The concept of a smart home has been completely changed with the evolution of Alexa. Many people, including me, thought that making a home smarter is very expensive because we want so many smart devices, but it’s up to the person willing to make his house smarter.
But, In simple, you can make your home smart with one Alexa device.
Alexa AI voice assistant is free to use, the only one-time investment you need is to buy the Echo Dot speaker which is in the price range of $30 – $250. After connecting the device to a WiFi network and setting up your account, you can start using it.
Those people who want to become a part of the Alexa family, want to know more clarifications on how much Alexa costs, whether is there any monthly subscription fee applicable, any hidden charges are there, etc.
Before buying Alexa, I also have the same doubts. That’s why I am going to write a detailed post on this.
Is Alexa Free? Is there any monthly charge?
Alexa service is free to use, and there is no monthly subscription charge. You can use Alexa in two methods. One is Via the Alexa smartphone app and the other is by an Echo smart device.
If you installed the Alexa app on your smart device, you just need to set up your account and start using it. You don’t spend a single penny.
Suppose you want to buy an Alexa-enabled smart speaker to use in your home, you should spend some money to buy the device, which is a single investment.
Cost of Echo smart speakers
Three types of Echo speakers you can opt from the available models
- Echo dot (Have different generations)
- Echo show (With a display)
- Echo studio (High standard speaker)
Echo dot speakers
Echo Dot is the basic Alexa smart speaker. This included different generations like 2ng, 3rd, 4th, etc. The price range of these types of speakers is between 40$ and 100$.
Echo show with speakers
Alexa Echo Show is a smart speaker with 1 7-inch built-in touch display. Echo Dot is only limited to audio-only services like you can only listen to music, and get answers to your query (Alexa commands).
On Echo Show, you can watch TV shows, movies, etc. The cost of the device ranges between $50 – $200.
Echo studio
Echo Studio is the high-end Amazon smart speaker built with top features like Dolby Atmos, 3D audio, High-fidelity, etc. Alexa AI is built on it and you’ll get high-quality output. If you are a music lover, this is the best Alexa-built-in smart speaker you can buy.
You don’t need a Home theater system.
The cost of an Alexa Echo studio smart speaker is above $200.
Is there any Alexa hidden cost?
No. There is no hidden cost. If you want to use some other third-party services, you should pay their subscription charges, but using them along with Alexa is free.
Here are some of the free services that you can enjoy
- Get the free news and updates:- With a simple voice command “Alexa, tell me the news” will give you the latest news for free.
- Home automation devices:- Simply connect other smart household devices like smart speakers, switches, smart lights, etc with Alexa and control them with simple commands for free.
- Helps you organize and thus improve productivity:- Believe it or not, Alexa can act as a simple virtual assistant that helps you to do your duty on time by reminding you. You can set timers, Alarms, etc so that you won’t forget to do your job on time. You really won’t spend a single penny on this.
- Get entertained:- Alexa provides a hell lot of songs, podcasts, etc from free resources. If you have a free music streaming application on your smartphone, once you tell Alexa to play a song from a specific movie, it’ll play the song from the free streaming application. In the same way, you can listen to podcasts too.
- Get numerous Alexa skills:- A lot of Alexa skills are there you can available from an Amazon account. Using these skills, you can enjoy so many services. I have installed so many gaming skills, so I can play games with Alexa in my leisure time.
- Know the weather conditions:- Just imagine, you’ll get the current and the upcoming weather details with a simple command and without connecting third-party apps or services.
Most of the Alexa skills are free to download or enable. But I have paid a small charge to buy the skills that help me to change Alexa’s voice to Jarvis.
Third-party premium services are not free with Alexa
Don’t think premium apps and services are free with Amazon Alexa.
For example, if you want to use Apple Music along with Amazon Alexa, you should have a premium Apple Music account.
Services from the parent company, Amazon prime video, you should have a premium membership to prime video to enjoy it with Alexa (If you want).
while saying this, it’s not necessary for an Amazon Prime account to use Alexa. In order to use Alexa, you just need to create an Amazon account using your email address. That’s enough. Enter the world of excitement.
Summary
We don’t need to pay for using Alexa AI service. All that we need is to buy an Alexa Echo device (For installing in-home), and a strong WiFi service. And this is the only investment we required.
No expense to use Alexa on a smartphone.
If we want to use other premium services along with Alexa, we should have them.
