Eufy Genie Smart Speaker Review: A Valuable Echo Spot Competitor

Amazon’s smart assistant Alexa currently owns the smart speaker market, the company’s own (pretty solid) line of smart speakers is selling like crazy, and a set of third-party smart speakers with Alexa built in. Eufy Genie (usually priced at Rs 3,999, currently Rs. 2,199) is one such third-party smart speaker that integrates Alexa in a profile that’s very similar to Amazon’s own Echo Dot. The Eufy Genie by Anker is usually priced lower than the Echo Dot (Rs. 4,499), which makes it an interesting option for potential smart speaker buyers. We recently got the Eufy Genie smart speaker in our office and I use it as my main smart speaker at home and leave my usual Echo Dot in another room. Here are my thoughts on the Eufy Genie smart speaker.

what’s in the box

The Eufy Genie comes in a beautiful white-blue box of the size you’d expect. When you open it, you will see Eufy Genie looking towards you. Here is everything inside the box:

• Eufy Genie smart speaker
• micro USB cable
• AUX cable
• USB adapter
• Manual

Basically, it’s a pretty standard box with standard contents. Lets continue.

Structure and Design

For a speaker that’s basically an Echo Dot competitor and often available for a much lower markup than the Echo Dot, the Eufy Genie is surprisingly well built and designed.

Instead of the Echo Dot’s boxy and, to be honest, rather poor design, Eufy Genie prefers a curvier design with smoother edgesand although it’s made of plastic, it’s a very nice plastic build. Not close to the plastic you’d find in the Home Mini (Rs. 4,099), but better than the Echo Dot’s plastic build. Top of Eufy Genie packs volume up/down button, action button and mute button, with a light ring encircling the ‘Eufy’ branding in the middle. The entire top of the Genie feels very well built and has a rubber feel that makes it so much better to handle.

There is two far-field microphones On the Eufy Genie (compared to the array of 7 far-field microphones on the Echo Dot) (positioned near the top) it allows it to cancel out surrounding noise and hear commands clearly. In the back, near the bottom, are two ports where you’ll get on the Genie. Is there a 3.5mm AUX port which you can use to connect Genie to external speakers (Bluetooth support is also available by the way), and a microUSB port to power the speaker.

Overall, the Eufy Genie is a pretty well-designed and well-built smart speaker, and for its price, it’s almost hard to find another smart speaker as well-designed and well-built as this cute, curved little smart speaker from Anker.

sound quality

In about half a year of using an Echo Dot at home, I’ve come to expect tinny sound from smart speakers this size. Yes, I was in shock when I first heard the sound from the Google Home Mini, but I chalked it up to ‘Google’ and while I’m still amazed at the sound output from that Home Mini whenever someone plays music, in the middle of the day, I don’t expect such sound from other speakers of a similar size. .

Where is this Eufy Genie surprised me. It comes from Anker and although they make some respectable accessories, I’ve never used Anker speakers and didn’t expect the sound from the Genie to be anything better than the Echo Dot. How wrong I was.

I wanted it to play ‘Closer by the Chainsmokers’ as soon as I finished installing the speaker, other than that for some reason I can’t quite get that song out of my mind. When the genie says ‘Playing Closer By Chain Smokers’ I turned the volume up to max and it’s fine…let me explain, Eufy Genie can be noisy. Seems really noisy for its size.

By the way, not just loud, Eufy Genie There is no shortage of bass, mid and treble sounds. Perfectly amazing sounding smart speaker for its size, and while it’s nowhere near the Google Home Mini, it’s miles beyond the sound the Echo Dot can produce.

To be thorough, I asked Genie to play a lot more songs. Everything from God’s Plan to John Denver classics, and the speaker covers it all nicely. I’m tempted to keep it with myself almost forever.

User experience

First off, when I say ‘user experience’ I mean only the experience of using the Eufy Genie as my main smart speaker. I’m not talking about the EufyHome app here. This is just a section devoted to what I find great in Eufy Genie and some things I should give a little detail about… more or less.

Setting up Eufy Genie is easy enough and doesn’t really take much time. Since it’s a third-party speaker, you can’t use the Alexa app to set it up, but It’s nice and breezy to set up with the EufyHome app.

The speaker’s halo isn’t as big as on the Echo Dot, and that’s something I really like. However, it’s just as bright as the Echo Dot and adds the ‘eufy’ branding that burns over the top and makes for a speaker that, while nice, can cause problems if you talk in the middle. of the night to change the setting or something else on your AC.

Then come the microphones themselves. While Anker was using far-field microphones on the Eufy Genie, I noticed this: they are not as responsive to my voice as the Echo Dot. In fact, I almost had to shout ‘Alexa’ to get the speaker to hear me while the music was playing. Even far away While Echo Dot has no problem even if I say the wake word casually, Eufy Genie takes real effort to start listening.

I also noticed something else that seems odd to me. When the genie hears my commands, it takes much longer to respond to them than the Echo Dot. I don’t know why this happens because they both use Alexa at the end of the day, but it’s definitely there and not because of the internet connection because my Echo Dot is connected to the same WiFi network. It’s not a dealbreaker, but it’s there for anyone like me who gets annoyed by the little things that are ‘first world issues’ more than anything else.

Alexa Skills

Since the Eufy Genie uses Alexa, it can do everything your regular Echo, Echo Dot or Echo Plus will do here in India. owner Access to all of the same Skills but you will need to activate them from the Alexa appbecause the EufyHome app doesn’t let you do that and whenever I come home it responds with the Alexa voice I’m used to saying ‘Alexa, I’m home’.

Not one to take things lightly, I tested the Eufy Genie’s abilities and, needless to say, it passed with flying colors. A flash briefing can present the match scores, give me random information that I don’t really know. need know but was still wondering and much more. I mean, It’s basically the Echo Dot, but it looks better, sounds better, and hears a little worse.

EufyHome App

Like I said, installing Eufy Genie only requires downloading the dedicated EufyHome app instead of the Alexa app. You’ll still need the Alexa app to enable Skills and get Eufy Genie to work with your smart home devices, but the basic setup is entirely in the EufyHome app.

The EufyHome app is actually a pretty well designed app and installing Eufy Genie is a simple task inside. Joyful just start the app, tap the ‘plus’ icon in the top right and select ‘Eufy Genie’ from the next screen.

Once you’ve done that, it’s a simple matter of logging in with your Amazon account to connect the Eufy Genie to your WiFi network and allow it to use Alexa. Keep in mind though, Echo Dot supports both 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks, while Eufy Genie only supports 2.4GHz networks. For the most part it shouldn’t make much of a difference, but if you’re trying to shift all your devices to the 5GHz frequency, the Eufy Genie isn’t the best for you. droid The smart speaker you’ve been looking for.

The pros and cons:

The Eufy Genie is definitely a pretty impressive budget smart speaker. However, it has its own pros and cons:

Pros:

• Nice design
• Impressive sound quality
• value for money

Cons:

• Microphones are not as sensitive as those on the Echo Dot

SEE ALSO: Google Home Mini Review: More Than It Looks

Eufy Genie Smart Speaker Review: Probably the Best Budget Smart Speaker

All things considered, the Eufy Genie smart speaker is probably the best budget smart speaker right now. It’s true that the Home Mini is better in many ways, but it’s also more expensive and the Echo Dot’s design is worse, it sounds worse, and it’s not as good as the Eufy Genie.

hour Rs. 2,199 (as of this writing), the Eufy Genie is definitely a smart speaker worth investigating. Pricing on Amazon fluctuates sometimes and you can see it priced around Rs. at 3,999; however, even then, this is a much better option when compared to the Amazon Echo Dot.