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\n\u2014 Our editors review and recommend products to help you buy the stuff you need. If you make a purchase by clicking one of our links, we may earn a small share of the revenue. However, our picks and opinions are independent from USA Today\u2019s newsroom and any business incentives.
Apple and Amazon made a surprise move Friday, revealing to USA Today that Apple Music will finally support Alexa-enabled devices (like Amazon Echo speakers) in mid-December.
Echo speakers are significantly cheaper than Apple\u2019s massive HomePod\u2014especially due to Amazon\u2019s ongoing Cyber Week deals\u2014meaning there\u2019s now a simple, affordable way to get Alexa and Apple Music in every room in your house.
The Echo lineup primarily consists of three speakers: the tiny Echo Dot ($29.99 on sale for cyber week), the full-size Echo ($69.99 on sale), and the brand-new Echo Plus ($149.99 on sale with a free smart bulb).
The Echo Dot is tiny, but includes a speaker and microphone for listening to music over Wi-fi or Bluetooth and issuing commands to Alexa. It costs $49.99 usually but it\u2019s down to $29.99 this week, its lowest price ever. I have an Echo Dot in my kitchen, and I use it all the time to play Spotify for my kids. It\u2019s simple, it\u2019s effective, and it\u2019s cheap. The sound quality could be better, but for $30 you can\u2019t go wrong.
The full-size Echo is the mainstream option. It has much better sound quality than the Dot, which is good for mid-size rooms if you don\u2019t want to invest in a higher-quality speaker like a Sonos One or HomePod. At $69.99 it\u2019s also at its lowest price yet, so you can also get a few of them for the cost of those other speakers.
If you do want an Echo speaker that can compete with a Sonos or a HomePod, the closest is the new Echo Plus. It\u2019s bigger, and louder, but can it really compete with those for sound quality? Our smart home staff writer Sarah Kovac has a Sonos, HomePod, and Echo Plus in her home and her take was this:
\u201cIn terms of sound quality, the HomePod outperforms both the Sonos (by a little) and the new Echo Plus (by quite a lot). For casual listening, the Echo Plus is probably sufficient for most people. But for audiophiles and those who want goosebump-inducing mids and lows, Sonos and HomePod can deliver.
I should note that the Sonos One offers more volume than the HomePod, but deep bass lines start to distort at max volume. HomePod’s four-inch woofer doesn’t distort even when cranked to 11.\u201d
If you listen to music with a lot of bass, it\u2019s also worth considering adding the Echo Sub. It\u2019s $129.99 by itself ($189.98 with an Echo or $229.99 with an Echo Plus), though it is just a subwoofer\u2014you need a new Echo or Echo Plus to make it work.
We still think the Sonos One and HomePod are better overall for sound quality, however. The Sonos One is especially compelling here because it also has Alexa, meaning you get the superior digital assistant, but with amazing sound quality, in one $200 speaker.
You can also get a similar setup with the older $149 Sonos Play:1 and an Echo Dot, which you can connect with a simple 3.5mm cable (like a headphone jack). That gives you Alexa’s voice control and Sonos sound quality for just $179.98 total.
It\u2019s hard to stress just what an improvement even a tiny Echo Dot has made to my family\u2019s routine. I listen to my playlists when I\u2019m making dinner, we can get detailed weather reports as we\u2019re trying to get our kids\u2019 jackets on, and my daughter can listen to that one Olaf song from Frozen again, and again\u2026.and again.
When we recently moved into a bigger home, the Echo Dot made it into our box of essentials we had to unpack immediately. We’re planning on adding more speakers soon, giving me have the whole-home sound system I’ve always wanted\u2014for way less than I thought I’d have to pay.
It may mean I have to listen to Olaf in literally every room in my house now, but it\u2019s a trade-off I\u2019m willing to make.
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Prices are accurate at the time this article was published, but may change over time.<\/p>\n