Polk Command Bar Review: Alexa Tries Hard to Power a Soundbar

Earlier this year, my home was infested with smart speakers--I've used a lot of them at this point. But I've never used an Alexa device as dedicated to the cause as the Polk Command Bar, a soundbar that wants to be an Amazon Echo so badly that it's practically in cosplay. It's designed to look like engineers smushed an Amazon Echo Dot right into the center of it. In many ways, that's precisely what Polk did. Polk worked closely with Amazon's Alexa team for two years to design the Command Bar, and had to get special approval to place an Echo-style glowing blue ring, along with mute, volume, and action buttons front-and-center.