Overview

• Amazon is set to introduce new Echo hardware this week to bolster Alexa Plus, which remains in public Early Access.
• Reviewers report more natural, multi-step smart‑home control and useful visual queries on Echo Show 15 and 21 with an updated interface.
• Latency is a recurring issue, with some responses taking up to about 15 seconds, and certain routines failing or reverting to the old Alexa behavior.
• Alexa Plus relies on an LLM to interpret requests before handing actions to deterministic systems and local Matter connections to maintain predictability.
• Recent tests also note intrusive shopping prompts and shaky reliability on basics like alarms, alongside occasional factual errors in general queries.