Amazon Echo
Shares rank 15 of 19 smart speakers by recommenders
People praise its wake word and voice pickup, but critics object to ads, Alexa+ upselling and listening or data-collection practices.
People praise its wake word and voice pickup, but critics object to ads, Alexa+ upselling and listening or data-collection practices.
33 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 6
- criticize it
- 27
- approval share
- 18%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 6 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 0.2 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 5 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Strong wake word and voice pickup
“Somehow nothing is even 50% good as my Echo devices at picking up the wake word”
Comment from 16 Mar 2026 in “My Journey to a reliable and enjoyable locally hosted voice assistant” “nothing is even 50% good as my Echo devices at picking up the wake word”
Comment from 16 Mar 2026 in “My Journey to a reliable and enjoyable locally hosted voice assistant” “My Echo can hear me over just about anything and I can hear it back”
Comment from 7 Jan 2026 in “A 30B Qwen Model Walks into a Raspberry Pi and Runs in Real Time” - Comment from 23 Feb 2026 in “What I Learned After Building 3 TV Apps Coming from Mobile”
- Comment from 1 Jul 2026 in “Pine64 launch $50 smart speaker for Home Assistant tinkerers”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Listens and sends data to Amazon
“Amazon devices connected to the internet WILL respond to whispertalk requests from airgapped devices”
Comment from 2 Dec 2025 in “Ask HN: Do you think you have your location services on?” “We know for certain that they do listen to us even when they shouldn't and send that data”
Comment from 15 Sep 2026 in “Dystopian Surveillance Is Becoming a Reality” “Amazon used Echo devices for all kinds of invasive purposes other than advertised”
Comment from 29 Jun 2026 in “US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections” - Comment from 5 Jan 2026 in “Alexa.com, a new way to interact with Alexa+”
Ads and unsolicited Alexa+ pitches
“they've enshittified those devices by becoming increasingly intrusive with adds and "did you know..." interjections”
Comment from 13 Oct 2026 in “Apple HomeView” “The first inkling of advertising is immediate turn off and destroy, for me.”
Comment from 9 Dec 2025 in “Apple's slow AI pace becomes a strength as market grows weary of spending” “The "by the way..." nags irritated us so much we got rid of our two Echos”
Comment from 13 Oct 2026 in “Apple HomeView” - Comment from 18 Feb 2026 in “Warren Buffett dumps $1.7B of Amazon stock”
- Comment from 5 Jan 2026 in “Microsoft Office renamed to "Microsoft 365 Copilot app"”
Declined in usefulness over time
“It literally does not support being taken seriously. So I've never even tried to do anything, since that very day, other than turning smart lights on and off.”
Comment from 16 Jun 2026 in “I Fired Google” “all my echos seemed gimped for a while now and basically gave up on using them”
Comment from 5 Jan 2026 in “Alexa.com, a new way to interact with Alexa+” “Then there was a big regression, and we stopped trying to make it do more.”
Comment from 16 Jun 2026 in “I Fired Google”
Other smart speakers people recommend
The four most recommended other smart speakers, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Siri | 165 | 715 | 19% | 12 | 7 yrs23 owners | — |
| Amazon Alexa | 45 | 131 | 26% | 11 | — | — |
| Bose SoundTouch smart speakers | 37 | 18 | 67% | 1 | — | — |
| Google Assistant | 33 | 64 | 34% | 10 | — | — |
| Amazon EchoThis page | 6 | 27 | 18% | 5 | — | — |
What people said
32 of the 37 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“It's disappointing that they couldn't have just left this feature in.”
“expect people to want to order products sight unseen with your Echo shit”
“Amazon kept messing with it”
“The "by the way..." nags irritated us so much we got rid of our two Echos”
“they've enshittified those devices by becoming increasingly intrusive with adds and "did you know..." interjections”
“We know for certain that they do listen to us even when they shouldn't and send that data”
“had to get rid of all his echos when Alexa started feeding his son new Lego sets”
“my Echo blew it out of the water”
“Amazon used Echo devices for all kinds of invasive purposes other than advertised”
“I barely use the Echo that's next to the TV!”
“It literally does not support being taken seriously. So I've never even tried to do anything, since that very day, other than turning smart lights on and off.”
“Then there was a big regression, and we stopped trying to make it do more.”
“Never understood why anyone would use Google Home or Amazon Echo when we all have phones.”
“We all need predictability and reliability when it comes to my home-automation integrations.”
“They no longer have a web interface to control it.”
“the Alexa Echo devices as media for Amazon purchases never really worked out”
“nothing is even 50% good as my Echo devices at picking up the wake word”
“Somehow nothing is even 50% good as my Echo devices at picking up the wake word”
“they can't even play Spotify reliably”
“they blew people away with voice UI”
“I have to imagine the UX of these devices would be much different if they were built by a private company without the same market pressures.”
“is now an ad machine and one bad day away from going in the trash”
“replace our final Amazon Echo and leave that increasingly dystopian ecosystem”
“look at how Amazon is destroying their echo market”
“My Echo can hear me over just about anything and I can hear it back”
“Now it's getting aggressive about pushing the Alexa+ stuff”
“when Amazon removed the ability to disable sending recording data to home base”
“all my echos seemed gimped for a while now and basically gave up on using them”
“my Echos drop off the network and have to be manually restarted by unplugging them”
“mine keeps trying to jam "News" down my throat”
“The first inkling of advertising is immediate turn off and destroy, for me.”
“Amazon devices connected to the internet WILL respond to whispertalk requests from airgapped devices”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.