Anker, best known for their USB chargers and battery packs, has been expanding their product line into home goods under their new Eufy brand. Those products have mostly been vacuums and lights, but they’ve now announced the Eufy Genie, which is an Alexa smart speaker that closely resembles the Amazon Echo Dot in both appearance and features. With a retail price of only $34.99, the Genie undercuts the Echo Dot by $15 and has the potential for being a good alternative to Amazon’s own hardware.

The Eufy Genie is essentially an Echo Dot knockoff, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Amazon encourages manufacturers to put Alexa in as many devices as they wish, even if they compete directly with the Echo lineup. “With the Eufy Genie, customers can get Alexa, her 15,000+ skills, and high-quality sound for less than $35,” said Amazon’s own Steve Rabuchin, VP of Alexa.

Apart from the lower price than the Echo Dot, the Genie’s other selling point is better sound quality via its 2-watt built-in speaker. While you shouldn’t expect it to replace a dedicated speaker for music, it should sound better than the Echo Dot. Most of the Genie’s other features match the Echo Dot pretty closely.

Of course, the Genie has far-field microphones so you can speak to Alexa hands-free. Just like the Echo Dot, the top of the Genie has volume buttons, a mute button, an action button for manually triggering Alexa, and a light ring. Around back is a 3.5mm headphone jack for audio-out to connect the Genie to external speakers.

The only major feature missing from the Genie is Bluetooth connectivity. There will be a second model which includes Bluetooth for $39.99 that will be released later this year. Otherwise, the Eufy Genie can access all the same Alexa skills and capabilities found on Amazon’s own Echo devices.

Eufy Genie will be serving as the centerpiece for Anker’s new line of Eufy smart home devices. Eufy Lumos smart light bulbs will be released at the end of the month. Those will be $20 for regular white bulbs or $30 for bulbs that can adjust their white temperature. A new Eufy RoboVac will be released in September, which will be bundled with the Genie for $280 or sold separately for $270. Smart plugs, switches, and light strips will be released at some point as well.

The Eufy Genie will be released on August 16 for $34.99 with the $39.99 Bluetooth version coming later.

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