Amazon’s Echo speaker is one of the more popular smart home products that are available on the market, and with good reason as it’s powerful and includes loads of functions. The Echo Dot is a smaller version of the Echo, although it doesn’t have as many capabilities. It is however, still powered by Amazon’s Alexa software so it can do quite a few things. The Echo Dot’s size would make it perfect for carrying around with you from place to place, but it like the Echo has to be plugged in to operate. If you’re looking for a way to make it portable, then you may want to consider the Evo, a new device that can help you keep the Echo Dot running as it’s an intelligent battery base for it so you don’t have to plug it in with the microUSB cable.
For those that like things to match, the Evo was created with just such a design detail in mind, and comes in two colors, black and white, that both match the Echo Dot in their respective colors. Not only do the colors match, but the design itself matches and more or less looks like it was designed directly by Amazon. It’s also worth mentioning that the Evo battery base is meant for the 2nd Generation Echo Dot that Amazon made official back in September, and there is no mention of it having compatibility with the first gen. model.
As of right now the Evo for the 2nd Gen. Echo Dot is only available for pre-order, but it seems that placing a pre-order on the unit will allow consumers to pick it up at the price of $35, which is a limited time discount. Presumably once the Evo is actually released, which should be sometime in December, the cost will probably go back up to its original price of $49.99. According to Amazon the Evo will be launching on December 31st of this year, with units shipping out around the first or second week of January. There is no information on the size of the battery inside the Evo, but the customer Q&A suggests that the Evo battery will last around six hours before it needs to be charged back up, and there are a set of four LED lights on the front that can help to display how much battery life is left if you aren’t sure how long you’ve been using it.
