Eufy Genie AK-T1241211 2 Watt Wireless Bluetooth Bookshelf Speaker with Alexa (Black)

This product does not work. Onboarding itself is not happening. Alexa done even have skill required for the product anymore. Do not buy.

So this speaker is really good but it's more of a n Alexa enabled speaker than an echo device. Few things here: 1. Like the normal echo this works on power and doesn't have its own battery. 2. A big feature lacking here is, it doesn't have the communication function between different Alexa devices. 3. The sound quality is louder and clearer than the echo 4th gen. This is not an ideal purchase for buyerswho already have an echo but for the first purchase it's the way to go.

This is definitely not a well known product or anything still I bought it because it kept showing up on my amazon home page right from the day I searched for the echo family smart speakers. So I decided to give it a try and I bought it. From my one month experience with this tiny speaker I kinda like it at the same I want to break into pieces sometimes due to some of it's annoying downsides. Amazon reviews work in the classic pros & cons segregation way and I'm gonna stick to it. Here's my list of pros and cons. PROS : * The speaker with the glossy bottom and the matte finish top looks clean and slick. In fact, if you're not a big fan of the echo dot's flat cylindrical design, then this one is a worthy alternative to look for. * It has a 2 watt mono speaker at the bottom and it sounds just fine. It is not fair to expect crystal clear audio quality and glass shattering bass from a budget smart speaker like this but the speaker can fill a whole house with it's sound and there are no noticeable distortions or anything * With just upward facing microphones what this little thing can do is an absolute wonder. I even tried triggering it with my voice approximately 8 meters away from the speaker and it did recognize my command nice and clear. * The addition of a 3.5mm jack at the back is a good addon as it makes the speaker double as a normal speaker by hooking it to an external source. CONS : * The top has a rubberized finish and underneath it lies the control buttons which are extremely hard to press and there are no software based way to control the speaker. * While starting up the speaker it takes like more than 50 seconds to load up which makes you wait even to listen to your favorite beat.\ * Being a smart speaker with good audio output, I use it most of the time for music streaming and that comes with a serious downside. After playing or while playing music if I try access the speaker, it fails to respond and throws a big red light on my face indicating that it is having trouble understanding me. I even tried updating the firmware but I had no luck even then. * The dual mic is all good and clear provided that there is no background noise. With increased background noise, the mic fails to recognize my command even when I am near to it. * The eufy home app doesn't have much options to access or control the speakers which makes the app useless beyond the point of setting up the speaker. Even though the amazon alexa app could do a few things happen, it'd have been better to have some software based accessibility options from the manufacturer them self. * Last but not the least, the downside which makes me avoid this speaker is alexa (irony...right??). Alexa is good, but it is not as good as it is to power a full fledged smart home appliance which is my opinion. It stutters to respond back with the appropriate response for some complex queries and it failed me a few times. That's all with my reasons to get this speaker and avoid this speaker. Initially I gave it just 3 stars as it was priced same as the old echo dot but now considering the Rs.1500 price tag, this one's with no doubt a great deal. It lacks a few features which are present in the echo dot but for 1500 this one's a worthy smart speaker. If you're interested to watch the full video review covering more tests like audio sample test and mic range test, then head over to my YT channel -- it assistors

Waste doesn't support amazon accounts so alexa also not working no bluetooth completely waste of money

This Does respond to Alexa, but while playing any music it will seize to respond. I have been getting the standard response "I sorry, am having trouble understanding right now. Please try again later." This is annoying, cannot change the playlist or stop the music. Smart Home devices work normally. Calling feature is not enabled for this device. The low cost of the device justifies buying it, but not responding at it's will is an annoyance. Would never recommend this as a first device, else folks will get discouraged by Alexa devices.

I am very satisfied with this gadget, asthetics, look and feel, an esp. the quality of sound and the microphone sensitivity. This Alexa enabled smart speaker has exactly the same functionality of echo dot for Rs. 2000. The only extra step you have to do is to install the Eufy Genie Home app on your smartphone (Install the Alexa app from Playstore as the first step). Create a Eufy Genie account, login, follow the steps to detect the device, and then click on the listed device to connect the device to your AWS account. One precaution you have to take is that when connecting to your AWS account, make sure NOT to select AP (Asia Pacific) location (I chose some US location), so as to correctly connect to your Amazon account Connecting to the speaker with the Eufy Genie Home app was a breeze, and so was connecting to my AWS account. Once AWS account is connected, this device also appears in the Alexa app, and you can much more.

I already had an Echo Dot and an Alexa capable Marshall speaker with me before I purchased this clone. And Echo Dot works like a charm while the Marshall speaker is just *chef’s kiss*. But then I ordered this Genie for my bedroom so that I can control my light and AC. It gets the job done but doesn’t have the feel of the real Echo. It carries out orders, plays music, and answers (some) of your questions but lacks the charm and suave of the Amazon Echo. The biggest problem I have with this clone is with its hearing capability. Whereas the original Echo responds to the slightest calling, this one requires me to YELL its name (and sometimes twice or thrice). Now I am using it in my bathroom where I have to SCREAM its name multiple times for it to register. Then it also lacks some basic features, like it cant be paired with TV or phone as a speaker. It does not have the skill sets like the original Echo. And, is a bit slower than the real thing. But if you haven’t user Echo dot before, or just need another echo to control devices, you can try putting your money in it. But don't believe even for a second that it can replace the Eco Dot.

Eufy is a well known company with a successful business in floor robotics. I won't complain about the looks and the sound of the genie both being impressive but eufy not having its own soul inside the genie is like borrowing alexa time to time from the echo and that is second grade stuff. Alexa simply refuses to understand you at will. I don't know if she is moody with the echo too but genie lacks in many things the echo has. Why Amazon should promote the genie which is a competitor to its own echo, beats me but they seem to be charting an early death for the intelligent speaker category market with a dysfunctional alexa. Customers do not like to throw out their money for such silly corporate experimentations. Robotics would die an unfortunate death if their OEMs do not come together to standardise things on a cooperative basis, as customers start forming opinion about the general category based on their experience with the half bodies like the genie. Having said that, I was skeptical about spending money for the echo. The genie is a cheaper option for those who want to test these troubled waters out of curiosity. Worst come worst, you stand to loose only 2000 and not 5000 like the overpriced echo dot

This is a great alternative to the Amazon Echo Dot. For those looking to get into the home automation craze, I recommend this product with only a few caveats: • Set up is a little wonky. When connecting to Wi-Fi, I had a small amount of trouble getting it to recognize my wireless network. I ended up having to make an unsecured network for the Genie to find it, then switch it back to my secured network. • I find the use of multiple apps to be a little strange. The user has to download the Eufy Home app, and then connect to the Amazon services using the Alexa app. Some features that are highlighted as working in the Eufy app are not marked as such in the Alexa app, and vice versa. • Linking Spotify can be a real pain. It only works if you have a premium membership, but once you link it, it works at about 80% full potential. • When using certain commands, the Genie gives false outputs. For example, if saying, "Alexa, play Frank Sinatra on Spotify" she will say something along the lines of, "Playing Frank Sinatra from Spotify... Sorry, something went wrong", then proceed to play said Frank Sinatra. Not really a problem in the long run, but a little annoying. • If for some reason the Genie becomes disconnected from the internet, set up must be reconfigured again from the Eufy app. The Genie does not remember the wireless settings. Not all bad news though. Sound from the device is pretty good. Decent amount of bass and tones. Not good for if you listen to heavy dubstep or lots of high pitched notes, but pretty good for the average listener. Alexa is fairly quick to respond to commands. I recommend a brief pause for the device to recognize the command word, and everything should work smoothly. The device itself seems well built and the packaging is a fantastic experience. All in all, this product has exceeded expectations for a $35 Alexa enabled device. Not by any means perfect, and hopefully, further updates will include standard Echo features like device-to-device communication and more seamless 3rd party app integration. UPDATE***: Changing to 5 Stars for awesome customer support. They Reached out to me when I was having trouble with this product. They helped get it up and running to the best of its abilities.

[Edit: revised] Customer support has been excellent with the vendor getting in touch with me less than a day after my review. I'd revise my rating to 3.5 stars (but that rounds up to four). It's rough around the edges but the vendor seems to be releasing firmware updates to address known issues, and they seem to be getting ironed out at a good pace. The vendor genuinely seem to want to help. They sent me a new device after going through extensive troubleshooting with them. After doing some technical digging, this device is based on the MediaTek MT7688AN. This is a 580 MHz MIPS 24KEc processor as opposed to the Dot which uses MediaTek MT8163V which is a quad-core ARM-A53 running at about 1.5GHz. So, there's a definite difference in computational power, even though the Dot's processor is likely overkill for this application. The Genie also features 802.11n networking but with a 1T1R antenna, which means network throughput is limited to 150Mbit/s which is slower than the Dot. Under load and right after boot the Alexa voice can be choppy or sometimes stutter. This may be solved in a future firmware update, but it seems to me to represent a lack of processing power when under high load. Response times seem a little slower than Dot, but I've not done a true head-to-head comparison with a stopwatch on a "clean" network. The Dot also has a more complicated field microphone array and at least as of yet Genie doesn't support "Drop In" feature. The physical fit-and-finish is about the same quality as the Dot and the button pads have raised area to they can be felt in the dark. It is about 1.5 times taller than the Dot, but is tapered inward at about 2/3 of the way of the height of the device. The vendor seems issues fairly frequent firmware updates which not only seem to improve stability, but add features and usability. The setup app (at least for android) is kind of awkward requiring sign in to the vendor's system and Amazon's system. Also the device requires a firmware update out of the box for the latest stability fixes and features, but there's no way on the initial firmware load to force the update (this problem WAS addressed in a later update and a firmware update CAN be forced with the latest firmware). The only way to update the initially loaded firmware is to set a scheduled time range using the app and just waiting until after that time range. I've seen recommendations that putting the device in mute mode may speed up the update. I'd say for now this is a good way to get the Alexa system into your home, but I would recommend it more for an intermediate to advanced user. The initial firmware update is a pain to update but subsequent updates have been fairly painless. [Original] Unfortunately, I'm a bit disappointed. I have a Dot already and wanted to have this in another room. The setup app was somewhat finicky and took about 10 tries to setup properly. It had problems finding the network. The network connection seems to drop fairly often while the connection on the Dot is more robust. This is despite fact that the Genie is much closer to the wireless base station and should in theory have a better signal. Reaction time also seems substantially slower sometimes taking 10-15 seconds to process a request which is about > 3x longer than the Dot. Even after updating to the latest firmware, problems persist. While it does have a better speaker than the Dot, the other problems detract from the experience. I'm still debating keeping it. Maybe I've just got a bad unit? For the price it would be a great device if it behaved properly and as expected, but for now, I'd have to say it falls a bit short and you'd be better off going with a refurb Dot or wait for a sale to get to the same price point.

Update 7 May 2019 Support confirmed to me that the Eufy Genies don't automatically reconnect when WiFi or the Internet is dropped and what I'm finding is the ONLY way to get it to reconnect is to put them in setup mode and start over. This is BEYOND unacceptable. Either Anker/Eufy needs to fix this or they need to refund $ to every customer who bought these units. I was going to buy an Eufy RoboVac but there's NO way I'm giving them any more $ until they show me they can actually fix problems. The old adage, “You get what you pay for” couldn’t be more applicable in this case. I bought multiple Eufy Genies and have found that their WiFi connectivity is unreliable at best requiring rebooting often, even if their power supply is connected to an uninterruptible power supply, and on multiple occasions the only way to get it to reconnect to my Cisco WAP581 access points has been to factory reset the Genie and set it up again. Next issue. If you have multiple devices near each other you never know which one will answer the command. Actual Echos use technology to determine which is the closest to you to answer you. They mention this in their app’s FAQ, but of course who looks at the app before buying the equipment? Next, for many people “Alexa” is going to cause problems since, well, Alexa is an actual real world name of many people. Who at Anker/Eufy thought it was a good idea not to implement the same ability to change the wake word that real Echos have? Finally, these devices are extremely sensitive to background noise. If you’re watching your TV on your Amazon Fire TV stick and want Alexa to do something, the audio better be pretty quiet AND your Genie better be pretty far away from the audio source or you’re going to have to yell at the Genie to get it to even wake up, let alone listen to you. So buyer beware. I recommend you spend a little extra $ and get real Echos. You avoid the need for the 3rd party app and you get equipment that works far better. BTW, tech support hasn’t been very helpful either. They’re polite and professional, they just don’t have any solutions. I’ve always been impressed with Anker’s products, but these don’t live up to my previous experiences.

I'll start off my review by saying that I returned the Eufy Genie and ordered the actual Echo Dot. In my case there were multiple reasons I did this. First and foremost the Eufy was continually resetting on it's own with no notice it was about to do this or no reason for doing it. Maybe I had a defective one or a bad unit from the factory. Another thing that I kept noticing was that it would come to life on it's own quite often thinking that it had heard the wake word. We would be talking in the room and all of a sudden Eufy Genie would come to life and either answer the question or say I don't know. At this point I am amending my review to acknowledge Anker/Eufy for contacting me regarding my purchase, and return, and seeking to do whatever they could to make the situation better or attempting to satisfy me in whatever way they could, if they could. Knowing that a product's manufacturer or supplier is willing to listen and work with customers is refreshing and also welcome. I feel confident had I reported the resetting issue to Eufy they would have worked with me to fully resolve the problem to my satisfaction but, as I informed them, it was the Bluetooth feature and the "drop in" capability that actually meant that I was not able to use their product. I fully believe that Eufy will improve on their current product and feel assured that if I purchase another product from them that it will be fully supported to my satisfaction and I appreciate their contacting me. As I indicated above other reasons I chose to return it, within Amazon's return window, was that we really did like the "drop in" feature that was available on Amazon Echo Dot's but was not functional on the Eufy Genie. Now future software/firmware updates may add this feature but as of now it doesn't have it nor does it have Bluetooth capability which my family uses. So the weight of issues was in favor of returning the Eufy Genie and going the extra money for the Amazon Echo Dot at least for me to be able to use the "drop in" feature and the Bluetooth feature for syncing with the Amazon Echo Remote control. In the Eufy Genie's favor I will though say, I believe, that the appearance of the Eufy Genie is nicer than the Echo Dot and it does come with the connecting cable that allows you to plug in a device that has an earphone type connector. This feature was not enough, though, to overcome the other issues that I had. I will also say that the volume level of the Eufy Genie was far superior to that of the Amazon Echo Dot and that difference was noticeable and in favor of the Eufy Genie. If you get one of the Eufy Genie's that doesn't come on by itself so often and doesn't go through frequent resets then you will have a very nice looking device that has ample volume for what you want or need. It's a nicely constructed product, does not appear to be cheap in any way but I just feel that it needs some improvements before it can be considered a true competitor to the Amazon Echo Dot. I do hope that they add capability for the "drop in" feature in the future and I wouldn't rule out purchasing one in the future if some improvements are made. I'd love to know if I just had a bad/defective unit or if my experiences are typical of the Eufy Genie's. I will also say that documentation was sufficient and set up wasn't difficult at all. One last, but minor, annoyance I had with the Eufy Genie was with regards to the volume up/down buttons or in this case indents. There is a plus (+) and minus (-) symbol embedded into the plastic top of the Eufy to control the volume up/down of the unit. For me it was much more difficult to see and recognize these than it is with the actual Amazon Echo Dots where the buttons are much more prominent and accessible. The trade off is that with the Eufy they are much more streamlined and make the unit look nicer but they are much more (at least for me) difficult to find and control than those on the Amazon echo dots devices.

I already had an Echo Dot, and some TP-Link Smartplugs I use to control lights throughout the house. The Echo Dot is in the kitchen, and I found it irritating to have to walk back out to that part of the house and says, "Alexa, turn on bedroom light," just to turn the bedroom light on or off (or, failing that, open the app on my phone to do it). So, it became apparent I needed another Alexa device within earshot of the smartplugs that were outside the range of the microphone on my kitchen Dot. I saw this on sale for $25, and figured I'd give it a try. Here are the pros and cons: Pros: - despite that it "only" has two microphones, as opposed to the seven the Dot supposedly has, I found it "heard" me just as well as the Dot, and was possibly even more sensitive than the Dot (e.g., I didn't need to talk to it in a loud voice for it to hear me) - the unit is sleeker and a better design than the Dot. The top of the unit is flat without any holes, so it is easier to clean and less likely to get dust inside the unit than the Dot is. Additionally, it's more aesthetically pleasing, unlike the Dot, which looks like a hockey puck and almost requires that you buy a decorative case to dress it up. . . - the sound is better than the Dot. I actually thought the sound was great, for a speaker that size, and you can crank it up pretty loud Cons: - even though it would "hear" me say a command, because it acknowledged "Alright," sometimes it would not execute the command. For example, I'd ask it to turn a light on or off, and it would acknowledge it did, when really it hadn't. The Dot also has this problem. - music would inexplicably turn off about ten or fifteen minutes into listening (via the Amazon Music that is the default for Alexa). Other times, I'd have the music on and say, "Alexa, stop," and it would stop and listen to my command, then go right back to playing music until I said it again louder and more forcefully. - you have to install the Eufy Home app and create an account in order to set it up, then (and only then) you can add it to Alexa. Who needs more apps and accounts, in a world where our phones are already cluttered with apps we only use occasionally but still "need" to have? - it does not have bluetooth, so if you want to connect it to another speaker, you have to use a 3.5 mm cable to do so. - it does not have the phone call, intercom, and "drop in" features the Echo devices, including the Dot, have. This was not a big deal to me as I don't use those things, but could be a deal breaker for others. - it does not properly interact with other Alexa devices such as the Dot. For example, if both the Eufy and the Dot hear me, both respond. My understanding is that two Dots would know which one was closer to me and only that one would respond. I'd ask it to play music, and then the Eufy or Dot would recognize that the other device was already playing music and would ask me if I wanted to switch devices and, even though I said "yes," it would not switch over, and both would continue playing music All in all, I think the Eufy is a great entry device IF you catch a sale where it is only $20 or $25, and IF you don't need bluetooth, the calling features, integration between multiple devices, and IF you don't mind telling it to restart your music after it has inexplicably stopped playing it, etc. However, if you can wait for a sale on the Dot (like right now, how it is a Cyber Monday Week deal for only $30 instead of the regular $50), you are better off buying that. Updating my review from three stars to five stars to reflect the absolutely wonderful customer service I've received from the Eufy support team. They saw my review and reached out to advise me that a firmware update was coming, and would address most, if not all, of the issues I raised, and gave me advice on how to update the firmware to address the known sensitivity issue. I have bought Anker products before, and was going to continue buying them regardless of my experience with the Genie, but the level of customer service I received just affirms that even more.