What the fudge !!?

[DParker]

I think those saying the guts of the Echo and the Dot are same are "shooting from the hip".  Only Amazon knows for sure, and they are not telling.

You think wrong, at least as far as the Bluetooth portion of the "guts" is concerned.  Both the Echo and the Dot hve been subject to multiple teardowns in which they're disassembled and the internal components identified...and Scott is correct.  Both use the same Qualcomm QCA6234X-AM2D hardware.

And the fact that the Echo renders audio data in mono for its internal speakers is irrelevant in terms of what an external speaker device can/will do with that data if forwarded to it via Bluetooth.

[mike27oct]

Well. I am entitled (like others) to have an opinion, and I think it is all much ado about nothing.  Amazon can have two similar devices that are programmed to do things differently.  It is their products, and they are entitled to configure them differently for their own purposes of market segmenting. This is done with lots of products.  Certain feature sets are on or off; depending upon what the manufacturer was to include at various price points.  I am pretty certain of one thing:  Amazon will differentiate their products how they choose to.

[DParker]

Well. I am entitled (like others) to have an opinion...

Nobody said anything about your entitlement to an opinion regarding whether or not Amazon ought to do whatever with their products.  What you're not entitled to is the making of ill-informed assertions regarding what is/isn't known about the products in question without having your error pointed out.

[mike27oct]

Excuse me!  Let's not belabor this.  As far as I can tell, all this discussion is based upon a mixture of hearsay, observations, assumptions and opinions, and a few "known" facts about the guts of an Echo and Dot; what they can and cannot do, and what some people think and wish they could do, etc.  I hope their wishes come true!   Frankly, I do not care that much about the issue; I only offered my opinion, TOO.  I have the gadgets from Amazon I want and need, they work and I am happy; even with Amazon. . .   Apparently, their order computer had a big glitch this afternoon, because I got an Amazon email that some gadget I ordered today was being prepared to ship to me (a gadget I never ever heard of, or ordered).  I called Amazon customer service right away, told them neither I nor anyone in the household had ordered it and to cancel it, which they did, no problem.  Nothing was ordered from them today on my account. My big concern was perhaps someone got my account info and ordered it for themselves, but since it was flagged to ship to my address, that eliminated any hanky panky at my account.  Just some sort of glitch happened.
Since it has happened to me, it could happen to anyone. 

[renegade600]

Apparently, their order computer had a big glitch this afternoon, because I got an Amazon email that some gadget I ordered today was being prepared to ship to me (a gadget I never ever heard of, or ordered).  I called Amazon customer service right away, told them neither I nor anyone in the household had ordered it and to cancel it, which they did, no problem.  Nothing was ordered from them today on my account. My big concern was perhaps someone got my account info and ordered it for themselves, but since it was flagged to ship to my address, that eliminated any hanky panky at my account.  Just some sort of glitch happened.
Since it has happened to me, it could happen to anyone.

actually I have had that happened to me several times from different online retailers.  It is usually because someone did not know their own email address or a typo when they signed up for their account.  I have an email address using my real name without numbers at the end.  I was the first :-)  so others with the same name have numbers and tend to forget those numbers sometimes.

[mike27oct]

OK, I get this, but for Amazon, folks need username and password to buy something, so even if the got username same, they would still need the right password. 

Well, this is my first time with this issue, although a few years ago I saw a $100 fast food gift card for a place in LA on my online CC statement.  It happened the same day I bought from Newegg (LA area)!  It was all too close for my comfort, so I yanked my CC card number from Newegg, and switched to my PayPal account.  In fact, nobody has my CC that will also accept PayPal.  I requested to Amazon they allow PayPal purchases, and was told lots of people have made this request.  Hmm, doe Amazon get it yet?

Before we are chastised by a you-know-who for being off topic . . . . so back to check on my Win 10 install going on at my other laptop. Fingers are crossed!

[iolinux333]

The Bluetooth chip can transmit stereo. No other specialized hardware is required to do stereo, the processor just needs to send the appropriate bits to the Bluetooth chip, and like I said, the code had already been written for the dot. I suspect if enough people asked nicely, someone on the software team would the paste the code into the next Echo blob.

It would interestingly give us a weird way of adding a wired stereo output to the Echo: just transmit to another Bluetooth receiver with a stereo output cord. I have one lying around from years ago that I don't use anymore.

Like I said, I wouldn't use it much, but having the capability and versatility would be useful from time to time.