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.