Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

As a long-time user of many Echos and Echo Dots, and a long-time user of Insteon Smarthome lighting stuff from within the Alexa ecosystem, I was anxious to get my hands on the new Echo Plus with built-in Zigbee hub. Here is my review so far after checking it out for a few days. I bought the kit with the single Philips Hue White bulb, so that's all I was testing it with. This is mostly a review of both the Echo Plus *and* the bulb, since most everyone knows how awesome a basic Echo is by now... Some good stuff: -- there is no 3rd party smartphone app needed for the light. All the initial config, and subsequent management, takes place through the Alexa app on your phone. -- Initial config was mind-blowingly simple. I screwed in the light so it was powered up, and told the Alexa app to discover devices. It came back and said "Found New Bulb 1" and that was that. After that, I could rename it, adjust it, turn it off and on, etc. via the Alexa app. -- Voice control was a no-brainer. On/off, set to X%, etc. Brighten/Dim also worked but seemed to jump by pretty large steps, like 50% to 75% as far as I could tell. -- You can definitely create "groups" of lights. -- You can definitely create lighting schedules through the "Routines" in the Alexa app (which, by the way, could also be programmed to start/stop music at certain times?! Did not know that.) -- You can definitely use the Alexa app to check status & control the lights even when away from home. -- Because it's Zigbee, and unlike setting up Wifi bulbs such as the TP-Link bulbs, initial config doesn't require "breaking" the current wifi connection. That makes it easier for me to remote-control or remotely view the smartphone screens of my friends and family to help troubleshoot their lighting setups remotely. -- The affordable white Philips Hue "60 watt" bulb that came with my purchase is a great bulb, with virtual 360 degree light shine and a pleasant, warm-type of glow. I mean it really looks white, not amber or anything, don't get me wrong, but it is very pleasant, smooth white light. Now for a few caveats... -- The "Routines" in the Alexa app only recognize time of day as a trigger -- not, say, sunrise or sunset. Hopefully they will enhance this in the near future because OBVIOUSLY we'd like to set lighting schedules by sunrise/sunset (as well as sunset minus X minutes, etc). -- The light bulb, being dimmable, doesn't work quite so well if it's also attached to a dimmer. I put mine in a torchiere light that has a dimmer (all the way up, of course) and the bulb looks fine & normal at full or near-full intensity, but had a slight, annoying flicker at lower intensities. This is to be expected, I guess, since most dimmers screw with the power transmission "downstream" a bit, even when on 100%. NOTE: If the bulb is in a NORMAL on/off lamp with NO dimmer, there is NO flickering problem at all. --The light bulb remembers its last intensity when you turn it back on. Although this is generally a good thing, there is a downside: If the last intensity was 100%, and you say "Alexa, set Bulb 1 to 20%", the bulb will (very briefly) come on at 100% before quickly readjusting to the requested 20%. Slightly annoying but by no means a showstopper. -- The bulb is not infinitely dimmable; it bottoms out at about 2-3%, for a level that I would say is a bright nightlight. So, there's no going down to pure candlelight levels. -- White bulbs are quite affordable. However Philips Hue full-color bulbs are crazy expensive; hope they will drop in price soon. Didn't have a full-color bulb to play with so I can't confirm how well the Alexa app controls the hue changes. And now for some NON-SMARTHOME observations: -- Although sound quality is supposed to be better on the Echo Plus than the Echo, to my ears they sound very similar so don't expect to hear too much improvement, if any. I could maybe tell a bit better treble presence. I'm not a heavy bass guy so I don't know if it handles deep bass better. On the music I normally listen to, I did an A/B test and really couldn't discern an improvement worth noting. Of much greater importance to the sound is where you place it -- I have an Echo next to a hollow drywall wall, and it sounds WAY huger (due to the sympathetic vibrations/resonance) than another Echo that is next to a cement block wall. -- Major disappointment, which is why I'm giving it four stars instead of five: The new AUX port is pretty stupid, in that when you plug something into it, it disables the internal speaker. To me, whether we wanted the internal speaker disabled should've been controllable via an app setting. I looked, and could find no such app setting. What I was hoping to do was plug it into my stereo, but still use the internal speaker when the stereo was off. WELL TOO BAD, NO DICE. In addition to turning the stereo on & off manually, I would also have to plug & unplug the AUX cable manually. That's just dumb. Essentially, using the AUX port turns this pricey device into a glorified "Dot"... what's the point? I'd be better off using a separate Dot connected to my stereo. Perhaps this is fixable in a firmware upgrade? That's it. Short version: Absolutely DO get the Echo Plus if you want to get started with Zigbee-style smarthome stuff and don't want to mess with a separate hub and separate smartphone app -- it should work great!!!