Amazon Echo Dot Kids (newest model) – Designed for kids, with Alexa+ Early Access, parental controls, Includes 1 Year of Amazon Kids+, Stardust

Both my son and I love it
I bought this for my son for Christmas three years ago and he uses it daily. I like the parental controls and he likes something that will read him a story, tell jokes and use as a timer. We also use it as an alarm in the morning and we both enjoy the morning routine with Tyler. He can also call me on it now that he is staying home alone for short periods of time. You can also set it up to call 911 in an emergency if you aren’t ready for your child to have a phone. We have an Echo in every room of the house so we call his Amazon instead of and he set the voice to Australian. The owl design is super cute, the perfect size and it has great sound quality. I highly recommend the Echo dot for kids. On rare days when we have an Internet outage my son gets quite upset that he can’t use it. Even when this isn’t on sale it’s an excellent value, I highly recommend this device for kids!

Cute, and good value, but not the best sound
First of all, if you don’t have Amazon Kids subscription and want it, then buying this and getting a year free as a bundle is absolutely worth it. Especially look for deals during Prime Day / Holiday season.Next — the device works just like a regular echo dot. I think it’s essentially an echo dot with a kids friendly cover. I’ve got echo dots generation 2 and 3 (the hockey puck and the fatter hockey puck). Due to the cover on this device, the sound is more muffled and subdued than the other ones. Honestly, the gen 3 echo dot is probably the best sounding echo dot in my house.The reduced sound quality is why I rated it at 4 stars. It’s fine for kids. You also have a variety of kid friendly voices to choose from. The default one was kinda shrill, and changing it in the Amazon Alexa app into a voice I found more pleasing was very straightforward.Overall – buy if you have a kid and want the Amazon Kids subscription. That makes it a fantastic value. If you don’t have a kid, and want a cute speaker, that’s OK too. Unsure if the comparable echo dot gen 4s have better sound quality.

Surprisingly loud speaker and fun theme
I just recently purchased this for my son’s 6th birthday to help him have an option for audiobooks, alarm clock, and listening to music and he LOVES it! He greets Alexa every time he gets home and says goodnight to her and gets a bedtime story from her while he waits for me to come read to him and tuck him in. We have successfully added a few Alexa skills (including Big Fart which MAY have been a mistake on my part) and so far they seem to work pretty well.Pros:- Cute dragon theme and image (Alexa introduces herself and says she likes to pretend she is a dragon and has a kid-friendly voice character)- Optional additional Dragon Egg Cradle (have not personally purchased yet but am tempted)- Great resource to allow kids access to audiobooks and learning materials with parental controls through the parent dashboard- 1 year free subscription to Amazon Kids+ which is a great deal if you have an amazon kids tablet already (same price as you already pay for a year and an echo dot? Yes please!)- An avenue for little ones to ask some of their random questions to someone other than overloaded parents- Many cool Alexa skills from independent companies (Math practice games? Yes! Talk to Pikachu? Yes!)- Alarm clock, speaker, nightlight and more in one!Cons:- Alexa can sometimes get very confused. This can be frustrating for anyone, but especially for little ones with little tolerance for the pitfalls of technology. Sometimes she doesn’t hear you correctly and says she can’t do something they know she can do. Sometimes she starts playing music while doing another skill and the speaker just can’t take it. Sometimes she just plain doesn’t listen the first 10 times you try and ask. It’s…….. frustrating and stressful when this happens to say the least. Teach your little one how to reset Alexa if this happens so they can feel in control instead of having a meltdown or running out screaming over her.- Not all of the Alexa skills work quite how they are meant to and will totally mess Alexa up and require a reset and removal of the skill entirely.- Alexa has very specific commands and these can be hard to remember sometimes. Consider writing out or typing up a list of the most common commands for little ones to help them remember the right order of words.- The Echo dot can get surprisingly loud and when you ask Alexa to turn down the volume it is in very small increments so you will need to do it manually if they have somehow turned it up to blasting.- After Alexa’s bedtime has hit she will not respond to any commands or be able to use any skills. This includes asking her to stop playing something she already was, using a nightlight skill, or setting an alarm. The only option you have after her off time is to manually reset it so she goes quiet. The timer options are awesome tools to keep little ones from turning her on and playing with her instead of going to bed, but does restrict some of the bedtime options you could have like the nightlight.Overall, we have loved our experience with this product so far and it has only been in use for about a week (but pretty constantly). We’ll see how this holds up over time!