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Smart screens and speakers have found a permanent place in many of our households, since they help with playing music, controlling smart plugs, setting reminders, and much more. The use cases are plenty, especially when paired with other smart home gadgets that solve everyday problems. Speaking of pairing your smart speaker with external devices, the Amazon Echo Dot — one of Amazon’s most affordable and popular smart speakers — sports Bluetooth connections, which means it can be paired with some cool Bluetooth gadgets for added functionality. You can, for example, can pair multiple Echo speakers for a stereo setup or even connect external speakers with a better sound output during a party. Apart from audio, though, there are several other ways that you can take advantage of the Echo Dot’s Bluetooth module.

A few smart home gadgets, like smart light bulbs, often need a hub to function. However, if the bulb has Bluetooth support, it can be connected to and controlled by an Echo Dot without an external hub, which makes it a handy option. Similarly, there are other such gadgets that can take advantage of the Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) protocol of the Echo Dot to establish a connection. Here are some of the best and most useful gadgets that we’ve found that can enhance your life and home. All you have to do is put your Echo Dot in pairing mode and connect the required device with the help of the Alexa app on your smartphone.

While there are several handy uses for an Amazon Echo Dot speaker, arguably the most popular one is playing music. This is primarily because it’s so quick and simple to ask Alexa to play your favorite album or track without having to manually look for it on your phone. Convenience aside though, Echo devices are capable speakers by themselves, which means the sound output is loud and clear. However, the small form factor means that the bass can be lacking, and the sound may not be able to fill a large room. If you’re having a party with your friends, you might miss out on that extra oomph. This is where the Echo Dot’s ability to connect to an external speaker comes into play.

If you have a Bluetooth speaker lying around at home, all you have to do is put it in pairing mode, head to the Alexa app, and connect the speaker to your Echo Dot. This works with pretty much any Bluetooth speaker, right from budget options to large home theatre setups. As long as the speaker is connected to the Echo Dot, all its responses — not just the songs — will play via the speaker itself. That said, the Echo device will still use its onboard microphones to detect and register your voice queries. This is one of the simplest yet the most popular uses that we’re sure a lot of you will appreciate. In case you don’t already have a speaker, the Anker Soundcore 2, which retails for around $30, is a user-favorite with a rating of 4.5 from close to 150K reviews.

The issue with a lot of good smart lighting solutions is that the installation process can be a headache — especially if they need a hub. Bluetooth smart bulbs are an easy fix, offering a plug-and-play solution. Modern Bluetooth bulbs from brands like Philips Hue or GE connect directly to your Echo Dot right out of the box, instead of requiring a central hub. This integration capability makes it an easy entry point into smart home automation. The biggest advantage of a system like this is that you can use bulbs and other smart home gadgets from multiple brands without worrying about compatibility.

Having a brand-agnostic solution helps avoid multiple issues. Once you invest in a Philips hub, for example, you may not be able to use bulbs from other brands with the same hub. This means you’re locked into the Philips ecosystem, unless you splurge on another hub from a different brand. Wi-Fi bulbs can already tackle this problem, but they can sometimes bog down your home network. Bluetooth bulbs, on the other hand, communicate locally with your Echo Dot. The feature set remains the same; you can set up daily routines so your lights slowly turn warmer in the evening, or shut down the entire house with a single phrase as you walk out the door. Additionally, you can connect as many bulbs via Bluetooth and operate the all individually. The Philips Hue 60W smart LED bulb, with its 4.7-star rating across more than 16,000 reviews, is a good starting point for under $50.

If you’re looking for creative use cases for your old Amazon Echo, smart switches are a good investment. The Switchbot smart switch button is an excellent replacement for old appliances and gadgets that lack internet connectivity; stick it beneath a manual switch and suddenly you can control it with your smartphone or Amazon Alexa device. Lots of devices and appliances launched in recent years may have built-in smart functionality to turn them on and off remotely. However, an old coffee maker or air purifier may not have the feature, and that’s exactly where a device like the Switchbot smart switch comes in handy. Once you connect it via Bluetooth to your Echo Dot, you can turn an appliance on or off with just your voice.

This works well with push-button switches, but you can’t use a single Switchbot to operate a larger, more traditional switch like the kind that controls the lights in your house both on and off. If you want both functionalities, you will have to purchase two Switchbots and install them on either side of the switch. While the product description mentions that you need a hub to use the device with Alexa, it’s only applicable to older Echo devices that cannot behave like a Bluetooth hub. With over 28,000 reviews and a rating of 4.1 stars, users definitely seem to love the Switchbot smart button thanks to its ability to use older gadgets easier. There’s something to be said about having a fresh cup of coffee waiting for you right after stepping out of the shower in the morning, isn’t there?

For those who have a large collection of vinyl records from back in the day, a Bluetooth turntable is pretty much a must-have. If you have one lying around, you would be glad to know that you can easily connect it to your Echo Dot. Since a good number of Bluetooth turntables have built-in wireless transmitters, you can wirelessly use your Echo Dot as a speaker instead of relying on your turntable’s internal one. Thanks to this setup, you can place your turntable at a distance from the Echo Dot without running audio wires all through the room.

This is a pretty neat trick; while the Echo Dot is usually the brain sending audio out to other speakers, in this scenario, it acts as the wireless receiver instead. The Audio-Technica wireless turntable is an excellent option in case you don’t have one already and are looking to buy one. It is pricey at around $230, but it’s got a solid 4.6-star rating across more than 8,700 reviews. Apart from a turntable, pretty much any other audio device that has a built-in Bluetooth transmitter can be used with an Echo Dot as well, so don’t feel like you’re limited to just spinning records remotely.

The primary criteria for a gadget to make it to this list is the fact that it connects to an Echo Dot speaker purely via Bluetooth and not Wi-Fi. Hence, it’s vital to note that not all types of gadgets of a particular kind may work via Bluetooth. An example of this is that not all smart bulbs support Bluetooth Low Energy connectivity. That’s why we’ve included suggested products that support the technology at play here; the ones we do recommend all have a rating of at least 4.1 stars across thousands of reviews. Additionally, all Echo devices — including the Echo Dot — need to be first connected to a Wi-Fi network for their initial setup before they can be used to connect to Bluetooth devices. Therefore, all the gadgets have been recommended with the assumption that you have access to a Wi-Fi network and that your Echo device is set up.