iLive Concierge Alexa-Powered Speaker -- REVIEWED!
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May 29, 2025
More and more Alexa-powered third party speakers are hitting the marketplace, but which are actually adding features above and beyond being a clone of the Echo? Turns out that iLive has done just that with its budget priced but featureful "Concierge" Alexa-powered speakers. Not only does this speaker include Amazon Alexa, but has great bluetooth and AUX-in features, coupled with a simple to understand set of buttons for controlling everything and a battery if you want to walk outside and keep listening. Tech expert Dave Taylor of https://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/ explores its featureset and points out some limitations both. Learn more: http://amzn.to/2F1vzCk
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an Alexa compatible speaker with some
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tricks up its sleeve let's check it out
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[Music]
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Dave Taylor here and this time I'm
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looking at another Alexa powered speaker
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that's this this is the I live concierge
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wireless speaker powered by Alexa you'll
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notice on the top I have a red ring
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because I've muted it so it won't answer
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let's turn that off Alexa what's the
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weather outside in Boulder there's a
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winter storm warning in effect until
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Sunday January 21st 5 p.m. yeah not
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great weather outside snow you can
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expect more of the same today with a
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high of 28 degrees Alexa stop so it
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works now really for something like this
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the real question is what about the
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sound so let's start with some music
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Alexa play Spotify see what it comes up
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now something changed because I have a
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second one of these speakers now here's
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where this gets really cool I'm gonna
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have to stop this Alexa stop and the
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reason I have to stop it is I don't have
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license rights to that so here's what's
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cool is that if you have multiple of
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these up to 6 they automatically
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multi-speaker pair using Wi-Fi so you
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can have them 50 60 70 feet apart as
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long as they're on the same Wi-Fi
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network and here's what's even more cool
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is it works whether you're using it with
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the Alexa or whether you're using it as
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a Bluetooth speaker or even if you plug
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it in with aux so let me demonstrate
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that real quick first off one thing I
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really like is there are mode buttons
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with vom audio feedback Bluetooth mode
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so go into Bluetooth mode unlock my
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phone
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make sure it's paired to bluetooth let's
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see
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let's see looks like it's connected so
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now we can go let me find some music
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that I can play a little bit and we'll
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go here and here and here and just
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before a little bit in the song and this
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speaker and this speaker so both
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speakers are working so I get a nice
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stereo sound and it's via bluetooth and
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the way that works is that one of them
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becomes the master speaker and the other
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one becomes the I don't want to say
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slave that's probably not a great word
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but one of them becomes the subservient
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speaker
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let's pause this one too so really
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really simple now the only interesting
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thing is that each one actually can also
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exists as its own Alexus speaker so
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watch what happens when I unmute this
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one and we take this one back yes it has
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an aux input and now we're back to Wi-Fi
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mode well unmute and now Alexa what time
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is it
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Alexa voice service is not supported on
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slave speakers please ungroup the
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speaker so sorry I'm not sure I don't
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know why she's not sure what time it is
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but that's a little tedious as I wish
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that when you were in multi speaker mode
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it would either do the standard
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technique I'm gonna mute both of these
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the standard technique of picking the
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louder source and using that as the one
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you're closest to or simply just perma
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mute the second speaker so that I didn't
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have that issue because if I have
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speakers on the opposite sides of my
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room and I talked to Alexa I don't
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really want this one constantly saying
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hey yo you know I can't work with you
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because I'm actually in slave mode so
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probably not a huge issue but let me
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tell you this is that one of the other
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things that's cool about these as you
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notice no wires so they have a built-in
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battery and it turns out that battery
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can run up to five hours if you're using
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it in Bluetooth mode and only a couple
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hours if you're running it in Wi-Fi mode
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and the Wi-Fi mode the reason that eats
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more battery is because it's constantly
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listening and so there's just a lot
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drain on the system so you can use them
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plugged in you can leave them plugged in
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and then when you want you grab one and
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you're on your way to your picnic or
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party or whatever you can have these
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outside though they're not outdoor rated
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they're not water resistant dust
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resistant or anything there's no
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information for my live on that the
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Alexa version they're using is pretty
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standard third party Alexa support so it
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includes Spotify and Pandora but it
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doesn't include Sirius XM and you can't
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group this in Alexa groups so if you
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have a bunch of echoes you can actually
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create a music group across multiple
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rooms here with something like this
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you'd need this exact speaker now what
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else can I tell you about them they're
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seven inches tall about three inches
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across and they're under a pound each so
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they're really light and remember that
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includes the batteries so that's pretty
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nice
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comes with an aux cable and I really
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like aux-in it's just a really nice
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option to have now by contrast the
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Amazon echo dot has aux out so that's
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the opposite direction this one actually
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lets you push music into the speakers
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and like I said if you plug it into the
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master speaker and you have a second or
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third or fourth speaker they'll all
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automatically be playing the music in
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sync works really well it's very slick
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so comes with the aux cable also comes
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with a micro USB charging cable it does
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not however come with the little micro
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USB or USB charging device you plug into
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the wall I think vendors are starting to
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realize that most of us have a whole lot
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of those anyway so they don't include it
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if you need to get one you can get it
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through them but you can also honestly
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swing to Target or your local gas
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station or anywhere else and probably
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pick one up for like two or three
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dollars and work fine now one of the
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things I really like about the concierge
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is that it has this row of buttons down
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the back and here's a close-up you can
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see it gives you microphone microphone
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mute volume up and down it gives you the
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ability to do pause or play and pair go
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into pairing mode on different devices
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and then there's the mode button power
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and aux-in
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all very nice very simple functionality
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pairing was a little bit tricky but I
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went through exactly step by step what
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they had in the book and I had both of
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them paired and working together in the
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app that comes with devices and it was
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all working within just a minute or two
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and let me just show you super quick
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here's what the app looks like so you
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can see here how I have both speakers
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showing up and I can unpair them if I
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want to have them in different rooms and
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not working together or I can repair
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them if I want to so super easy to work
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with but it might be something where if
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you're less experienced that you'll find
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that there's a lot of steps involved you
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can do it
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alright confidence now the only other
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thing to talk about is music quality and
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and you know they're not great sounding
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speakers they're good they're certainly
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good enough like this would be a rock
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and pair to have an a dorm room for
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example but there's no real bass to talk
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of and it's really sort of biased more
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towards the high end using two of them
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definitely gives you some soundstage but
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they're not doing any special signal
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processing to really give you stereo
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other than whatever is already in the
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music source so you know like a lot of
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speakers like of this nature there's
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nothing really audiophile about these
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but you know given the price they work
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really well it's a nice entree into a
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smart home or into getting into the
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alexa world and the design of it is
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pretty nice it's a fabric covering and
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you know there are a little plastic
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either it's not metal it's a plastic but
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you know what they look nice they look
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fine I could see you having these in an
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executive office for example that would
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work totally fine so only other thing to
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talk about is the price before I get
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there let me ask can you go ahead and
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click on that subscribe button cool
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thank you now how much would you pay for
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these well the equivalent size and
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functionality well not even
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functionality but the equivalent size
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Amazon unit is probably going to run you
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about a hundred hundred and ten bucks
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cuz that's probably an echo to a little
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shorter but probably a little better
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sound these however at Amazon are $68
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and this is weird sixty-eight dollars
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and thirteen cents but I was
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poking around this morning looking at
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different options to buy them and Big
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Lots has them too and Big Lots has a
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wicked good deal because they have them
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for 65 bucks but you can sign up for a
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20% off discount which drops them down
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to 52 bucks each which means for
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basically $100 you can get a pair of
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these that's a pretty sweet deal I don't
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know if it's still there you might want
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to check it out but the moral of the
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story is I live concierge wireless
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speakers pretty nice entree into the
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world of Alexa and voice-activated
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speakers really like the way they
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implemented the multi speaker system
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it's very well done and the sound is
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certainly acceptable so check it out do
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a little homework on pricing if you're
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gonna actually pick up one or more and
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since dave taylor and i'll catch you in
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my next video
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[Music]