A year with Alexa Plus

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy, a senior reviewer with over twenty years of experience, has spent a year testing Amazon's AI-powered Alexa Plus in her home since July two thousand twenty-five.

The memory feature that moved her

Alexa Plus creates photo montages from Alexa Photos albums, pairing images from over the years. Tuohy's Echo Show made then-and-now photos of her son that moved her to tears.

Then the ads arrived

A full-screen ad for a brown leather recliner interrupted the emotional moment, shifting Tuohy from nostalgic joy to irritation. This pattern defined her year with Alexa Plus.

Testing timing and context

Tuohy tested Alexa Plus with an Echo Show eleven in her kitchen, Pops and Dots around her house, and a Show fifteen and eight in her office, using voice commands for smart home control.

Smart home control improved dramatically

Smart home control, routines, general queries, calendar management, and shopping are light-years ahead of pre-AI Alexa. The new assistant understands natural language better, letting users give general instructions.

Speed and reliability gains

Questions about weather or general knowledge and commands like setting a timer now execute in three to five seconds, up from ten to fifteen seconds in two thousand twenty-five.

Conversational voice control works

Tuohy can now say Alexa, make it brighter in here or Alexa, I'm cold, and it knows what to do. She can give multistep commands like locking the door, turning off lights, and adjusting the thermostat.

Kitchen assistant excellence

Alexa Plus is the best voice-assistant cooking experience Tuohy has tested. She sent a photo of a Dutch baby recipe from England, and Alexa reformatted it and answered follow-up questions.

The setup cost was brutal

To get Alexa Plus working properly, Tuohy had to rebuild her smart home from scratch, deleting old skills and routines and killing dead devices. She had to re-add fifty-five Hue devices six times.

Ads are out of control

Every Echo Show device is now a rotating billboard for Amazon goods. Even with homescreen content turned off, ads appear between photos and the clock. Amazon added video ads recently.

Amazon's defense of the ads

Daniel Rausch, VP of Alexa and Echo at Amazon, says the ads are curated and designed to be relevant. When done well, an ad should show up with something useful at just the right moment.

“When it's done well, an ad should show up with something useful at just the right moment.”

The ads don't feel curated

Tuohy saw ads for beauty products, car accessories, snacks, furniture, health supplements, and smart home gear. Amazon tried to sell her fifteen-year-old daughter motor oil.

“Amazon trying to sell my 15-year-old daughter motor oil doesn't feel "curated."”

There's a paid way to remove ads

Amazon's Photo Gallery Unlimited feature removes ads from the homescreen for two dollars ninety-nine per month per device. Without paying, Tuohy recommends sticking with Echo speakers.

Coffee machine integration fails

Tuohy has an Alexa-capable Bosch eight hundred Series coffee machine. When she asked Alexa to make a coffee grande, it replied, I'd love to, but I'm fresh out of arms and a coffee maker.

“I'd love to, but I'm fresh out of arms and a coffee maker.”

Inconsistency plagues complex requests

Alexa Plus still struggles with complicated requests. It misheard a request for a coffee grande and generated an image of a coffee grinder instead. The shift to LLM-powered AI introduced uncertainty.

Memory problems undermine personal assistant role

Alexa forgot who Tuohy was and asked her to introduce herself. When she told it her daughter's school and asked it to remember, it later gave traffic to a different school entirely.

Uber Eats ordering was a disaster

Tuohy spent twenty minutes trying to order a Chick-fil-A meal with iced tea on the Echo Show eight. The Uber Eats interface kept insisting on ordering a s'mores milkshake she never asked for.

Agentic features feel underbaked

New integrations with Thumbtack, OpenTable, and Ticketmaster feel underbaked and mostly a waste of time. Booking an electrician required ten minutes of dictation and several sign-up screens.

What Alexa Plus should become

Tuohy wants Alexa to focus on being the brain for her home, managing devices and troubleshooting issues, rather than becoming a general-purpose AI bot competing with ChatGPT and Claude.

The smart home assistant she actually wants

The smart home assistant Tuohy wants isn't one that can book a restaurant or write an email. It's one that understands her home, can manage it for her, and knows when she needs a cute baby picture.

“The smart home assistant I want isn't the one that can book a restaurant or write an email; it's the one that understands my home, can manage it for me, and knows when I need a cute baby pic to cheer me up.”