Some Amazon smart speakers could be costing households in the UK around £3.24 a year from July 1, calculations from The Express suggest. This week Ofgem announced a 13% increase of the energy price cap for the period covering Monday, July 1 to September 30, 2026. The price cap refers to the default tariff applied when a customer has not signed for a fixed-rate tariff. It sets a maximum rate per unit and standing charge that can be billed to customers for their energy use.
From July 1, people in England, Wales, and Scotland on a standard variable tariff, and who pay for their electricity via Direct Debit, will pay 26.11p per kilowatt hour (kWh) on average. It’s a marked increase on the current price cap of 24.67p per kWh, with Ofgem saying the rise is a “result of higher wholesale gas prices, caused by the ongoing conflict in the Middle East”. It means your electricity bills will soon be more expensive, and you could be racking up significant sums if you use certain appliances a lot, or have ones that are always on.
Since the first commercial smart speakers first hit the market in 2014, the devices have quickly become a fixture in homes across the UK, with tracking down a long-forgotten 90s footballer or planning your commute now just a voice prompt away.
They’re on 24 hours a day, primed and ready whenever you use your voice to activate them, but their energy consumption is much lower than that of other devices (like a Broadband router for example) and the costs of having them on throughout the year are low.
Amazon Echo Dot is Amazon’s most popular smart speaker, known for its voice-controlled personal assistant, Alexa. Tech guru Brian Dory previously did a deep dive on what was then the latest 5th-generation model (released in 2022), carrying out experiments to gauge its energy efficiency.
His tests showed power consumption ranged from 1.3 watts during idle mode, 1.5 watts when awaiting a command, 1.8 watts when the device was booting up, 2.4 watts when playing music at medium volume, and up to 3.9 watts when playing music at full volume.
Power consumption remains roughly the same in newer models. Given that, and that the vast majority of the time smart devices are idle, we’ll use a rough 1.4W average for energy consumption per hour over the course of a year, weighted towards this mode.
If we plug that into Smart Money Tools’ Electricity cost calculator, we see that, based on that level of usage, your Amazon Echo Dot might add just £3.06 over the course of a year under the current cap.
The figure is made up of a cost of less than a penny per 10 mins, less than a penny per day, or £0.26 per month.
The same usage under the cap coming in on July 1 would still be less than a per penny per 10 mins, and 27p per month, or around £3.24 for a cost projection over 12 months.
And while the estimates give you an illustrative sense of the costs the cap represents over a longer period, the maximum limit on unit rates and standard charges is reviewed by the regulator every three months and doesn’t remain in place for a full year.
You will also have to take into account the daily standing charge for using electricity, which will drop slightly to 57.19 pence per day from July 1, though this covers all the electrity you’re using.
One way to protect yourself from price cap hikes is to get on a fixed rate that can provide a firewall against global shocks over a set period.
The regulator says currently, 40% (22million) of accounts are fixed tariffs and therefore aren’t affected by the July 1 price rise.