Amazon Echo (2017) review: better-looking than the original and less expensive at $99, with comparable sound quality; addition of an aux output is handy
Review Sections — Review — CNET - Appliances - Smart Home - Amazon Echo (2017) — Three years after the debut of the original …
Context & Ripple Effects
CNET's verdict lands weeks after Amazon's September relaunch of the Echo — smaller cloth-wrapped body, multiple colors, improved speakers, and a $99 single-unit price or $250 for a three-pack — confirming the redesign holds up in practice: comparable sound to the original, plus an aux output the first model lacked.
The price cut is the real story. Earlier in 2017 Amazon had pushed upmarket with the $230 Echo Show, adding a screen to the line; dropping the flagship speaker below $100 within months signals the opposite strategy on audio-only units — sell the hub near cost and widen the installed base.
First-order effects
- Buyers get a cheaper, better-looking Echo whose new aux output lets them wire it into existing speakers, blurring the line between smart speaker and dumb-speaker accessory.
- Original-Echo owners who paid $180 three years ago now see a superior replacement at nearly half the price, pressuring Amazon to justify future premium tiers.
Second-order effects
- Google Home, the only other mainstream voice platform named in this coverage, faces a sub-$100 rival bundled as a three-pack for $250 — making multi-room audio a household-scale purchase decision rather than a single-device one.
- The aux output turns home-audio brands' passive speakers into Alexa endpoints without their cooperation, letting Amazon route around partner hardware.
Third-order effects
- If hardware keeps deflating — the line later stretches from this $99 unit down to a $40 Echo Pop by 2023 — Amazon's economics rest on what runs through the device: voice re-purchase, Hue and WeMo control, music accounts, transit data — services already documented in its feature rollouts.
- The pattern points to smart speakers as commodity plumbing, with differentiation migrating to screens (the Show lineage) and to the Alexa service layer rather than speaker quality itself.
The trend: Smart speakers are commoditizing fast, with Amazon pricing the hub near cost so revenue shifts to Alexa services and the growing installed base.