Amazon Echo Buttons - Review 2022

Amazon's Echo Buttons are an interesting idea. They're multicolored light-up plastic buttons that bring a physical element to the visitor'southward popular smart speaker line, letting you play a range of Alexa-based party games. They come up in packs of two for $19.99, and you can connect up to four at a fourth dimension. Simply the few games bachelor are buggy, frustrating, and simply not very good. That leaves united states unable to recommend the Echo Buttons until there is software available that makes better utilise of the simple hardware.

Compatibility, Design, and Setup

To use Echo Buttons, y'all'll need an Echo, Echo Dot, Echo Plus, Echo Show, or Repeat Spot. It doesn't piece of work with the Amazon Tap or third-party Alexa speakers. I used the Buttons with a 2022 Echo.

The Buttons themselves are light, palm-sized plastic domes on black plastic bases (2.95 inches in diameter, 1.83 ounces), with multicolored LEDs inside. Slamming on the dome "clicks" the Button. The light inside can modify colors, which is a big office of several of the games.

Setting up the Buttons is simple enough. Unscrew the battery door on the back with a Philips screwdriver. Drop 2 AAA batteries, which are included, into each Button. Then ask your Echo to, "Set upward my Repeat Buttons."

It'll have you press each Button in sequence, and they'll exist paired with that specific Echo speaker. They'll appear in your Alexa app as a submenu nether that speaker's device entry. If the Echo Buttons disconnect and you lot tin't pair them again, you can pull out the batteries to reset them.

Game On

A electric current list of Button-specific skills can be found here. As of this writing, the Echo Buttons only work with 14 skills. These include:

Piddling Pursuit Tap (half dozen questions per game, from the Niggling Pursuit library)
Button Monte (move the Buttons around, guess which is the right one)
Sounds Fun with Mike Epps (estimate what the sound upshot is)
Political party Foul (like Never Have I Ever)
Don't Cut That Wire (basically, Simon)
Alien Decoder (a blueprint repetition game)
Rush Gild (a blueprint repetition game)
Hanagram (an anagram guessing game)
Echo Buttons Equus caballus Race (pound the buttons as fast every bit you tin can)
Cablegram Beater Basketball Trivia (sports trivia questions)
Fourth Downwards Football Trivia (similar to a higher place, simply football game)
Full Count Baseball Trivia (this fourth dimension it'southward baseball game)
Christmas Buttons (plays Christmas music and turns the Buttons colors; not a game)
Freedom Buttons (plays a Martin Luther King speech and turns the Buttons colors; non a game)

The Buttons generally factor into the games in one of ii ways. Either they allow you "fizz in" in a competitive trivia game, or they wink colors y'all need to repeat.

Amazon misses a big opportunity in that yous can't use the Buttons as visual alarms, timers, or make them modify colour to music. For case, a flashing Push would make a good silent alert if y'all're cooking in a room with a sleeping baby. But there's no skill for that.

Party Foul

Many of the game skills don't work very well. And Alexa'due south flat, leisurely way of talking doesn't practise a good job of drilling up enthusiasm for a fast-paced trivia game. She'south calming, non thrilling, and frequently by the fourth dimension she'southward done with a sentence, yous've lost your verve.

Amazon Echo Buttons

Alexa'southward slow, too-even delivery took a lot of the fun out of Trivial Pursuit Tap, which also had some odd speech-to-text glitches, such as when Alexa read out every letter of the alphabet in "Who's Who" individually. Hanagram kept dropping messages—it would skip from the get-go letter suggestion to the third, or from the second to the quaternary. Party Foul dropped conversation prompts, making information technology frustrating and disruptive. Button Monte doesn't work very well with ii Buttons, considering when you switch the Buttons around, your guess is a l/50 chance.

Alien Decoder and Rush Guild are very like blueprint repetition games. Don't Cutting That Wire is a more complex, harder version of the aforementioned thing. Alien Decoder appeared to crash and exit when I accidentally pressed a Button while it was trying to give the results of a game.

The fact that the Buttons come in a two-pack, with maximum back up for up to four, makes them a fiddling tough to use in a party setting, likewise. If you only take 2 Buttons, y'all'll definitely take to form teams at any existent political party.

Unrealized Potential

The idea of Alexa equally a party game host, and of Echo Buttons as a low-cost way to extend your Echo experience, are both good ones. But hardware needs software, and the Echo Buttons don't have it notwithstanding. Hold off on buying these until some of the kinks are worked out and ameliorate skills get available. Considering how much Alexa has evolved over a short flow, there'south a skillful gamble that will happen sooner than later.