Amazon
The Amazon Echo Dot.
You can order a pizza. Call an Uber. Get traffic and weather updates.
But despite all those features, the most popular function on the Echo is listening to music, Amazon's VP in charge of Echo Mike George said at the TechCrunch disrupt conference on Tuesday.
"Music is very popular," George said. "It's one of the most obvious use cases."
Instead of tapping and swiping an app to select a song like you have to do with Bluetooth speakers or the Sonos system, the Amazon Echo lets you control everything with your voice. Just say something like, "play the classic rock Pandora station" and you get exactly that. It's seamless and a delight to use.
Echo works with many of the major streaming services too: Spotify, Pandora, Amazon Music, Amazon Prime Music, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.
When I was testing the Echo last year, music was my favorite feature. It was nice to come home, walk into my living room, and tell Alexa (the digital assistant that powers the Echo) to play my favorite Pandora station. The only reason I didn't end up buying the Echo for myself at the time was because Spotify didn't work with it and Amazon Prime's music selection is pretty weak compared to other services. (I ended up buying a Sonos speaker, which I also love.) Spotify didn't become available on Echo until a few months ago.
The Echo is an open platform, which means anyone can add new functionality to it over time. But despite all the cool things it can do, it sounds like music will always be at its core.