We're Returning the Amazon Echo - Thurrott.com

Two weeks after my wife and I invited Alexa into our home, we're saying goodbye to the Amazon Echo and returning it to Amazon for a refund. Admittedly, I had high hopes for the product, which was recently joined by two other Alexa-powered devices, the Echo Dot wireless speaker ( 90) and the Amazon Tap ()130, a less expensive (and less hands-free) version of the Echo. We went for the original Echo--which costs a whopping 180--after I had been inundated by repeated recommendations from my cohorts at the Build conference earlier this month. Everyone who owned an Echo loved it, from what I could tell, and like TiVo owners, they were eager to evangelize the product. So I ordered one, noting a wait time of almost two weeks--unusual for Amazon, but the Echo is apparently in very high demand--and told my wife Stephanie, who seemed curiously interested.