Just How Handy Is Amazon’s Echo?

I know what you’re thinking…how useful is this little gadget? It’s basically just another voice-activated doohickey to clutter up your bookshelf and therefore your life, right?

Not so fast. Echo not only comes with built-in functionalities that are intended to make life easier for the user, but also comes with additional features that can help you streamline your home, your workspace, and your life. Sure, it comes across as just another Amazon product designed to help you instantly buy more products from Amazon, but if you play your cards right–and really make friends with it–it has a lot of potential.

Bluetooth speaker

Image 2 of 6

While Echo will play anything in your Amazon playlist or your Prime Music membership, it can also play your internet radio subscriptions. But you can also enable Echo as a bluetooth speaker, although you lose out on the functionality of just commanding Echo to do its thing...you have to control the media through your smartphone if you're using Echo as a speaker. This would be incredibly handy for playing an audiobook, or playing a streaming video from your phone.