Best Alexa speaker: Top Amazon Echo alternatives

If you’re in the market for a smart speaker, choosing one with Amazon Alexa built in is a wise move. It’s a hugely established voice assistant, that can control all manner of smart home products, answer questions you may have and play the music you request.

While Amazon’s Echo devices might be a good place to start your research, they aren’t the only speakers that offer Alexa capabiliies. In fact, more and more third-party manufacturers are adding Alexa to their products, giving you more choice that ever when looking for the best Alexa speaker.

While we won’t cover Amazon’s own devices here – you can read about them all in our Echo speaker versus feature – below you can find out pick of the best Amazon Echo alternatives. Of course, if you’re after Google Assistant speakers, we have a feature on those too.

Our Top Picks: Best Alexa Speaker

Sonos Era 100

1. Best Alexa speaker overall

The Sonos Era 100 takes everything it learnt from the Sonos One that it replaces and has given it a make-over, both internally and externally for one seriously impressive little speaker.

Pros

• Fantastic sound quality
• Lovely design
• Excellent features

Cons

• Lacks spatial audio support
• Expensive

With the Sonos Era 100, and its larger sibling the Era 300, Sonos has turned a new page for its smart speakers, retiring the popular Sonos One in the process.

Considering how much we loved the Sonos One, the Era 100 had big shoes to fill for us to be happy with it as a replacement – but it did all that and then some. Not only has it had a design refinement that makes it look even nicer on the outside, on the inside there has been plenty of work too.

This includes Bluetooth capabilities, new controls and line-in functionality. But most of all, it sounds fantastic and builds considerably on the performance of the speaker it replaces – so much so that we can forgive Sonos for replacing the excellent Sonos One.

Bang and Olufsen Beosound A1

2. Best Alexa speaker for portability

A top miniature speaker that’s discreetly able to deliver top sound.

Pros

• Stylish design
• Great sound
• Good bass for its size

Cons

• No 3.5mm jack
• No waterproofing
• Expensive

Bang & Olufsen has refined an already impressive speaker with this refresher of its diminutive but powerful A1 wireless speaker. One of the key additions is built-in Alexa support, making it a smarter speaker than ever before.

Elsewhere, though, you get superb sound and a really distinctive and classy design, plus the build quality that B&O is known for. It’s got to be one of the best looking portable speakers we’ve ever seen.

It’s by no means the best bit of value on this list or the wider market, but if you’re looking for a high-class mini speaker and you have the budget for it, it’s a superb pick.

UE Megablast

3. Best Alexa speaker for durability

A more budget-friendly portable speaker that delivers big sound from its bold base.

Pros

• Solid build with waterproofing
• Great battery life

Cons

• No Alexa calling or multi-room grouping

Ultimate Ears may have discontinued it officially, but the Megablast (and smaller Blast), is a small portable speaker that offers always-on Alexa voice-control, that’s always listening out for your voice. The only caveat is that you need a Wi-Fi connection for that to work, so the Alexa functionality is confined to places where you can get the speaker online.

Of course, being a dedicated speaker first and foremost, the UE Megablast sounds fantastic while also being perfectly portable and waterproof. So while Alexa won’t work outside your Wi-Fi connection, you can still make use of the Megablast’s Bluetooth connection outside of the home if you want to.

While Ultimate Ears doesn’t list it as part of its range anymore, you can still find both speakers available to buy while stocks last.

Sonos Move

4. Best Alexa speaker for big portable sound

There are other great portable Bluetooth speakers out there – including Sonos’ own Roam that is far smaller and better designed for constant portability – but there are none quite like the Sonos Move in terms of sound output and features, especially not for those already invested in the Sonos system.

Pros

• Clever and convenient design
• Awesome sound
• Great features

Sonos took a leap into the future (or the present, if you prefer) by finally releasing a portable speaker towards the end of 2019, and the Sonos Move is a seriously impressive bit of kit. Offering that textbook Sonos sound balance and great volume, even when you’re outside, it’s a brilliantly versatile Bluetooth speaker.

When you’re at home, though, you can dock the speaker and have it connect to your home Wi-Fi to become a really capable smart speaker, with Alexa compatibility built in. It’s arguably the best of both worlds, although it does have a pretty hefty price tag to go with it.

Bose Home Speaker 500

5. Best Alexa speaker for features

It might not be the newest speaker, but this beautiful Bose number is an absolute powerhouse.

Pros

• Wide soundstage
• Great features
• Multi-room compatible

The Bose Home Speaker 500 certainly looks the part, as we’ve come to expect from Bose design, particularly with the colour display on the front, which is quite a unique feature for smart speakers.

It’s stacked with features too, including Chromecast and AirPlay 2 support, Spotify Connect and the option to use both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. It also supports Amazon’s multi-room platform, allowing you to group this speaker with other Alexa speakers.

The Home Speaker 500 has eight mic arrays to make sure it hears your Alexa (and Google Assistant, should you wish) commands clearly, and it sounds great too.

How did we choose the best Alexa speakers?

The Pocket-lint editorial team spends hours testing and researching hundreds of products before recommending our best picks for you.

We consider a range of factors when it comes to putting together our best guides, including testing and living with the products ourselves, as well as consumer reviews, brand quality, and value.

FAQ

Q: How do we test the best Alexa speakers?

Every product we review we use in real life situations as you would use it in your day-to-day life. We aren’t interested in pointless number crunching or providing you overly long reviews, but easy to read, and more importantly, easy to understand reviews that give you an idea of what it’s going to be like to use it.

We’ve been covering tech since 2003 and in many cases have not only reviewed the product in question, but the previous generation before that, and before that – right back to the first model on the market. We’ve got the context to know if a product is good and if it’s worth your money.

We consider three main things when reviewing products:

• Ease of use – it is easy to setup, and are the instructions to clear enough so even someone with no experience could get it set up themselves?
• Features – is the feature set good and how does it compare to other products at its price?
• Performance – how does it perform, and how does it sit in its category?

We like to embrace the tech in our lives putting products through real-life situations rather than a lab and this approach is at the core of everything we strive to do at Pocket-lint.

Q: How should you choose the best Alexa speaker for you?

When choosing the best Alexa speaker, you’ll need to consider your budget and what it is you’re wanting the speaker to do. If it is just a straight up smart speaker you’re wanting, then choosing one of Amazon’s products may be a better choice, since they’re affordable, easy to use and have superb Alexa integration and functionality.

However, where the best Echo alternatives come into their own is sound quality and feature set. Echo speakers sound better than ever but there’s no doubt that some of the speakers in this list sound considerably better – usually with the price tag to match. So you’ll need to balance those two factors out. They may also include other voice assistants and additional ways to connect, such as AirPlay 2 or Chromecast.