Best Alexa speaker 2023

Amazon first introduced Alexa through its original Echo smart speaker in late 2014. To this day, if you're looking for the best Alexa speaker, you're probably going to look first at the company's Echo line of smart speakers. Just last fall, Amazon refreshed its lineup with new 5th-Gen Echo Dots and a 2nd-Gen Echo Studio.

Many great Alexa-enabled speakers are also made by other companies such as Bose, Sonos, and Ultimate Ears that you may wish to consider. This guide will help you make the best purchase decision as you consider the best Alexa speaker for your household.

What is the best Alexa speaker you can buy today?

Amazon produces most Alexa speakers in the Echo line of smart speakers and smart screen devices like the Echo Show. However, there are several impressive third-party options that you may wish to consider (some of which are compatible with more than one smart voice assistant).

Our top pick is the Amazon Echo (4th Gen). The standard-bearer for the Echo line, this fourth-generation model hasn't updated since late 2020, but Amazon hasn't had to. We loved it then for its revamped speakers, rounded look, and built-in Zigbee hub for smart home tools, and that hasn't changed in 2023 — especially since it's received several software updates since then.

The Echo (4th Gen) is just the right size to fill most rooms with richer sound than you get with the newer Echo Dot with Clock (5th Gen), another favorite that's better suited to smaller rooms or to pair with another Dot for stereo sound.

Amazon also has a popular line of smart screen Alexa speakers known as the Echo Show devices. Out of these, our favorite is the middle-child Echo Show 8. It has the benefits of a reasonably large screen, loudspeakers, and built-in privacy controls. It is both more affordable and easier to accommodate for smaller spaces than the larger Echo Show 10 (3rd Gen).

As for the best third-party Alexa speaker, our favorite right now is the Sonos Era 100. The size and form factor is close to what you'd get in an Amazon Echo (3rd Gen) with a more traditional speaker look. The sound quality surpasses most Echo speakers, and it can also work with other smart voice assistants.

Without further ado, here is our detailed list of the best Alexa speakers that you can buy.

The Amazon Echo is the smart speaker that started it all. This is the fourth iteration of Amazon's classic smart speaker, and according to our Amazon Echo (4th Gen) review, generation four is far and away the best we've ever seen. With much better sound quality than the more ubiquitous Echo Dot, at a price less than half of the Echo Studio or even the Sonos One, it's an excellent upgrade.

It abandoned Amazon's traditional cylindrical design for a more spherical one, taking up more counter space but using its wider form to deliver improved 360-degree audio. It added a second 0.8-inch front-firing tweeter to its already-capable array of a tweeter and a 3-inch woofer, which makes so much of a difference. 

It now truly competes on a level playing field with speakers twice as expensive. As with previous generations, you can fine-tune the audio with the available EQ settings from the Alexa app. You can also pair two Echo speakers together for stereo sound or connect them to a Fire TV.

Like the Echo Plus and Echo Studio before it, this fourth-generation Echo has a built-in Zigbee hub to help it better communicate with and control various smart home devices. It's also powered by Amazon's AZ1 Neural Edge processor, which promises speech processing that is twice as fast as previous generations, all while using 85% less memory. 

The Echo (4th Gen) is one of Amazon's first Climate Pledge Friendly certified products, made with 50% recycled plastics, 100% recycled fabrics, and 100% recycled die-cast aluminum. Plus, it has a low-power mode to save on electricity.

We also love the fabric design, responsive microphones for Alexa voice commands, and playback and mute controls on the top of the device. This is a voice-first product, but it's good to know there are still tactile and visual cues to help you control this Alexa speaker.

The Echo Dot is Amazon's most popular Alexa speaker, mostly thanks to the insanely affordable price but also because of the small footprint and outsized audio quality. With the Echo Dot (5th Gen), it made a few key upgrades over the Dot (4th Gen), which you can only get refurbished today.

During our review of the Echo Dot with Clock (5th gen) — which adds an LED display to an identical speaker — we found that the latest Dot sounds louder and clearer than any model before it, thanks in part to the new front-firing 1.73-inch speaker. 

The audio quality certainly won't live up to the full-sized Echo (4th Gen), which has room to pack in more space. Still, you can buy two Echo Dots for the same price and pair their sound together for a rich sound that arguably matches the larger model in quality.

The fabric design comes in three great colors (Glacier White, Deep Blue Sea, and Charcoal), much better than previous gens' hard plastic finishes in black and white only. You can go for the regular Dot or upgrade to a version with an improved LED capable of showing more than just the time for just $10 more. We've put together a comparison between the two here to help clarify the differences further.

Ultimately, this little speaker is such a great value for the price because it performs all of the same Alexa commands found on the more expensive speakers, and has the latest Amazon AZ2 processor, which Amazon claims is 22X faster than the AZ1 found in the Echo (4th Gen). You've also got the same tactile buttons and light ring as on the Echo (4th Gen). 

The only thing truly sacrificed with this model is the overall sound quality, which isn't meant to fill a room; but you can use the stereo pair feature to use two Echo Dots together for the same price as the larger Echo, if you want a solid front-firing setup.

Amazon's Echo Pop is the company's latest offering in its lineup of Alexa-powered smart speakers. What helps differentiate this from the rest is the fact that it's the cheapest Alexa speaker out there, while offering some surprising flexibility. For one, the Echo Pop is compatible with the Matter smart home standard, while also doubling as a Wi-Fi extender for some of the best mesh Wi-Fi systems.

The built-in speaker is technically larger than the one you'll find in the Echo Dot, but it still doesn't quite match up if you're using it in a larger room. Instead, the Echo Pop is better suited for an in-home office or even on your nightstand. 

In terms of controls, there are two buttons on the top to manage the volume levels, along with a mute switch to turn off the microphones. And at the top of the speaker, you'll be able to know when Alexa is listening thanks to the built-in light bar.

While it's difficult to expect much from a smart speaker that costs less than $40, we really would have liked to see a 3.5mm headphone jack or built-in Bluetooth support. You can always use your phone and the Alexa app to stream music, but it gets a bit more cumbersome if you have friends over who want to play something of their own.

The Echo Show 8 (2nd Gen) is the "Goldilocks" smart display: It sits between the pricey Echo Show 10 (3rd Gen) and budget Echo Show 5 (2nd Gen), and Amazon's middle-of-the-road smart display has all the essentials most buyers need. And don't let its generation fool you; it actually launched the year after the Echo Show 10.

Its 8-inch display has a crisp 1280x800 resolution that matches the Echo Show 10 (3rd Gen) for a better pixel-per-inch ratio. It also matches its 13MP camera for video chats that can digitally pan and zoom to keep you in the frame, and its two 2-inch speakers are only slightly smaller than the 2.2-inch Echo Show 10 speakers. It can't physically track you around a room like the 10-inch model, but many people won't want that feature, which requires a lot more table space to work and can be a bit off-putting. And it's much more affordable, making it the better option in our minds.

Compared to the other Alexa speakers on this list, any Echo smart display just won't quite match up in sound quality, as the form factor doesn't lend itself to forward-firing sound. But in our Echo Show 8 review, we noted it will "pleasantly surprise" you with loud rear-firing speakers that "preserve the highs quite well while not losing or getting drowned out by the thumping bass." It's well-suited as the main audio source for a smaller space like an office or kitchen, even if it's not a proper living room speaker.

Overall, the Echo Show 8 focuses more on Alexa access than being a true speaker, but the option to use a touchscreen to tap options, watch videos, display photos, and perform other tasks without having to vocalize everything is a major perk.

The Amazon Echo 10 (3rd Gen) raises the bar for smart displays with a silent, moving screen that tracks movement around a room so you can see information easily wherever you go, along with directional audio that also focuses in the same direction as the screen. It may not rise much above the Echo Show 8 in raw specs, but its innovative design is what makes it a properly premium upgrade.

You may be concerned by the idea of a smart display tracking your footsteps. But as our Echo Show 10 (3rd Gen) review makes clear, visual processing is all done on-device so no video ever transmits to Amazon's cloud, and it automatically converts what it sees into "abstracted blurbs" so you're nothing but a "pixellated blob." Plus, you can disable the motion and simply enjoy the large display, or activate the physical camera shutter if you're concerned.

You'll also be happy to note that the audio quality was the "best sounding" Alexa speaker we'd tested at that time, with two 1-inch tweeters and a 3-inch woofer for rich, directional sound. The Echo (4th Gen) has since supplanted it, but again, this gives you the joy of a touchscreen interface and visual tools that an audio-only Alexa speaker can't offer.

The Echo Studio is Amazon's answer to the audiophile's dream Alexa speaker. It can fill a room with dynamic sound and be paired with a second Studio or Fire TV for real surround sound. It also comes equipped with a Zigbee hub.

If you want an Echo speaker that'll make your music sound as good as can be, this premium Alexa speaker fits the bill perfectly, at least according to our Echo Studio review. This is Amazon's premier Echo speaker regarding sound quality, featuring an array of five speakers that kick out impressive bass, midrange, and highs. Our reviewer particularly praised the vocals, with "lush, warm roll-off that feels inviting in almost any genre," and said it offered comparable quality to the Sonos One.

Dolby's Atmos technology is included to round out the listening experience, along with a feature that allows the Studio to sense the room it's in and adapt its speakers accordingly for the best experience.

The Echo Studio also has smarts over some of its siblings, thanks to the built-in Zigbee hub that allows supported smart home devices to connect directly to the Studio rather than another hub you need to place somewhere in your home.

Although Amazon soft-launched a "2nd generation" of the Echo Studio in late 2022, don't get too excited. Yes, it adds spatial audio, bass enhancement, and a frequency range extension, but the older Echo Studios got the same firmware update. Still, Amazon could only do this because the 2019 speaker still matches up with more expensive speakers in audio quality years later; this latest update optimized what that hardware could do.

An Alexa speaker can be a great addition to any kid's room, but before you give your child a smart speaker, you'll want to make sure it's safe and appropriate for them. The Echo Dot Kids Edition comes in fun kid designs and colors with built-in parent controls, as well as age-appropriate content.

With the same front-firing speaker, spherical design, and speedier Alexa commands as the standard Echo Dot. During our review of the Echo Dot Kids (2022), we found it offers similar quality but with more "adorable" designs and paired back features built for younger users' privacy and safety. It comes with a year of Amazon Kids+, which lets you carefully monitor your kid's activities. 

That's the part that justifies its price tag, which is a bit more than the Echo Dot at retail. Amazon Kids+ gives you (and your kid) access to a whole bunch of kid-friendly content, including books, music, audiobooks, podcasts, games, and more.

Plus, parents get access to the Amazon Parent Dashboard, which lets you set how long the kid can use any of this newfangled tech. It'll also block non-kid-friendly content, shut off the Echo Dot at bedtime, and teach your kids to remember to say please and thank you to not-quite-sentient tech (we have a feeling that'll be more important than we realize).

The Sonos Era 100 is our favorite third-party Alexa speaker because it looks great, sounds even better, and fits within the well-established and easy-to-use Sonos audio ecosystem. Sonos has earned its reputation as the premier smart speaker manufacturer, with an entire ecosystem of products that work seamlessly with each other for a satisfying home audio experience. But the Sonos Era 100 specifically is one of the most affordable Sonos smart speakers around, for those that can't afford an entire sound system.

Once you connect your Sonos One to your Amazon Alexa account, you can control your smart home, play music or audiobooks, and ask Alexa all manner of trivia, just as you would on any of the best Alexa devices. Aside from the sound quality, the main difference to an Echo is the speaker ecosystem you buy into. And while there's nothing wrong with an Echo, a whole lot of folks really love their Sonos setups.

If you want to take your music with you and control your speaker via Alexa, you can't find a better balance of sound, battery life, and water resistance than is available from the Sonos Move.

Amazon hasn't made a portable Alexa speaker since the Amazon Tap, which wasn't hands-free (or very good, for that matter). Other manufacturers have made some of the best Bluetooth speakers with Alexa functionality for years, but we now finally have the one we've been waiting for in the Move from Sonos.

As described in our Sonos Move review, we finally have a Sonos-quality Alexa speaker that is portable yet still works with the Sonos ecosystem. It also makes a great home speaker when you're not on the go, which is more than can be said for some of the other portable Bluetooth Alexa speakers we've seen.

If you're a true audiophile and you need something portable, or if you just really love the Sonos ecosystem, the Move is a must-buy. It's big, it's heavy, and it sounds amazing. And with a recent update, you now get 11 hours of battery life before needing to dock it again.

With the addition of the Echo Show 15 to Amazon's lineup of smart speakers, it became the largest smart display option from the company. At 15.6 inches, it provides ample room for the Alexa interface to shine, with tools like Alexa Widgets that smaller Echo Shows can't support. These customizable tiles put useful, glanceable information like your shopping list, calendar, weather, and more, front and center. 

As our Echo Show 15 reviewer found, the big screen size is fantastic for streaming, especially now that it added Fire TV support so you can use the larger screen for streaming Netflix, Prime Video, and other popular apps. It became a staple in the kitchen during our review, as it's a great help for displaying recipes while cooking and listening to music.

As an Alexa speaker, its quality depends on where and how you mount it. It has two 1.6-inch rear-firing speakers, which works best when the Echo Show 15 is mounted against a wall so the sound cleanly reverberates. But if you use a stand further away from the wall, you'll have to turn the volume to near-max so it isn't muffled, and our reviewer noted that this can be annoying for whoever is behind the smart display.

Overall, the Echo Show 15 works best as a centerpiece to a kitchen or living room area, giving you a new-and-improved version of Alexa with an AZ2 chip to speed things up. But on the speaker side of things, you'll probably want to consider one of the above picks instead.

Ultimate Ears is at the forefront of portable, durable, and rugged Bluetooth speakers, and its BLAST line is one of its most popular because it's affordable, sounds great, and has fantastic battery life. That's why the Ultimate Ears BLAST is the ultimate weatherproof Alexa speaker that you'll want to bring with you to your next BBQ event, beach party, or backyard get-together.

You can pair your BLAST speaker with up to eight others and keep the party going all day long with its 12-hour battery life. The speaker has a 360-degree sound that comes across loud and clear. Not only can you pair other devices to it via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, but it comes with Alexa built-in so that whenever you're connected to a hotspot, you can request your favorite party playlist from Alexa.

When you bring your BLAST speaker indoors, it charges on a simple base that keeps it in an upright orientation, though not all configurations ship with this base charger. However, when settled this way, it makes a great Amazon Echo alternative!

Not everyone who wants an Alexa speaker has the same needs. Some want a small smart speaker that gets out of the way, while others want something with room-filling sound. And some of you don't want another speaker; you'd rather buy a soundbar for your TV that also lets you command Alexa while you stream your favorite shows. Thankfully, soundbars like the Sonos Beam give us fantastic sound, plus Alexa access.

We conducted our Sonos Beam Gen 1 review a couple of years ago, but we've yet to find another smart soundbar that can do what it does while sounding as great as it does. When connected to your TV, it enhances the sound to amplify the highs, mids, and lows that most built-in TV speakers muddle together. 

Since then, the Sonos Beam Gen 2 arrived with some significant improvements: Dolby Atmos support, a faster processor for Alexa commands, and a new dust-resistant design that offers better audio height. But it has the same four mid-woofers, a center tweeter, and three passive radiators as before, so we can still speak to its audio quality from our old review.

The Sonos Beam's Alexa functionality goes beyond just asking the voice assistant trivia or using it to control your smart home. With the Beam, you can use Alexa to control your TV, a wonderful accessibility and convenience feature. Best of all, the Beam is extremely easy to set up, and it still functions as a fabulous Sonos smart speaker. So if you can only get one Alexa speaker for your main TV room, this is probably the one you want to pick up.