How smart speakers are made
The small Echo Dot has a heavy blob of steel in its base, so twisting the volume ring does not spin it across the table.
- stations
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- things upstream
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- raw sources
- 30
- steps from the ground
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The short version
A smart speaker is a small computer stacked in layers inside a plastic or fabric-covered shell. One circuit board holds the processor, memory, Wi-Fi radio and amplifier. A second board on top carries a ring of microphones, LED drivers and the volume controls. A speaker driver, a steel weight and a rubber foot sit at the bottom, all linked by a single ribbon cable.
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Build the main board
Solder paste is printed on a circuit board, and machines place the processor, RAM, flash storage, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth module, power chips and audio amplifier before a reflow oven melts the joints.
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Build the microphone board
A second board carries a ring of tiny microphones, the converters that digitize them, and the LED drivers for the light ring. Spacing several microphones apart lets software work out where a voice comes from and ignore the rest.
7 microphones in early Echo models
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Mold the shell
Plastic is injection molded into the body, the top cap and the rotating volume ring. Many models are then wrapped in a stretched fabric cover that lets sound through.
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Seat the driver and weight
A speaker driver is glued onto a steel weight that anchors the base. Spring contacts connect it to the main board without loose wires.
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Stack and cable the layers
The main board, the driver assembly and the top board are stacked in the shell and joined by one ribbon cable. Long screws run through the stack from bottom to top.
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Glue on the base
A lower cap and a grippy rubber foot are glued over the bottom. The unit is powered up to load its software and test the microphones, speaker and wireless link.
Goes in
Worth repeating
- Amazon's first Echo, released in 2014, had a ring of seven microphones on top and no battery.
- Only about 1 percent of the electrical energy fed into a typical home loudspeaker comes out as sound. The rest becomes heat.
- Amazon said in 2019 that more than 100 million Alexa-enabled devices had been sold.
Back to the ground
Follow every input upstream and smart speaker starts as these 30 raw sources.
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Sources
These sources say little about the factory steps themselves, so parts of this line are a general description. Treat the details with care, and tell us if you know better.
Cite this page: "How smart speakers are made." Assembly Line, 2026-11-03. https://assemblyline.org/make/smart-speaker