Amazon.com: Customer reviews: Echo Dot Kids Edition, a smart speaker with Alexa for kids

Top positive review

Very kid friendly and so much fun!

Reviewed in the United States on January 7, 2019

I purchased the Echo Dot Kids Edition for my 6 year old granddaughter (whom I have custody of) for Christmas last month. Because (like always) Santa overdid it a bit, I was concerned that she may not really be interested in the Echo Dot. Plus, the fact that the Echo Dot has no picture that she can physically see or anything for her to do with her hands (as if she were on a computer or tablet, etc.) really had me thinking if she even took it out of the box at all, she wouldn't play with it longer than about 2 minutes and it would end up in the bottom of a toy box.
But, to my pleasant surprise, she has played with the Echo Dot Kids Edition every single day since Christmas. She absolutely LOVES it!
She and I play games with it together, she asks Alexa all kinds of questions (including what the weather will be so she knows how to dress for the day) and her favorite thing to do is to have Alexa tell her bedtime stories until she falls asleep. She can even request specific stories like Cinderella, Snow White, Rapunzel, etc. And she also LOVES that she can request whatever song she wants to hear, on demand.
We haven't tried it yet, but we're told Alexa will also set an alarm for her, as well. We'll probably try that when school starts back in a couple of days.
We're extremely pleased with the Echo Dot Kids Edition and I'd definitely purchase this item again.
The only suggestion I have would be for the manufacturing company to make it to be rechargeable and to use it plugged in, as well (like a tablet or cell phone) instead of having to have it plugged in all the time to use it.
But, I knew this was the case when I bought the item, so I wasn't disappointed.

One person found this helpful

Top critical review

Critical reviews›

Stephanie

From my 6 year olds point of view it’s ok

Reviewed in the United States on May 12, 2019

My daughter loves her own personal Alexa in general and talking to it but it does have ups and downs that she doesn’t care for. It can’t “find” playlists/stations/songs or anything from Amazon music unless you directly stream through it from your phone, when I called tech to ask for help on it he was very unclear and kind of hard to understand and wouldn’t answer my question just kept telling me everyone is having that problem and that I should also be having that problem on all of my devices(even tho I told him I wasn’t) and kept correcting me about it. I really hope they fix it soon because the iheart radio that goes with the kids edition has commercials and talk shows through it(even the classical radio part) all night and ruins the nighttime sleep music my daughter loves and scares her when a random guy starts trying to sell her stuff and get her to donate during the night through iheart radio. The kid alarms are fun but do not work for the gradually increase in volume alarms and hers seems to be having problems playing the alarm tone I set in general and continuously changes it all on its own. Also the routines are nice but in order for you to set one for your kiddos it has to be through the “FreeTime” routine selection on the app and you CANNOT set an alarm through that, instead you have to verbally set one through Alexa and if you want it for M-Thurs then you have to set an alarm for EVERY day at the time you want VERBALLY and tell it “set an alarm for EVERY Monday at 5:30am” or whatever time you want then when that one is set you have to tell it “ set alarm for EVERY Tuesday at 5:30am” and so on and so forth. I tried finding an easier way to do it and tried to have it in the routine but there is no alarm in the routines allowed through the kids device nor an option to include a bedtime story in the routine or a wake up story to encourage your kiddo. There are a few other things here and there that we are figuring out ways around but in general it’s ok and my daughter is mostly happy with it.

4,930 total ratings, 2,237 with reviews

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From the United States

Kelly Ganey

Very kid friendly and so much fun!

Reviewed in the United States on January 7, 2019

Verified Purchase

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Meghan M Jenkins

This review was updated from a 2 to a 5 star- READ

Reviewed in the United States on May 14, 2018

Verified Purchase

Updated Review: Look below for original which was 2 stars.
So the morning after posting my review I received a call from amazons research team for the new kids dot. She asked me a lot of questions about what I didn't like and what things could they fix. She said they would be pushing through updates quickly to address the issues that parents gave them in feed back. I don't think that they pushed them this quickly. But here is what happened. I was trying to control my sons dot from the Alexa app which gave me little to no control over his content and I thought this meant these things just were not possible. So Here is what I learned today. The kids dot setting you need to control from parents.amazon.com... Hopefully they will connect this to the app soon! But everyone of my complaints were solved by going into the "free time settings". Here I can add any "skill" I want not just the kids one that are preloaded (again- I can not add skills to the kids dot from the alexa app) So I was able to add skills that he was really excited about that was on our dot plus a few others (like the night light) which address my concern that the pre-loaded skills were too young for him. Also you can control when he is on it and even lock it so he is not playing on it at all times of day. And I was able to open amazon music up to him in the "free time" setting giving him a lot more freedom with his music and still controlling explicit content. Also I found once you set an alarm for the dot, you CAN go into the app go to "reminders and alarms" and add repeat setting and days of the week to that alarm's settings. Which is great since I could not figure out how to do this at first and really made it seem pointless- but again I think amazon can stream line this process allowing alarms to be set from the app and or at settings from the unit. Also today I have the option to set reminders from the app. Like I said I don't think they have changed anything in the last 24 hours but suddenly today I have the option to add reminder when I didn't see it yesterday so I don't know if I changed something in the setting or what. No idea, but I will say this does now work! End of day today, I am actually really happy with this product. But there is a learning curve that amazon is going to have to figure out since there is no how to information out there. So if there is something you can not figure out I encourage you to either reach out to amazon or this Q&A here. And again Amazon because I know you are listening (because I was so impressed with the call I got this morning!)- you need to link the parent dashboard to the app ASAP!

Original Review
Fairly disappointed in this product and I cant decide if I should just return it now or wait and see if they fix any issues. It seems very much geared toward a young child 3-5 maybe. My son is 7 and it just seems too baby for him. He does not have near the amount of freedom with it that he would want. He cant just say play They Might be Giants and have a music play. He can listen to the IHEART radio but he cant select what he wants to hear played.The "free time skills" available for this version are not functionally thought out- like the night light skill doesn't work on the kids version. Nor does white noise or sleep sounds. I want to be able to select what skills he has not just have a bunch of already enabled games (most of which are geared to very young children. And I cant set a reoccurring alarm like on the regular dots where you can set a repeating alarm for certain days like 6am weekdays would be a great FUNCTION for kids. And I do not have access to his reminders or alarms from the Alexa app like the regular dots have- Wouldn't it be nice to set a reminder for him to do something without having to go up to his room to set it up? What I do like? I like the free time for the access to audio books and these do seem to be level appropriate books at least for a year or two. But is this something he can grow with for a few years. I just don't think so. I think in a year once the novelty of joke telling wears off it will be an expensive alarm clock he forgets to set every night. I want a dot with full content I have parental controls over. Maybe if I didn't have and echo and dot already we wouldn't have been so disappointed in the limitations of this version.

723 people found this helpful

Helpful

Jackie Stevenson

Love our echo dot

Reviewed in the United States on April 17, 2024

Verified Purchase

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We are obsessed with the echo dots in our house. It’s great for listening to music, setting timers, and best of all you can drop in on the kiddos when you are out and about. I highly recommend these!

Helpful

M&GManning

I am impressed with the fact this product exists, but I know there is much to improve as well.

Reviewed in the United States on May 18, 2018

Verified Purchase

I couldn't decide at first about giving this product a 3 or a 4 star rating.
We do feel it encourages our child to disconnect with other forms of technology. So a plus.
The Audio Books are the best part, the one year subscription you get included is nice but doesn't cover as many stories as you would like.
The Disney stories are short and plentiful. However the adds for the Echo Dot Kids Edition make is seem like there will be alot more covered in general. For example my child likes Trains, steam trains, Thomas etc, This product has no train knowledge for facts/trivia, it knows no train jokes or stories. So the "kids interests data" is limited. I imagine they will have updates as we go that will make Alexa smarter and more capable. She is very very limited, almost as if she was launched prematurely without being able to perform in all the capabilities she should be able to. 6 and 7 year old kids are advanced with technology and she is not even a little intuitive. Her games are cute and short. Some of the games encourage math etc, so that's nice. I am impressed with the fact this product exists, but I know there is much to improve as well. We love our Amazon products so much! The warranty is pretty great for people with rough little ones. I was a little disappointed with her limited search abilities but not sad we bought one for our child. I think they would make an excellent gift as well.

6 people found this helpful

Helpful

Momof8Gmaof6

Great for kids in many ways

Reviewed in the United States on January 19, 2019

Verified Purchase

Purchased during one of the Black Friday deals as a 3 pack. I wanted 1 for each of 2 bedrooms for my kids, I didnt really need 3rd one but at the time, it was cheaper to buy the 3 pack oppose to 2 individual so I put 3rd in living room since the kids are mostly in there anyways. Anyways... It worked out great because I can use to drop in and call feature to their rooms & living room. They're 8 & 10 & have used the Dots for help with math problems & spelling, even project research. They enjoy the games it offers, music, jokes, alarms and reminders. I like the character voices for alarms. What kid wouldn't want to wake up to Spongebob. Theres so much these can do & updates with new things. My only issue is that I havent been able to connect them to the Fire TV stick correctly. One says its connected but only controls the volume. It was way easier connecting the Dot to Stick in my bedroom.

Helpful

Thomas Roy Garner

Echo Dot kids edition - not really needed, get a dot!!

Reviewed in the United States on June 8, 2019

Verified Purchase

OK, kid's edition works as advertised, product was easy to set up, integration into network easy, no real complaints.

but the REAL complaint is, do NOT GET THIS, GET A NORMAL ECHO DOT!!!! If you get the kid's edition, thinking this is great for children, keeping them off of sites you don't want, music you don't want, then yes it is. but here is the real problem, this will cripple your kids ability to find music even if you have prime music, it will lock you out of that because it's not "appropriate" for children. BE CAREFUL. If you want Disney radio station, then good for you, but if you want simple stuff, like baby shark, we will rock you (queen), then you can't get it, it will say not available do you wish to purchase a streaming music for an additional $$$$ -> why? I have prime, I don't want another music site from amzn. just my prime account.

Kids edition cannot do that.

It took me about 2 days to strip out the family monitoring (multiple places in amazon echo settings and music prime settings) and turn off "block inappropriate music" so that way you can get it as a normal echo dot.

You don't need kids product. but if you want a family filter where you can block music, video, apps on your child's device (even set up times and schedules, and must complete 1st before doing this next) then this is the product for you.

But I will guarantee that event a 6 year old will have music tastes that you do not seem as no big deal, being blocked because amzn thinks its not appropriate.

Once I made it into an echo dot (cough adult version) my 6 year old is rocking out to LMFAO's music catalog, goofy guber (not available on kids edition), queen's we will rock you (not available on kids edition) and even baby shark (for some reason, NOT available on kids edition). His tastes in music stretch beyond the "children" filters and just save yourself some headaches and frustration, get a NORMAL ECHO DOT and enjoy the music that Prime offers and let your kid sing his/her heart out to we will we will ROCK YOU! :)

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Stephanie

From my 6 year olds point of view it’s ok

Reviewed in the United States on May 12, 2019

Reviewed in the United States on May 11, 2018

Verified Purchase

Arrived on the date specified. I had already set my 5 year old Grand up with a dot. She lives across the country and I liked that she could 'drop in' on my Echo whenever she wanted easily. She fell in love with Alexa and had so much fun with it. Then this kids edition came out. It is easy to use, like her previous dot. But it's red, her favorite color. And has a sturdy padded type cover. The fact that it is geared for a five year old specifically is great. The free subscriptions are also great. This dot gets lots of use. Alexa has become her buddy when she's in her playroom. I like that I can check my Alexa app and see what she's up to at any time. And her mom is pleased with the parental controls. And the fact that she can drop in on little ones playroom to give instructions, call to dinner, etc. I think she has more confidence in knowing she can contact me anytime just by asking Dot to drop in. Being across country, it brings us closer and gives her the control to call me anytime. I'm more than pleased.

57 people found this helpful

Helpful

ReviewTime

This thing needs some post release development efforts ASAP. Steer clear for preschoolers..

Reviewed in the United States on June 14, 2018

Verified Purchase

I regretfully have to award this product 2 stars...

Let me start off by saying I LOVE my original Echo and Echo Dot, and I am knee deep in smart home tech so I am by no means a novice when it comes to this stuff. I was on the original pre-order for the first launch of the Echo and have been an avid supporter ever since. We have Fire TVs, Kindles, Kindle Fires, etc...

So when Amazon announced a Kid's Edition Echo Dot, I was ecstatic to get my 3.5yr old daughter her "Very own Alexa"

What a disappointment, I've been messing with this thing a better part of 4 hours and can't even get it to stop playing "Hoochie Coochie Man - Muddy Waters" any time my daughter asks it to "play music". Why would you not default to children's music??? Why are you pulling from my library, how do I make this stop? Out of all the Amazon devices I've purchased, I expected this one to be a breeze however this is the most convoluted mess I've encountered. I finally forced it into opening "iHeartRadio Family" and it immediately started playing "Nick Radio" blaring "Monster" by Eminem. I get it, it's edited i'm not an overprotective parent but seriously? Where are preschooler songs? I set the age to 2-3 on the app, do SOMETHING that is catered to that age range (I am fully aware that Amazon does not control what iHeartRadio chooses to broadcast on their "kids" stations, my issue is the fact that it defaulted to a broader age range station rather than something actually for my preschooler daughter).

Here is an example of one of the most simple of requests:
Me: "Alexa, play kids music"
Echo Dot Kids Edition: "I'm sorry, I cant find any kids songs"

O__o Wat? What would you say... you do here Echo Dot Kids Edition?

Everything is excessively complicated, it either needs excessive context and extra steps for everything or it'll provide no feedback when commands are accepted so I or my daughter never know whats actually going on. See how asking to be told a story went...

Daughter: "Alexa, tell me a story"
Echo Dot Kid's Edition: "The family all jumped in the car, the girl had a snake in a cup, the dad slammed the breaks and veered off the road"

I can't even figure out what story this is, I ask Alexa "What story is this?" she begins to define WHAT a story is WHILE the story is still being told in the background of Alexa's response. I resort to the app finally to discover the story is called "The New Pet", how is this kid friendly?

I really should have tried this out BEFORE giving it to my daughter, now I can't get rid of it because I'd feel terrible taking it away.

Honestly you guys, this thing is a nightmare. The only reason why I gave it 2 stars is because at the end of the day it still is an Echo device and as I said before, I love our Echoes just think the whole kid edition is a joke in its current state.

What's even crazier is that I can't remember if I have ever left a review on anything I've ever bought on Amazon (That's a LOT of things we are talking about) but this is such a disappointing mess that I wanted to help others avoid the frustration I'm now going through. Give it a year for this to get fixed and maybe they can update it into something friendly for preschoolers.

2,458 people found this helpful

Helpful

Carolina S

Good and bad

Reviewed in the United States on April 28, 2020

Verified Purchase

Our family use a lot of Amazon service, so naturally when we are moving toward smart home we chose Amazon Alexa.
We already bought 3 generations of Kindle, Kindle paper, Kindle tablet, and Kindle fire kids edition.
This time we bought 3 Echo dot Kids edition, and 2 of the 3rd gen Echo dot.
Good:
Easy to use, even my 4 yrs old daughter can interact with Alexa easily.
The small size make it easy to put away especially in our messy kids room.
The kids edition has great color choice
Come with 1 yr Amazon Free time
Bad:
We bought 3 Echo kids, and each amazon free time can be used on all devices, but even tho we have 3 eligible devices, it's only for 1 yr not 3 yrs. I feel cheated a bit, and asking the reps exactly what's the term and condition did not help at all. They don't really know exactly the term and condition
Voice recognition still needs to be improved, Alexa sometimes does not recognize her name, and sometimes responding eventho we did not call her, and also not recognizing the questions

Creating new skills or routine is confusing. I was expecting Alexa can help me to go through the process but nope
Alexa knowledge is very limited. there are a lot of things that Alexa is not aware of ( I don't recall specifically at this time)
Later on we bought several smart appliances, such as irrigation system, power plug, smart light bulb, smart light switch, AC/Heating unit controller.
Took a bit tweaking to connect to the irrigation system, but there rest of the appliances we bought are very easy to connect and very reliable. We can even control our house temperature while we were in overseas for 7 weeks.
I also can easily interact with my purchases with Amazon.
Would I buy it again? yup. but I am not going to buy that many echo. Works well for the kids room, but for us, we would like to get 1 alexa device and 1 google home.

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