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Anker made a tiny Alexa speaker that’s like an Echo Dot but cheaper

Anker made a tiny Alexa speaker that’s like an Echo Dot but cheaper

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Anker Eufy Genie
Photo: Anker

If you own an Amazon Echo and want to get Alexa into more rooms of your house, your best bet has long been the tiny, $50 Echo Dot. But now the accessory company Anker taking on Amazon with a similarly tiny smart speaker with built-in Alexa that sells for only $35.

Anker’s speaker is called the Eufy Genie. And while that’s kind of a weird name, the product itself is pretty straightforward. It’s only slightly bigger than the Echo Dot, but Anker claims it’ll offer better audio and pretty much all the same features. So it’ll still be listening for you to ask questions or give Alexa commands, and it’ll be capable of doing all the things that Alexa is normally capable of, like ordering stuff, playing music, and controlling smart home gadgets.

Anker Eufy Genie
Photo: Anker

Whether it’s actually better or at least as good as the Echo Dot remains to be seen. The product is being announced today, but it doesn’t ship for another week, until August 16th. But if it manages to at least match the Echo Dot’s abilities, Anker has a good shot at winning over customers looking to put Alexa in another corner of their house.

The Eufy Genie has one additional feature that isn’t part of the typical Alexa repertoire, though it’s nothing too exciting: the Genie will also be able to connect with and control other Eufy-branded smart home products from Anker. There aren’t a ton of them yet, but Anker plans to release some lights and wall plugs in the next few weeks. But given the price of the Genie, you can assume they’ll be priced in a similarly aggressive manner.

Anker also plans to introduce a $40 version of the Eufy Genie that includes Bluetooth support, which might let it connect to external speakers for playing music. That’s something the Echo Dot can do, so the inclusion would help bring the Genie even closer to Amazon’s product.