Amazon Echo Wall Clock Gets a Software Update and is Available for Purchase Again

Amazon announced the Echo Wall Clock at its September 2018 event and it initially went on sale in mid-December. However, in January, the company unexpectedly stopped shipping the product and listed it as unavailable due to several customer complaints about connectivity issues. At the time an Amazon spokesperson said the issue impacted a “small number of customers” and they were working to address the problem. Today Echo Wall Clock is back and offering next day shipment. An Amazon spokesperson shared with Voicebot today in an email:

We released a new software update for the device, which improves its performance and connectivity. Customers with an Echo Wall Clock connected to a compatible Echo device received this update automatically.

Protecting Alexa’s Reputation

There were several other complaints recorded on the Amazon.com product listing page about manufacturing quality of the $29.99 product, particularly the minute hand hardware, but most of the one-star reviews were focused on an inability to connect to an Echo device. The Echo Wall Clock does not have an onboard microphone and requires the user to have nearby Echo smart speaker to control it. This means the two devices must connect wirelessly using Bluetooth. While the impact may have been limited to a few customers, they were vocal enough that Amazon took the unusual step of stopping device shipment until they were confident the software update would resolve the issue. This isn’t the first product to experience Bluetooth connectivity issues but the last thing Amazon wanted was for the niche wall clock to undermine Alexa’s reputation.

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Amazon Pulls Echo Wall Clock in Response to Customer Complaints