Echo Wall Clock—see timers at a glance; requires compatible Echo device

I must admit I am a bit of a smart-home-aholic. My biggest gripe is that I haven't got enough things I can make smart! So, when looking for a new clock, I had spent hours looking for the right one. Too big, too small, too expensive, cheap-looking, too glitzy, too childish, not the right colour - the reasons why were endless. Then I stumbled across the Echo clock. I was quite surprised that I didn't know about this earlier to be honest but I can't say as it was well advertised. We are always using our Alexa's to set alarms & timers - the whole house runs on timers from cooking to carrying out water tests, so this seemed like a natural fit. Now I don't have to keep asking "Alexa - how long is left on my timer" as I can see it on the wall. I don't have to worry about trying to dig out my phone whilst doing stuff to try and set a timer or alarm, as I can simply say to my dot in the kitchen "Set a timer for 45 minutes" and away it goes but now with a visual companion. Now, I noticed a few other people in their reviews complained about having to cancel the timer using the device it was set on - yesterday however I was in the lounge when the timer ran out & was going off in the kitchen, so I shouted, expecting the one in the lounge to pipe up that there was no alarm set & the one in the kitchen to hear me (and hopefully get it right) but instead the one in the lounge responded: "timer stopped on kitchen dot"! Well - that was a pleasant surprise since now I don't have to go into the kitchen to shut it up. I'm not entirely sure how I've done it but it seems like the kitchen & the lounge echos seem to be in unison, since when I am playing music through the kitchen dot & speak to the one in the living room, the dot lowers the volume as if it's listening to me as well. I can't say as I noticed this before I added the clock, so no idea if I have somehow triggered something in the settings, but so far it's not caused any concerns or problems. So, the clock is easy enough to set up. I ended up having to disconnect it from one dot & set it up with another, as since we painted the kitchen the other half decided that he didn't want a black dot in the kitchen, so bought a white one - which meant I had to unpair the clock & set it up again on the new echo dot. It was simple & easy & literally just a case of going into the Alexa app & unpairing it & then repairing it with the new one. Easy & took me minutes to achieve. It keeps time perfectly, the timer is nice that I can see if from the other room as I can go do other stuff & then when it gets to the last 60 seconds and the whole face lights up it tends to catch my attention anyway so I know to be ready to go tend to whatever it was that I set the timer for. It was happily running 5 simultaneous timers for me last night so I knew when to go turn something, shake something, put something else in or switch something else on - it handled all perfectly & I could see everything in one place so I knew how much time I'd got to get other jobs in between tending to the dinner and also means now the other half has a visual count down of when to turn the Xbox off, get the cutlery, sauces & tv set up ready for dinner being served - brilliant. I also noticed a cool little feature which is that the little light above the 6 which indicates battery etc flashes yellow when I have a notification come in. And I'm also not sure what triggered it but something happened which caused the whole face to light up & flash, but since I was walking into the room when it happened I have yet to work out the trigger - but it was a cool effect, like the clock lit up from the bottom upwards & then downwards again in a sweeping motion, then flashed before going back to normal. This was clearly a visual effect in response to something and not some random glitch, it's just a shame I don't know as yet what it means since there is nothing about it online or in the manual, but it was cool none the less. I know some people have been complaining about the clock being plastic & having no cover etc but you know what - when it's on the wall it really does not matter since you can't really tell. It's one thing less to get covered in dust or marks & also the plastic keeps it lightweight. Once it was up on the wall, to look at it you would never know - I've paid far more for other "cover-less" clocks in the past & this one looks just like a modern clock. When it's just telling the time, you wouldn't know it was a smart clock yet the magic happens when you set a timer - and that's pretty much what I wanted - something smart, minimalistic & conventional to use in my kitchen that also fits the colour scheme. Given my kitchen it grey & white, it is perfect. I'm sure there will be more coming from the Amazon team & there will no doubt be some updated version joining the family in the future, but currently, this meets my needs & has the added bonus of I haven't got to worry about getting it down to amend the time when the clocks change twice a year, worrying about it losing time and also it gives me a visual of all my timers. I'm super happy with mine & think it was worth every penny. Looking forward to plenty more days of using my timers with my echo timer-support clock

This clock is great, the design is simple and understated. The added smart functionality may not seem exciting to many but works very well and in an unintrusive way. Sure, this isn't a flashy piece of high technology which will revolutionise your life, but it does represent a simple progressive innovation which is genuinely useful. In fact, this is exactly the sort of device which Amazon should be producing, something that takes a common everyday object and asks how it can be tweaked and improved in a meaningful way using today’s technology. Let's face it, clocks appear to have seen little innovation over recent years, since the 1980's quartz clocks have benefited little from the progress which has been made in other areas of technology. It is great to see Amazon turning their attention to a simple everyday object and improving it. This product is an analogue clock which is able to set the time itself by syncing with the internet (including making daylight saving adjustments automatically), I'm aware that radio clocks have been able to do this for some time, but that technology is not as widespread as might be expected. The clock has LED's at each minute point which give a visual indication of any timers that are running, as well as a countdown for the final 60 seconds of a timer. This might not seem particularly ground-breaking, but I use it everyday in the kitchen and find it a vast improvement over any kitchen timer or clock that I have used before. The price is not unreasonably higher than that of a similarly sized radio clock making this a very good deal. Some people have commented about battery life and indeed, this clock does use a lot of power - requiring 4 No. AA batteries. I find that I get just under a year out of a set of batteries, which on balance I believe to be acceptable. Some possible improvements which Amazon could consider for a future version: - It would be great to be able to use a Ring rechargeable instead of AA batteries, yes this would need likely need changing more regularly, but in the long-term I expect would save money and cut down on e-waste. It would also mean that when the doorbell battery runs down, you could swap it for the ring battery in your clock (I can live without a clock while waiting for the battery to charge but the doorbell must stay in service). - I wonder if Amazon could come up with a design which would allow the clock face to be swapped by users for different plastic inserts in order to allow people to customise the appearance of the clock. Amazon could then sell a number of different styles which users could easily swap between. This current design suits me well, but I am sure other people would have different preferences. - It would be great to have an option to show a different time zone, perhaps a more expensive version of the clock could incorporate an e-ink screen in the face which could say (for example) ‘London’ or ‘New York’. Potentially, the clock could be configured to cycle between time zones becoming a talking point and feature.

After reading some of these reviews it would be easy to be put off buying this clock. But I decided to buy one and evaluate it myself. I was prepared for a cheap nasty plastic clock, but whilst it is indeed made of plastic it really doesn't look cheap or nasty. It was really easy to set up with a simple voice command to a nearby speaker. Asking said speaker to set a reminder immediately sets up a string of LEDs around the clock face that then countdown. It looks great and it's incredibly useful in the kitchen. You can have multiple timers and the final minute of your countdown will illuminate the whole ring of LEDs and will display a cool pulse at the end. I no issues with supplied batteries, and initially reported connection issues when this product was launched seem to have been ironed out. It would've been nice to have a simple speaker built in and I would prefer there to be a front glass protecting the hands (a strange omission). It's slightly overpriced and I was convinced I would likely be returning it when I ordered it. But I am very pleased with it and happy to keep it. It's a cool gadget for Echo fans out there like me

Well, I looked at this clock for months & months - reading all the negative reviews you'd think this clock was rubbish...... well IMO it's not - it's really, really good at what it does. It is made of plastic . . . doesn't feel over expensive and does looka bit cheap - from the back - once it's up on the wall I think it looks quite minimal and good looking. Yes, it could do with a cover accross the face but ony time will tell if it gets mucky up there. It tells the time (obvs!) setting itself from the echo you connect it to. oh, setting it up was easy peasy too. So the time is always correct. . . . . like a radio controlled clock that would probably cost £20 odd anyway . . . Setting a time on your echo device (a show 8 in our kitchen) - the little bars around the clock light up, brighter on the total time and count down. When the timer is one minute all 60 light up and count down until the end and then they all flash 5 (I think) times. It a great visual aid if you use timers a lot - I do in the kitchen when cooking, bread making etc, so just a quick glance and you can see how much time left on each timer - you can set a lot at the same time! Much easier to see than the countdown on the Show 8's screen, but you can still ask Alexa how long and she'll tell you. It's been connected since Christmas day (pressi to myself) rock solidly - fit's above the utility room door perfectly and iI like it's nice, simple, clean looks . Very easy to read the time too. All in all I am very pleased I went ahead and brought one - wished I'd ignored all the bad reviews (wonder why those people actually brought it - it's clear what it does before purchase!) Only time will tell if it's reliable, but with Amazon's return policy, that's never been a problem anyway. Even the hubster likes it ( and he thinks we've overloaded with Alexa devices!)

Bought one of these for the kitchen as we wanted a simple but accurate wall clock and figured why not have the Echo timer display functionality as well seeing as we use those timers a lot. It was easy enough to set up (you push a button on the back and ask your Echo to hook it up) and it does do the 'telling the time' thing pretty well as I'm guessing it's getting its time info from the Echo it's associated with and corrects itself accordingly. The timer LED display works quite effectively, even with multiple timers going at once as it displays them all sequentially. It really is a useful 'at-a-glance' reference to the Echo's timers and particularly so if you set more than one. I've also bought a couple for the kid's bedrooms as I'm hoping it will help them to better manage their time doing stuff by being more able to visualise the time they have remaining. They seem to already be quite into it as the descending LEDs seem to grab their attention more so than the clock hands do. Downsides? Well... it really doesn't do any more than tell the time and show you a 'paired' Echo's timers, which is as advertised... but yet somehow, you feel it could or should be doing more, such as have a 'night time' or 'low light' clock mode (how about a single 'on' indicator representing the 'hour' and a single pulsing-every-second indicator for minutes perhaps?), or show you sleep timers that you've set (oddly, it can't do that), or even a facility to count upwards (like a stopwatch). Also, physically, it doesn't look or feel particularly like a thirty quid (at time of writing) wall clock, especially when you first get it out the box and there's no batteries in it (it feels a bit lightweight and brittle). That perception of quality is also not helped by the fact that it has exposed hands (no front encasing glass/plastic front cover - I guess because it has no manual adjuster) so it's best mounted well out of harms way or there's potential risk of them being knocked out of calibration or even off the clock altogether (you're actually warned about that one in the owner's manual). However, if like me, you can get past those apprehensions, I think you'd be pleased enough - as I am - with the Echo Wall Clock. Yes... it should do more as a connected Amazon Echo product but simply doesn't... but the two things it does do (tell the time - show Echo timers), it does do really well.

Revised: THIS IS TOTAL JUNK - IT EATS BATTERIES , ALL TYPES, IT IS BEYOND A JOKE, WE HAVE JUST HAD A THIRD SET RUN OUT AFTER LESS THAN 6 WEEKS WITH VIRTUALLY NO USE OF CLOCK'S FEATURES. USED THE BEST BATTERIES THIS TIME, NOT THE AMAZON OWN BRAND IT CAME WITH BUT "Energizer AA Batteries, Alkaline". REALLY THIS CLOCK SHOULD NOT BE SOLD BY AMAZON, IT IS NOT UP TO AMAZON'S OWN EXCELLENT STANDARDS. Original review below: It's cheap, but not much use. As a clock that tells the time it is fine but the lights around the dial to indicate you have set a timer are odd. e.g. if it's 3:15 and you ask for a timer of 15 minutes you would ( and EVERYONE in our office did ) expect the lights between 3.15 and 3.30 to light up. But no. the lights between 3:00 and 3:15 light up . It just looks odd. it also has a yellow dot that lights up when a notification from echo is available to have read out. So why the low rating Because it's pointless - it looks like a kitchen clock and would be great if it combined with an Echo in it but having to rely on a separate echo means, in my case, our Echo being in the lounge to control the lights and the clock being in the kitchen so can't set timers. timers would be great on the clock but not these odd rim ones, maybe 3 or 4 lcd timers counting down would be better. In a kitchen you often need more than one timer. it is also cheap looking ( and cheap to give it credit ) but cheap looking means it just looks crap. If I was amazon, i'd create one that was rechargable battey powered, have multiple addressable lcd timers, have a built in Echo and speaker good enough to play music and be made well. A design statement with real useful functionality.

I'm grateful to the reviewers who warned of poor quality, because my expectation was lowered, but once the clock was in my hands, I found myself quite satisfied given the price point. I use timers a lot, but even so I'm not sure I would have paid double for a "really nice" wall clock. In truth, from a distance the plastic housing and lack of "glass" front are unremarkable and it just looks like a standard wall clock. Within moments of being delivered, Amazon sent me an email offering instructions on how to set up (pair) the clock with my chosen Echo. In no time the two were paired and the time correctly set. I then set a few timers and all worked fine. The strange thing was that twice, having set timers and have them fire, the Echo reported when queried that it could not connect to the internet. The only thing I could do was pull the plug on the Echo and restart it each time. I don't know if it was downloading a firmware update to the clock perhaps, but it reported that there were no software updates for the Echo itself. Anyway, I left it with the mic muted overnight (which I understand forces a software update if available) and the loss of internet has not been repeated. Photo notes: 1) A ten-minute timer. Note the brighter LED at 10 past the hour. 2) A simultaneous 20-minute timer, LED brighter at 20 past the hour. 3) During the final 60 seconds of a timer, all lights illuminate and count down in seconds visually. Edit: 2nd October, 2019. Bought a second one of these clocks, so I have one in my office and one in the kitchen. I stand by my review, but there are improvements that could be made to this clock, such as alarms that don't count down like timers, but the LEDs do flash when an alarm goes off. One other thing that I would like is to be able to set a timer or alarm in another room. For example, say I'm in my office. There are Alexa devices dotted around my home, including the lounge. "Alexa, set a one-hour timer in lounge." Alexa will respond: "One hour, starting now." And the clock in my office will start counting down! She basically ignores the location where you want the event to take place. I'm sure this is fixable in firmware if enough people wanted it, but for now it can't be done. Other than the above points, I'm both very satisfied and use them every day. Edit: 25th October, 2019: New feature to me (or maybe I'd not tried previously?) is the ability to turn OFF an active timer / alarm from any Alexa device. E.g. timer / alarm is klaxoning in kitchen, and you are in lounge, you can say to Alexa in lounge: "Alexa, turn off timer in kitchen" and the kitchen alarm stops immediately. Handy. Edit: 5th December, 2019: When this was first released in the States, I understand that there was a disconnection problem between clock and paired Echo. Well, in the past few weeks I've had to re-pair my kitchen clock twice and this morning my office Echo Wall Clock suffered a similar fate. Tiresome. I hope this is addressed in a future update... Edit: 17th December, 2019: The clock in the office lost connection, i.e. wasn't displaying a timer. This was just after having alerted me to the previous timer alert. So I pulled the batteries out for ten minutes, and when I put the back in the clocks LED's lit up correctly and it did a self test (where the hands go round and round until it lands on the correct time). This proved easier than an unpair / repair of the clock to an Echo device, but *still* tiresome. The Software Versions of both my Wall Clocks remain at version 102. Edit: 11th March, 2020: I noticed a month or so ago that the ability to turn off a timer from another Echo from which it was set has been disabled. So the scenario I described in 25th October responds with "No timers are set." Annoying, when you can hear a timer screeching away in another room. :-( I guess they were testing the feature out last year and latterly removed it? As a positive, neither of my clocks have disconnected for ages.

This is a simple, modern looking wall clock gifted to my son at Christmastime. The timers are useful for my his homework etc. Displaying Time, setting timers & auto set-up from an Alexa device are basically the only features of this clock so don’t expect much else for your money. It’s a clock so what else should it do really?!?! I like the clock and more importantly my son does too. A back light for nighttime would be a nice addition to it! What I don’t like - 1) it will not pair easily from his Alexa Echo but it pairs via the Alexa App on his mobile. 2) it is EXTREMELY HARD ON BATTERIES - we are on our 3rd set of 4xAA batteries within 2 months. There is no warning that batteries are on low power so the whole setup needs done too many times for my liking. For this reason I would not this clock to other prospective buyers.