Eufy Genie
R999.00 – R1,649.00
Eufy Genie is a voice-controlled smart speaker with Amazon’s intelligent Alexa voice assistant. Just say the wake word “Alexa” and Genie plays music, controls your smart home devices, answers your questions, sets calendars, reports the weather and news and more.(2.4GHz Wi-Fi Network Support Only, No Bluetooth) If you have more than one Eufy Genie or Echo in your home, Spatial Perception Technology intelligently selects the Eufy Genie or Echo closest to you to answer your request.
Notice: This Product is not available in South Africa at this time. If you would like to see this product sold on this site in the future please make an enquiry below.
Notice: This Product is not available in South Africa at this time. If you would like to see this product sold on this site in the future please make an enquiry above.
Introduction
The $49 Echo Dot is already a pretty inexpensive way to get Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant into your house, but the Eufy Genie looks to undercut even that low price. Available for just $35, it’s nearly the same size as the Dot, and performs nearly all the same functions. So, is the money you save worth it?
Design
At 3.5 inches across, the Eufy Genie is about the same diameter as the Echo Dot (3.3 inches), but about a third taller—1.9 inches, as opposed to the Dot’s 1.3 inches. The Genie also has beveled sides, so that the base is a bit wider than the top. It’s enveloped by matte black plastic, and is nearly as nondescript as the Dot.
Similar to the Dot, the Genie has a light ring that fills in based on how high you have the volume set; on the Dot, the ring wraps around the circumference of the Dot, but on the Genie, it’s inset, just around the Eufy logo in the center.
Built with a 2W speaker that delivers dynamic audio and room-filling sound, so you can truly enjoy your favorite playlists from streaming services like Spotify, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Pandora and iHeartRadio.
Enables a true voice-controlled smart home experience. Use Genie to control all Alexa-compatible Eufy smart products, such as RoboVac 11c and Lumos LED Smart Bulbs, in addition to other brands that work with Alexa.
Easy setup with the free EufyHome app. Use the Amazon Alexa app to access 10000+ skills and services, such as Sirius XM, Domino’s Pizza, Uber, ESPN, NPR News, and much more. Plus, Genie is always getting smarter. Future updates include: Alexa messaging and calling. (EufyHome requires a smartphone or tablet running iOS 8.0 (and above) or Android 4.3 (and above) to operate.)
What You Get: Eufy Genie, AC power adapter (5ft/1.5m), AUX cable (5ft/1.5m), user manual, safety instruction card, our worry-free 12-month warranty and lifetime technical support.
Microphone Performance
Compared with the Dot, which has seven microphones to pick up your voice, the Genie has just two. However, it uses technology from Synaptics, which claims that it can match the Dot’s far-field performance. In reality, though, I found the Dot’s microphones to be more sensitive than the Genie.
When neither of these miniature smart speakers were playing music, they both picked up my voice when I was speaking in a conversational tone from about 10 feet away. Once I started playing music, I found I had to raise my voice for the Genie to hear me. With the Dot, I could maintain my conversational volume.
Audio Quality
The speaker in the Genie is a marked improvement over that in the Echo Dot, but you’ll still want something more full-fledged, like the Echo or a Bluetooth speaker, if you want to use Alexa to DJ for your next party.
Whereas the Echo Dot sounded like a cheap AM radio, the Genie’s 2-watt speaker could pass for a pretty good clock radio. When I played “Sweet Child of Mine” on both devices, the Dot lacked any sort of bass and was scratchy; on the Genie, bass was a bit fuller, as were higher tones. Still, vocals sounded on the tinny side; John Mellencamp’s voice sounded more strained than usual in “Jack & Diane.”
Conclusion
The Genie is part of Eufy’s advance guard into the smart-home space (it also makes a robot vacuum and a smart bulb), and if this low-cost Alexa device is any indication, it could spell trouble for those with pricier products. While its microphone array isn’t as good as the Dot’s, for $15 less, who cares? I might be inclined to wait for the Bluetooth version, but this Genie is a pretty good bargain already.