Find the best smart speakers (member content) with our latest review, including which ones are the best to recognise voice commands, connected services, sound quality and more. We also have a smart speaker buying guide to find out more about these products and what to expectwhen installing them in your home.
Have a question about smart speakers? Leave a comment below.
Well, more about my Bluetooth speaker that keeps me entertained in the morning during my ablutions. It’s a Photive water-resistant speaker, but I am wondering how good the water resistance is likely to be after I dropped it onto the tiles from about 6 feet up. It still works, but rattles.
Should I consider ordering a replacement sooner rather than later?
On the subject of smart speakers, I have no intention of allowing yet another device into my home whose main purpose is to listen to everything I say (gotta hear that ‘wake-up’ catch-phrase).
For anyone who uses one of these devices to listen to comments on the Choice Community…
Okay Google, what is the meaning of this thread?
Alexa, order me 200 rolls of toilet paper
Okay Siri, why am I doing this?
It’s hard to say without inspecting the device, but it’s possible that dropping the speaker could have introduced a fault that would effect the resistancy to water. If we’re talking a bit of steam, you might want to chance it but if you’re taking the speaker into the pool or something like that, then I’d be more inclined to budget for a new one sometime in the near future.
This gave me a chuckle. Recently, there was a South Park episode that caused some chaos along these lines.
20 posts were merged into an existing topic: Privacy, Smart Devices, their T&Cs, CHOICE testing & reviews of them
Find out what CHOICE staff think about smart speakers, the pros and cons:
A further concern over the security of Smart Speakers from Google & Amazon
Not nice. I was considering an Echo for a while, no way after reading that article. So I shall remain smart speakerless.
We review the Amazon Echo Dot:
Anything on privacy?
Standalone to me means it doesn’t need Internet but I think in the review it meant it didn’t need wires to connect to the Internet.
It’s Amazon - good luck with privacy.
You got my hint 
Perhaps a link to that should be in the online articles about any Smart device CHOICE reviews?
It might apply the necessary blinkers when the device’s dazzle would otherwise blind a user to the issues 
Something along the lines of “We recommend that before considering purchasing or using the device (generic name which could be replaced by the reviewed device’s name) that you read this article on security and privacy tips for smart gadgets.”
or replacing “the device (generic name which could be replaced by the reviewed device’s name)” with “any Smart Device”
The most important tip there is “don’t connect IoT devices to the same network as everything else”.
It appears that most IoT devices (like most computing devices) have security flaws, and most IoT devices are updated irregularly if ever. If someone is able to break into your smart doorbell, you don’t want them moving from that to your phone, your computer, your printer…
