Updated Review: Look below for original which was 2 stars.
So the morning after posting my review I received a call from amazons research team for the new kids dot. She asked me a lot of questions about what I didn't like and what things could they fix. She said they would be pushing through updates quickly to address the issues that parents gave them in feed back. I don't think that they pushed them this quickly. But here is what happened. I was trying to control my sons dot from the Alexa app which gave me little to no control over his content and I thought this meant these things just were not possible. So Here is what I learned today. The kids dot setting you need to control from parents.amazon.com... Hopefully they will connect this to the app soon! But everyone of my complaints were solved by going into the "free time settings". Here I can add any "skill" I want not just the kids one that are preloaded (again- I can not add skills to the kids dot from the alexa app) So I was able to add skills that he was really excited about that was on our dot plus a few others (like the night light) which address my concern that the pre-loaded skills were too young for him. Also you can control when he is on it and even lock it so he is not playing on it at all times of day. And I was able to open amazon music up to him in the "free time" setting giving him a lot more freedom with his music and still controlling explicit content. Also I found once you set an alarm for the dot, you CAN go into the app go to "reminders and alarms" and add repeat setting and days of the week to that alarm's settings. Which is great since I could not figure out how to do this at first and really made it seem pointless- but again I think amazon can stream line this process allowing alarms to be set from the app and or at settings from the unit. Also today I have the option to set reminders from the app. Like I said I don't think they have changed anything in the last 24 hours but suddenly today I have the option to add reminder when I didn't see it yesterday so I don't know if I changed something in the setting or what. No idea, but I will say this does now work! End of day today, I am actually really happy with this product. But there is a learning curve that amazon is going to have to figure out since there is no how to information out there. So if there is something you can not figure out I encourage you to either reach out to amazon or this Q&A here. And again Amazon because I know you are listening (because I was so impressed with the call I got this morning!)- you need to link the parent dashboard to the app ASAP!
Original Review
Fairly disappointed in this product and I cant decide if I should just return it now or wait and see if they fix any issues. It seems very much geared toward a young child 3-5 maybe. My son is 7 and it just seems too baby for him. He does not have near the amount of freedom with it that he would want. He cant just say play They Might be Giants and have a music play. He can listen to the IHEART radio but he cant select what he wants to hear played.The "free time skills" available for this version are not functionally thought out- like the night light skill doesn't work on the kids version. Nor does white noise or sleep sounds. I want to be able to select what skills he has not just have a bunch of already enabled games (most of which are geared to very young children. And I cant set a reoccurring alarm like on the regular dots where you can set a repeating alarm for certain days like 6am weekdays would be a great FUNCTION for kids. And I do not have access to his reminders or alarms from the Alexa app like the regular dots have- Wouldn't it be nice to set a reminder for him to do something without having to go up to his room to set it up? What I do like? I like the free time for the access to audio books and these do seem to be level appropriate books at least for a year or two. But is this something he can grow with for a few years. I just don't think so. I think in a year once the novelty of joke telling wears off it will be an expensive alarm clock he forgets to set every night. I want a dot with full content I have parental controls over. Maybe if I didn't have and echo and dot already we wouldn't have been so disappointed in the limitations of this version.
I really love these. Easy to use and set up. Seriously am glad I purchased.
However the only reason not a five star is you have to be annoyingly specific to do certain things and with kids they get frustrated.
Also when amazon explicit filter was turned on with amazon music it still played A LOT of inappropriate songs for young children. See picture.
Update: now that smart plug controls are enabled, our daughter is enjoying her dot much more that she can control her lamp. If Spotify compatibility rolls out this week as I have read, the device will be even better! Let me decide if I want my child to be able to control a light with a smart home voice control. I bought so she could easily turn on and off her light in the middle of the night, only to find out that those smart home controls are restricted from the kids edition that is $40 more than the regular dot. It would have been nice knowing that going into this. One sad 7 year old that now can't do the one thing she was really excited about doing with her own echo dot.
Update: I am glad to see that Amazon has now noted that the control of Smart Home features will soon be enabled through an update. Once that is confirmed and working I will change my rating. The device has some great features, once all of the kinks are worked out it should be well worth it!
My mother got this for my 7 year old. I wondered If it was worth the extra money compared to the regular dot, it definitely is! I love the parent controls. I know my son won’t hear any bad words when he asks Alexa to “play music”. I love that he can wake to a different familiar character each Morning and we can set the alarm together. My son wakes saying good morning to Alexa each day as well as good night. Alexa tells my son a fun fact when she says good morning or good night. He loves that, matter of fact I often hear him say “Alexa I love you” Lol.
I would definitely recommend the kids dot. Check out all the things you can do on it, games, stories and just getting information that children want to know on their own. For example “how many more days till Christmas?”.
I couldn't decide at first about giving this product a 3 or a 4 star rating.
We do feel it encourages our child to disconnect with other forms of technology. So a plus.
The Audio Books are the best part, the one year subscription you get included is nice but doesn't cover as many stories as you would like.
The Disney stories are short and plentiful. However the adds for the Echo Dot Kids Edition make is seem like there will be alot more covered in general. For example my child likes Trains, steam trains, Thomas etc, This product has no train knowledge for facts/trivia, it knows no train jokes or stories. So the "kids interests data" is limited. I imagine they will have updates as we go that will make Alexa smarter and more capable. She is very very limited, almost as if she was launched prematurely without being able to perform in all the capabilities she should be able to. 6 and 7 year old kids are advanced with technology and she is not even a little intuitive. Her games are cute and short. Some of the games encourage math etc, so that's nice. I am impressed with the fact this product exists, but I know there is much to improve as well. We love our Amazon products so much! The warranty is pretty great for people with rough little ones. I was a little disappointed with her limited search abilities but not sad we bought one for our child. I think they would make an excellent gift as well.
Feature Product
- Now Alexa is a kid-friendly DJ, comedian, and storyteller - and she's always getting smarter. Just ask and Alexa will play music, answer questions, read stories, tell jokes, and more - all with younger ears in mind.
- Up to $109 in savings on Echo Dot (Black), 1 year of Amazon FreeTime Unlimited, and a kid-friendly case, plus a 2-year worry-free guarantee-if they break it, return it and we'll replace it for free
- The included 1 year of FreeTime Unlimited gives your kids access to thousands of hours of fun and educational content, including ad-free radio stations and playlists, Audible books, and a growing list of premium kids skills. After one year, your subscription will automatically renew every month starting at just $2.99/month plus applicable tax. You may cancel any time by visiting the Amazon Parent Dashboard or contacting Customer Service.
- 1 year of FreeTime Unlimited gives you access to over 1000 Audible books for kids, like Beauty & the Beast and Peter Pan, thousands of songs, and kid-favorite games and skills from Disney, National Geographic, Nickelodeon, and more
- Easy-to-use parental controls in the online Amazon Parent Dashboard let you set daily time limits, review activity, or pause Alexa on the device
- Kids can control lights, plugs, switches, and more with compatible connected devices
- Automatically filter explicit songs from Amazon Music, Apple Music, or Spotify
- Call kids to dinner or tell them it's bedtime from compatible Echo devices in the house. Plus, add approved friends and family for calling and messaging outside the house.
- Echo Dot Kids Edition is not a toy.
Description
THE FIRST ECHO FOR KIDS Introducing a hands-free, voice-controlled speaker with Alexa, designed with kids in mind. Echo Dot Kids Edition can play age-appropriate music, answer questions, tell stories, and more. Includes a black Echo Dot, a 1-year subscription to FreeTime Unlimited, a fun kid-friendly case, and a 2-year worry-free guarantee. If they break it, return it and we'll replace it for free. With the 1-year FreeTime Unlimited subscription, kids can access content they'll love, such as skills and music designed specifically for them. Parents can control time limits, set bedtimes, review activity, and more. With far-field voice recognition, Echo Dot Kids Edition can hear you from across the room, and only streams audio to the Alexa Voice Service when it recognizes the wake word "Alexa." WHAT KIDS WANT TODAY AND TOMORROW Kids will love interacting with Alexa, and Echo Dot Kids Edition features turn Alexa into a kid-friendly study buddy, DJ, comedian, storyteller, and more. The included 1-year FreeTime Unlimited subscription contains a variety of kid-focused skills, along with thousands of songs from ad-free radio stations and playlists from iHeartRadio Family, like Radio Disney, Nick Radio and Kids Hits. FreeTime Unlimited also gives kids access to over 300 Audible books, including Beauty and the Beast and Peter Pan. They'll enjoy hundreds of hours of fun and educational content, like hearing stories from Disney characters, playing No Way That's True from Nickelodeon, quizzing their knowledge with National Geographic, waking up to special alarms featuring characters they love, and more. PEACE OF MIND FOR PARENTSUse the online Parent Dashboard to review activity, pause Alexa, and set daily time limits at bedtime or throughout the day. Parents can filter explicit songs from Amazon Music and voice shopping is turned off to help prevent
Worried after reading reviews but saw one that said set up and adding things/skills were terrible and impossible until customer service explained adding content thru the free time subscription instead of the Alexa app.. . My kids have tried about 5-6games listed and only liked 1 but there’s so many others. I was shocked when it understood my 4year old as she doesn’t pronounce all things properly, actually lost things. My husband didn’t even know exactly what she said but Alexa dechipered it! Super easy set up, connected to my other devices and my kids love asking how to spell things, play music, read storiens, a game, and even telling my 5year old that’s learning Spanish how to say words she’s asked. Can’t wait to see what else they do next! Only wish it would connect to my kindle books.
I pre-order 2 of the Echo Dot Kids Edition for my daughters ages 10 and 6, and they arrived the day the were released. It’s a nice addition to our “Alexa” system. It’s pretty impressive in that it understands them fairly well in situations where the don’t know exactly what a song may be (but know the lyrics or artist) and Alexa helps them until she gets it right. The posters that is provided by Amazon (online) is very helpful in helping them get started as well. I was pretty amazed with how age appropriate the apps are and also how many are available. We have not ran into a situation where the content that Alexa provides is not within parental guidelines. It also allows tons of parental features and my girls love being able to chat back and forth between their rooms.
Update 6-6-2018: They have added Smart Home access to these so I have amended my rating. They also appear to have update the Parent Dashboard with links to all of the features that come with FreeTime which is nice. I also got a call after posting my original 3 star review noting the lack of documentation and Smart Home access. Now that that is fixed I am super happy with these device. My kids love them and they work great for us. I am glad Amazon is responsive to what people want. I do think it would be cool if we could enable only specific smart home devices and not an all or nothing i.e. they can control stuff in their room only kinda thing. Either way this is much better!
I paid more for fewer features. Until Amazon lets me decide what my kids can and cannot do I cannot give it a better review. I have an echo in almost every room and love them, but regret this impulse purchase. Also, the kids features that come with it aren't as obvious as they could be. It took a massive amount of google searching to figure out what audible books were available or how to change the voices etc. This should be clear and easy and why can I not just ask Alexa how to do it or for a book list? Disappointed
I bought this Echo Dot Kid's Edition for my 9 year old daughter for Christmas. She loves it. I purchased the red one. It's so easy to use. You basically plug it in, connect to your home wi-fi, and say "Alexa". It is linked to my Amazon account and I downloaded the Alexa app on my cell phone. The app allows you to choose various settings such as connect your phone contacts to Echo. You can also learn various activities children can do with the Echo Dot. There are so many things Alexa can do like play your music playlist, tell you the weather, play games with your child, read your child a book, make a phone call, etc. etc. We are really enjoying it. Everyday, we learn something new to do with the Echo Dot and Alexa. I definitely recommend this product to others.
My daughter wanted an iPod to listen to music, but I didn't want her to have earbuds in all the time and I wanted a little something more. This is perfect. She gets kids appropriate music and can play games, hear jokes and have stories read to her. We homeschool, so we can also use Alexa for school purposes (audio books, music, educational games). It's so amazing, I want one! It is a little tricky to set up, so I would recommend looking for YouTube videos about set-up, but there were plenty of those.
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