Your Amazon Echo Could Take More Than 4 Months to Arrive

After a soft launch, Amazon's voice-controlled Echo has experienced a backlog, and might not arrive at your doorstep until May.
Published
Louis Ramirez
BY:
Contributing Writer

We admit: The thought of owning an Amazon-based robot that could fulfill all our digital needs intrigued us from day one. But after receiving an invitation to buy an Echo this past weekend, our hopes of owning Amazon's wonder bot have been deflated. Upon adding the Echo to our shopping cart, we realized that the estimated delivery date for this gizmo is well over four months away. To be precise, our estimated delivery date is between May 27 and July 2.

Amazon cites "high demand" as the reason behind the delay, but it also conveniently reminds us that our invite to buy Echo is only valid for seven days. Moreover, customers can only purchase one Echo per account. By comparison, Amazon let select customers use its Fire TV streamer for 30 days free of charge, when it was first announced.

We're curious to know though how the Echo-buying experience has been for other customers. Readers who have attempted to buy an Echo, how long did it take for you to receive an invite? How long was the ship time, and if you purchased, how long did the delivery actually take? Would you wait four or more months for your device to ship, or would you rather just wait for Echo 2.0?

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Louis Ramirez
Contributing Writer

With over a decade of experience covering technology, Louis Ramirez has written for CNET, Laptop, Gizmodo, and various other publications. Follow him on Twitter at @louisramirez.
DealNews may be compensated by companies mentioned in this article. Please note that, although prices sometimes fluctuate or expire unexpectedly, all products and deals mentioned in this feature were available at the lowest total price we could find at the time of publication (unless otherwise specified).

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24 comments
kamcorn
I sent in my request for an invite about January 12 and got it about a week later. My order says I won't receive the echo till June or July. I am hoping it is sooner. But I am looking forward to receiving it. I have a bunch of questions each day that I would like very much not to look for my phone, my glasses and just ask.
January 27, 2015
DEALCATCHER 1
I placed my request minutes after they offered them, and have yet to get the invitation. I told a bunch of friends and family right after I placed my invitation, and they all got an invitation within weeks. I am still sitting here waiting for mine. I ordered 67 items from Amazon last year. And they will not even talk about how they decide on who gets the invitations. I now use Amazon as the last place I look to make my purchases. I can't think of a better way to alienate customers. Amazon, you are truly the best at that. Screw you!!!
January 19, 2015
Tacopilot
My Amazon Echo says delivery date by July 2nd!
Almost 6 months.
January 15, 2015
aggiefather
I requested an invitation to purchase the Echo on the day it was announced. When I failed to receive an invitation right away, I chalked it up to my not being in Amazon's target demographic. By the time the invitation arrived (just after Christmas) my enthusiasm had waned. However, I gave in to my curiosity and placed my order on New Year's Day. It is scheduled to arrive on 01/22/15. Despite all the naysayers. I think the novelty of the Echo's form factor combined with the $99.00 price has intrigued me the most. (and I can't say the same thing about the bigger and better smartphone I got during the holidays.)
January 15, 2015
nimer
@dealnews-Louis @dealnews-Lindsay now the echo Fire HD is something else! it features a dedicated button to buy things from Amazon right away, plus Alexa in full HD hologram :D

Joking aside, 'smart home' is the next big thing
January 15, 2015
Kamroz21
Y is that I just now hear about the echo? I'm on dealnews everyday. And never before this post have I heard about the Echo...I would have sent my invite back then... Not happy :((
January 15, 2015
raardvark
Ordered mine on Jan 9th -- the day I got the invite. Delivery date currently shows as "May 12th by 8 PM". I'm Amazon Prime, but evidently not that Prime.
January 14, 2015
Wiley
I requested to be invited back in November.......the invite arrived last week. Clearly, it was not going to be in time for the Xmas gift I wanted to give. It isn't something I want so badly that I would wait four months to receive it. I think I will pass on this for now and see what the Echo 2.0 looks like
January 14, 2015
regularg0nz0
Got my invite a few days ago. Immediately ordered, Shipping date is May-July, but that'll change. People will get impatient and cancel. Suppliers will pull forward ship dates to reduce contracted discounts. no worries. It's not like this is some crowdfunded project that'll get drawn-out forever (coff-coff "Coin"... ahem.. "Myo"... HACK-HACK "Oculus Rift!"). It's a straight logistics numbers game.
January 14, 2015
diogenes76
Mine's arriving today. I ordered it New Year's Eve.
January 14, 2015
itaintme
I received a text from Amazon that my Echo is on a carrier and will be delivered today! Guess I'm one of the lucky ones.
January 14, 2015
Louis Ramirez (DealNews)
@nimer I'm leaning toward waiting for the Echo Fire HD myself. The weird part is I placed my request the minute the Echo was announced (back in Nov) and just now got my invite to purchase. I wouldn't mind 15 days, but 4 months? Ouch.
January 14, 2015
mr3Putt
I signed up for the invitation in early November. I checked my Echo page January 8 and the "thank you for your request" button finally changed to a "move to cart" button. (My invite arrived in my Email the next day January 9)

My ship date is February 23.

My buddy, opened his invitation January 9, his ship date is mid April.

What a difference a few hours between orders made.
January 14, 2015
Luke
I got my invite 1/5 and picked no rush delivery for 1/26. I watched u tube demos and the Echo looks fantastic.
January 14, 2015
SLC Rumbler
I placed my order on Jan 06 and my estimated delivery is Feb 11
January 13, 2015
Lindsay Sakraida (DealNews)
@nimer I'd be curious how they manage to make it HD
January 13, 2015
bciocco
I sent the request for an invite as soon as they were available. I received my invite on January 9 and have a ship date of April 9. I'm generally a patient person and can deal with waiting. I figure the longer I wait, the more bugs will be knocked out.
January 13, 2015
nukaho
I technically have 2 right now... FedEx lost the first one, Amazon shipped a second... Then FedEx found and shipped the first... I have until the end of the month to return ship the first before getting charged the $199 price for it ^^;
January 13, 2015
nimer
I will get the Echo 2 next year, or Echo Fire, or Echo Fire HD, or whatever they decide to call it
January 13, 2015
Jeff Somogyi (DealNews)
I hope you chose "Free no-rush shipping", to get that $1 ebook credit!
January 13, 2015
tophyb
Signed up for an invite on the day it was announced. Got the ok to purchase on December 3rd and it arrived on December 5th.
January 13, 2015
virtio
Mine arrived on 1/10/2014 and I requested it back in November on the announcement date. Once I was able to place an order it took about 2 weeks to arrive. Setup went smoothly using the cellphone app to set the WiFi parameters so it could connect to the home network.

The kids get a kick out of it and the voice recognition works quite well. I think it's a good deal at $99 but should probably retail for $149 with it's current level of usability. It will be handy to stream ambient music and do shopping list updates. It is easily managed from the web so you can setup radio stations and retrieve lists. I wish it had native Pandora instead of iHeartRadio but it can stream Pandora over Bluetooth but that seems like an pain. I don't see any need for the remote.
January 13, 2015
G. Fieri DDD
My Echo is slamma jamma so far. It starts with the Alexa voice recognition, then you get a hit of that strong speaker quality, mixed with the heat of that $100 status symbol quality.

Also packing some heat is my new Guy Fieri's "Ghee Fieri" Cooking Butter, comin' atcha hot and heavy in 2015. Total flavortown for only $9.99 per bucket. I ain't the sharpest tool in the shed, but that deal screams All Star to me.
January 13, 2015
Alison Barretta (DealNews)
I just unboxed my Echo last night and so far, I am having fun with it.

My timeline:

November 6: Sent a request for an invite.

December 26: Received a notification that my invite was expiring after one week (apparently, the original invitation ended up in another filtered mailbox). Placed an order that day.

December 27: Echo shipped. Guessing it arrived on the projected delivery date of 12/29. (I was away from home for a bit.)

I'm going to chalk this up to dumb luck for Alison.
January 13, 2015