Amazon's Echo is designed to sit and stay within your home, but accessory companies continue to transform them into portable speakers, if you wish, and today we are getting a battery pack for the redesigned Echo. Ninety7 has manufactured battery bases for Google Home and Echo Dot, but this is the first for the updated Echo that was launched last October.
The design is wonderful: it is a giant case with a handle that adds so much height that it is closer in size to the original Eco than to the newer model trimmed. It also looks like a novelty cup.
Ninety7 called this battery base "Sky" and says it will get approximately eight hours of battery life on a single charge. Charge using the existing Echo power cable, but it looks like you'll have to remove a piece from the back of the Echo to start, so you'll probably want to keep it locked in the base once it's installed. The battery base is available to preorder today with units that are expected to be shipped in early June. They will sell for $ 59.95 but have a discount of $ 10 until they start shipping.
I think the idea behind transforming the Echo into a portable speaker seems odd and inconvenient: you're supposed to plug the speaker somewhere and leave it there, and this eliminates that simplicity. But I understand where the desire comes from: you've already bought a smart speaker, why not get more out of it? These bases are not weather resistant, but they should be fine if you're just taking them out to play music in the backyard.
