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Bought an Amazon Dot and love its compact size and budget price tag but... kinda wish you'd gotten something with a bit more oomph to the speaker so you could actually listen to music? Enter the Vaux Portable Amazon Dot Speaker. It's battery powered and designed so that your Amazon Dot fits neatly into the top, basically making it something between an Amazon Tap and an Amazon Echo. Not only that, it sounds pretty decent too.
But, as tech expert Dave Taylor of https://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/ explains, it still might not be a cost-effect solution if you want to get into the world of Internet of Things and voice-activated devices...
Learn more: http://amzn.to/2tEY7iC
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0:00
is this the speaker your Amazon dots
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been waiting for let's check it
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[Music]
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out Dave Taylor here and I want to talk
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about the Amazon Echo dot that's this
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guy now I'm not going to talk about the
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dot itself other than to point out that
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it gives you all the features of the
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Echo and it's bigger more expensive
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Brethren at a really remarkably low
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price point 49 bucks it's such a
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no-brainer and it also has something the
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other Amazon Echo devices don't have
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which is audio out and that makes all
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the difference in the world because
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quite frankly the dots built-in speaker
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is really not going to win any awards
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even from mediocre music reproduction
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it's not its intention it's really
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almost like just a little device you
0:51
stick on the wall that gives you voice
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system so enter the Vox portable speaker
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base and this is kind a crazy device you
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can see a big hole in the top this is
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designed to be a cradle for the dot and
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then the idea is it gives you a nice big
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speaker so let's hook it up and check it
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out now as I said on the dot you have a
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micro USB charging connector and you
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have audio out on this guy the Vox
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portable speaker base you actually have
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Micro USB and an Au cord and it actually
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has its own rechargeable battery so it's
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on and running and ready to go with
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anywhere from five or 6 hours of
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Wireless use pretty cool of course you
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can also leave it plugged in which then
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duplicates this functionality but just
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gives you a much better speaker so let's
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hook it up and it's just a matter of
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lining up the cords and plugging them in
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now you should know from watching
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YouTube videos that anytime you do a
2:00
live demo things don't work right we're
2:03
going to have them work right this time
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so there's one and put the audio cord in
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there's two put the seal back on you can
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see that the dot is booting up and in a
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moment or two it should actually come
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back to life and in the meantime let me
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show you on the back there's a power
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plug and there's aux in so you can also
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just use it as a regular speaker and
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there's the micro USB which actually let
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you charge this device or leave it
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plugged in now the dot is still
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connecting to my Wi-Fi network and
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everything so we'll just let that work
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and I'll just tell you that when I
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opened the device up here I opened it
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like this and I saw the top and I'm like
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the heck what are they doing here and
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then I turned it over and I said hello
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ah hello so Alexa what's the weather in
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Jakarta in Jakarta Indonesia it's 79°
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with partly cloudy skies tonight you can
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look for Cloudy Skies with a low of
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75° good to know point being no wires
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right so this is a totally portable
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system very nice it's not very heavy
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it's about a pound plus the weight of
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the dot so you know it definitely you
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could balance it on two fingers I don't
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know why you would want to but you could
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it's not very heavy at all and it's
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about 6 in tall and the diameter is
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about 4 in I think at the bottom which
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is where it's the biggest and there's a
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lot to like about it and the audio
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quality is really good I'm going to play
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some music but just for a couple of
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seconds cuz I don't have the license
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rights to any commercial music so ready
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let's do H what should we listen
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to um Alexa play the Thompson Twins let
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try that shuffling songs by Thompson
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Twins
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and let's just make it nice and
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loud and of course the volume control on
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the dot is controlling
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this and let's stop
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it no it didn't stop it oh it's a it's a
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temporary mute Alexa
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stop so we couldn't really get a great
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audio demo kind of the way it goes um if
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you're familiar with the echol line you
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know that there's a lot you can do with
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music just by asking the device to play
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music for you I mean pick an artist pick
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a song pick a genre and it'll just start
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rocking away and of course you can have
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your own music and Amazon audio Amazon
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music but that's not what we're talking
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about here we're talking about this
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device and so there's a lot to like
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about this it's actually I'm sorry it's
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1.8 lbs a little heavier than I said
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earlier but here's the thing is the
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speaker is $49 and then the DOT is
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$49 which means you're getting really
5:02
close to the cost of what Amazon sells
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in this area which is called the Amazon
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Echo tap and the tap has a rechargeable
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battery and the tap lets you actually
5:15
optionally configure it to actually just
5:17
be listening all the time though that
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obviously eats a lot of battery um or
5:21
you can have the tap b hence its name
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you push a button and then it listens
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while you're actually you know for those
5:27
next couple of seconds we have a tab
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it's very nice it has nice audio sound
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it's 129 bucks it's half the weight of
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this and it runs 8 to 9 hours on a
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battery so you know if you have a DOT
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and you want to add a speaker to it then
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the Vox is actually a pretty cool choice
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but you really have to ask the question
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for 30 bucks more do you want to just
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get an Amazon Echo tap and then have it
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all self you know designed and
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integrated and everything and then the
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tap has a charging dock in instead of
6:00
this which has the plug you have to plug
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you know the cord you have to plug in so
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it's a tricky business there's a lot I
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really like about this I like it sound I
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already have multiple um Amazon Echo
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dots so it's really easy to get that
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part going and obviously I can pop the
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dot out if I want to use it with other
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speakers or just by itself so there's a
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bunch going for this and speaking of a
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bunch going for this can I ask that you
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click the Subscribe button awesome thank
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you now Vox portable speaker based
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$49.95 from a company called
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97 and you can pick it up at
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amazon.com and the only thing I'll say
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is it works really well for what it does
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I would love to see it1 20 $30 cheaper
6:45
because then it becomes an absolute
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no-brainer is you get the dot for 49
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bucks and then you pick up one of these
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sort of speakers for maybe another 20 or
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$30 and you've got a rocking sort of
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like entry level uh Amazon Echo device
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without the full price tog of the big
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echo or even the smaller tap so
7:06
tradeoffs sounds good definitely is fun
7:09
it's nice to be able to take it outside
7:11
obviously you can't take it to the
7:13
middle of nowhere just like with the tap
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it still wants to be on Wi-Fi cuz that's
7:17
how the whole ecosystem works I'm trying
7:20
to avoid the word
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Alexa tell us a
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joke what did the plate say to the fork
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don't worry dinner's on
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[Laughter]
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me Amazon you're not going to get any
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extra points for jokes but on the other
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hand I'm sure like 5-year-olds think
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this stuff's
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hilarious that was mean wasn't it anyway
7:44
so Vox portable speaker based make up
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your own mind whether that plus the dot
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is the path to go or whether you want to
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just pick up an Amazon Echo tap either
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way I really like all of our different
7:54
Echo units here in the house and in the
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office there's just a lot it really
7:58
brings because I can walk through a room
8:00
and as I walk through I can ask it to
8:02
play music or do reminders or timers or
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we can do recipes there's a lot I like
8:08
about it and having it give me better
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audio no lose there so this is Dave
8:14
Taylor and I'll catch you in my next
8:16
video
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[Music]
8:29
he
8:38
[Music]
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