Alexa” or “Hey Echo” on their own by watching us use it. Two-year-olds and three-year-olds pick up everything. If you say a command to the Echo a few times in front of your kids, they will start doing it themselves. In our house, that has led to a lot of spontaneous music requests for children’s songs. Again, minor annoyance, not a dealbreaker, and honestly kind of charming when you think about it.

Smart Home Hub: What We Actually Use It For

The “Plus” in Echo Plus refers to the built-in Zigbee smart home hub. This is what separates this model from the standard Echo. I want to be straightforward about how we use it, because I think a lot of reviews oversell the smart home angle.

We use the app that comes with the device to configure our smart lights around the house. That works well. I can say “turn off the living room lights” and it happens. We have not connected it to our Ring doorbell. We have not connected it to our smart TVs. We use the most basic smart home features and those work seamlessly.

If you are looking to build out a full smart home setup with automated routines, voice-controlled locks, thermostat control, and connected appliances, the Echo Plus has the capability to support all of that. The built-in hub means fewer devices on your network and a cleaner setup process for compatible devices. For our household, the smart lights are where we started, and they work exactly as expected.

Privacy: What You Should Think Through

Any device that listens for a wake word raises a natural question about privacy. In my experience, the Echo only responds when it detects the wake word. I have not had a situation where it randomly joined a conversation without being triggered by a word that sounds like “Alexa” or “Echo.”

There are reports from other users about the device occasionally responding to conversations without an obvious trigger, but in our household over a full year, the device has only responded when it heard something close to its wake word. The TV triggering the Echo is the closest thing we have experienced to an unwanted response, and that is clearly caused by the audio from the television rather than the device listening broadly.

If you have concerns about a voice-activated device in your home, those concerns are worth thinking through before you buy. You can mute the microphone with a physical button on the device at any time. For most families, the day-to-day experience is straightforward and the device does not behave intrusively.

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Honest Drawbacks Worth Knowing

I want to be clear that I recommend this product, but here are the genuine drawbacks we have experienced after a year of daily use.

TV triggering the device: Any time the television mentions “Amazon,” “Echo,” or “Alexa,” the device responds. This is annoying during certain commercials or YouTube videos. It is not something you can fully fix without changing the wake word away from commonly-used words.
Kids using it unsupervised: Once small children learn the wake word, they will use it whenever they want. Expect a lot of children’s songs. This is charming or exhausting depending on your mood at the time.
Wake word conflicts: If any family member’s name sounds like a wake word, you will spend the first week figuring out which wake word option creates the least conflict. This is solvable but requires a few minutes of setup.
Most features go unused: Most households, including ours, will use maybe twenty percent of what the Echo Plus can do. If you are paying for the built-in hub specifically, make sure you have compatible smart home devices ready to connect, otherwise you are paying for a feature you will not use.
Depends on Wi-Fi and Amazon’s servers: If your internet goes down or Amazon’s services have an outage, the device stops working for most functions. It is not a standalone device.

Is the Amazon Echo Plus Right for Your Home?

Here is my honest decision framework based on one year of daily use.

Buy it if: You have kids and want hands-free weather, timers, and music. You are starting to build a smart home and want a device that doubles as a hub. You cook regularly and want to set timers without touching your phone. You want a speaker that sounds genuinely good at a reasonable price point.

Wait or consider alternatives if: You want a smart speaker purely for music and do not need smart home hub functionality. You are privacy-sensitive and uncomfortable with a voice-activated microphone in your home. You are not going to pair it with any smart home devices, in which case the standard Echo or a cheaper device might serve you equally well.

Our family went from “I’m not sure we’ll use this” to using it multiple times every single day. That trajectory is what makes me confident recommending it. The setup is straightforward and follows the directions fully integrated with iOS or Android, the speaker quality is solid, and the microphone works well enough to pick up normal speech from across the room.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Is the Amazon Echo Plus still worth buying?

If you can find one at a fair price and want a smart home hub combined with a quality speaker, the Echo Plus still offers value for households that will use it daily. However, the smart home landscape has expanded significantly, and newer Echo devices also include hub functionality, so compare current options before purchasing. The review above reflects one year of use starting in December 2017.

How do you change the wake word on an Amazon Echo?

Open the Alexa app on your smartphone, go to the device settings for your Echo, and look for “Wake Word.” You can choose from Alexa, Amazon, Echo, or Computer. Selecting a different wake word takes effect within a few minutes. If a family member’s name conflicts with the default word, this setting is the first thing you should adjust after setup.

Does the Amazon Echo Plus work well for households with young children?

Yes, in our experience it works very well for families with small kids. The device accurately answers questions about animals, plays children’s songs on request, and sets timers during cooking. The main thing to prepare for is that toddlers and preschoolers will learn the wake word quickly and will use it often. Expect plenty of spontaneous music requests.

What is the built-in hub on the Echo Plus used for?

The Echo Plus includes a Zigbee smart home hub that lets you connect compatible smart home devices like lights, plugs, and sensors without needing a separate hub. In practice, this means you can set up smart lights and control them by voice without buying an additional bridge or hub device. We use ours specifically for smart lights and it works seamlessly through the Alexa app.

Does the Echo Plus respond to the television?

Yes, if the television plays audio that includes the wake word or a close approximation, the Echo will respond. We found this happens during commercials for Amazon products and in certain YouTube videos. It is a minor inconvenience rather than a major problem. Keeping the volume on the television at a moderate level and the Echo at a reasonable distance from the TV reduces how often this occurs.

Can you have multiple Echo devices in the same house?

Yes. We have one upstairs and one downstairs, and both work independently on their respective floors. Each one can hear normal speaking voice from most locations on its floor without you needing to raise your voice. The two devices operate separately through the Alexa app, and you can assign them to different rooms for smart home control purposes.

Is the Amazon Echo Plus a good choice for someone just starting with smart home devices?

It is a reasonable entry point. The setup process follows directions in the Alexa app and is fully guided for iOS and Android users. The built-in hub removes one piece of hardware you would otherwise need. Starting with smart lights is a low-stakes way to understand how the system works before expanding to more complex devices like locks, thermostats, or security cameras.

How does the Echo Plus compare to other smart speakers?

The main differentiators for the Echo Plus versus other smart speakers at its price point are the built-in Zigbee hub and the speaker quality. Standard Echo devices are smaller and less expensive but lack the hub. Google’s smart speakers integrate with Google services rather than Amazon’s platform. If you are already using Amazon Prime, Alexa Skills, and Amazon shopping, staying within the Amazon family of services typically creates a smoother experience. If you are a Google-first household, the Google Home family is worth considering as an alternative.

Sources

Personal review video: Amazon Echo Plus Honest Review (After 1 Year!), Alston Godbolt, YouTube
Amazon Echo Plus product page: amazon.com
Alexa app: Available on iOS and Android for device configuration and smart home management
Amazon Echo Wake Word settings: Alexa app device settings documentation