Difference Between Echo and Echo Plus

The Amazon Echo was Amazon’s top smart speaker for the longest time, but there was one major pitfall to it: it didn’t have a smart home hub built-in. That means that you would have to buy one separately, connect your Echo to it, and then connect your smart home products to the hub, which could then interface with the Amazon Echo through the hub. It’s a hassle, and ultimately ends up costing you more. That’s why Amazon introduced the Echo Plus — the Echo Plus cuts out that middle-man by building a Smart Home Hub inside of the speaker, making setting up your smart home products all that more efficient.

But aside from that, what are all the major differences between the Amazon Echo and the Amazon Echo Plus? Well, we’ve constructed this easy guide to help navigate you through those differences below. Let’s dive right in and see which one will provide more value to you, shall we?

Amazon Echo Plus

The Amazon Echo Plus replaces the Amazon Echo as the top Smart Home Speaker from Amazon, largely because it comes with a number of hardware improvements and even comes equipped with the Smart Home Hub that users previously had to purchase separately. With the Smart Home Hub now included, you don’t have to go through all of the hassle of setting up a third party option, and then connecting your Echo Plus to it, as well as all of your smart home products.

The Amazon Echo Plus also has a number of hardware improvements, including better microphones that can recognize key commands easier. Not only that, but the Amazon Echo Plus comes with improved speakers, which are able to output premium and crisp sound never seen before in a smart speaker. It makes music nice to listen to, but in addition to that, it makes it easier to hear people when you call over Alexa.

Design has been slightly altered with the Echo Plus, giving the device a more “homely” feel overall, and available in multiple colors.

The other big difference, of course, comes down to price — this costs $160 over the Echo’s $100.

Buy it now: Amazon

Amazon Echo

The Echo has an excellent speaker profile inside of it, so when you do something like tell Alexa to play music or a favorite podcast, it’s able to output it on a premium level. It’s a whole lot more clear and crisp than your average Bluetooth speaker, actually. Not to mention that it has some great loudness without dropping clarity levels, which is generally hard to come by.

The Amazon Echo used to be Amazon’s top smart home speaker, but the Echo Plus actually took its place, offering slightly better speakers and microphone capabilities, but also coming equipped with a “hub.” The traditional Echo isn’t a “hub”, which means that you’ll have to have a separate Smart Home Hub attached or connected to your Echo in order for it to modify the state of, say, your Phillips smart home lights.

Not including a Smart Home Hub inside of the Echo makes the Echo much more affordable for the average consume — just $100. However, if you want to control lights and other smart home hardware with your Echo, you’ll have to buy a separate smart home hub to go with it, which will — obviously — cost you more. If you don’t care about the “Hub”, the Amazon Echo is a great choice at $100. However, if you plan on controlling lights, locks, your garage door, and so on anytime in the future, the Echo Plus is a much more economical investment.

Buy it now: Amazon

Verdict

As you can see, the differences between the Amazon Echo Plus and the Amazon Echo are actually quite major. The Amazon Echo ships without a Smart Home Hub built-inside, which means you’ll need to a Smart Home Hub to connect to the Echo before you can do things like remotely control your lights or garage door. The Echo Plus has one built-in — thus the added cost — which means you can skip all of the middle man work: you don’t need to buy a Smart Home Hub, and then you don’t need to connect your Echo Plus or your smart home product to the hub — it all just connects directly to the Echo Plus.

So which one are you getting? The Amazon Echo or the Amazon Echo Plus? Let us know your choice in the comments section below — we’d love to hear from you!