The Amazon Echo Dot Gen 4 received praise from critics for its spherical shape and easy-to-use voice assistant. Expert testers from What HiFi liked how easy it was to set up since, during testing, all they had to do was download the Alexa app onto their smartphones and follow easy prompts. Reviewers from Tom’s Guide were satisfied with how well the speaker could fill a room with sound and also liked that it had a low power mode to reduce power consumption when idle. Also commended was its motion sensing feature, which, they established, could detect when people enter or exit a room.
However, testers were slightly disappointed that the Echo Dot Gen 4 had no battery and had to be plugged into work. This makes it unfit for outdoor use and is a discredit it has in common with the Amazon Echo Gen 4 (which we’ve covered in our Amazon Echo Gen 4 review). If you’re looking for a reliable outdoor speaker, check out our Alpine Solar Bluetooth Rock Speaker review.