iHome's color-changing dock wants to amplify your Echo Dot
Launching at CES 2018, the iHome iAV5 is a battery-powered speaker dock for the Amazon Echo Dot that can change colors in rhythm with your music.
- 10 years product testing experience with the CNET Home team
The iHome iAV5 speaker dock (Echo Dot sold separately).
iHome already has a couple of Alexa accessories to its name, including an Alexa-enabled alarm clock and an Echo Dot clock dock (say that five times fast). Now, at CES 2018, it's introducing its newest Alexa-friendly gadget -- a battery-powered speaker dock for the Echo Dot that changes colors in rhythm with whatever music you're listening to.
It's called the iAV5, and it's basically a little saddle for second-gen Amazon Echo Dots. Once your Dot's inside, you'll enjoy a presumed uptick in sound quality from the dock's speaker, along with the option of unplugging the thing and taking it with you around the house for up to eight hours of battery-powered playback. The cost? $60.
It's a similar pitch to what we heard from the Vaux speaker dock from Ninety7, which currently sells for about $40, The only real difference between the two is that iHome's design adds in color-changing LEDs on the front of the device. That's a nice inclusion, but a digital clock face might have been even more useful.
The iHome iAV5 is slated to sell online and at major retailers by this summer.
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