Odd issues with Amazon's Echo Dot

[#1]

Contrary to my initial thoughts regarding this product both my sister and a friend of mine were extolling the virtues of this device, so I relented and bought some, knowing I could easily get my money back if displeased.

Anyway I have noticed a couple of odd things about the devices, I have one in my bedroom, one in the lounge and my eldest son has the other. When I originally installed them they all sounded the same as I’d configured them to be stand alone using their own speaker for audio output.

However, with the one in the lounge this wasn’t ideal as I use it to stream music. So I bought a cable that allowed me to connect it to my amplifier, and as soon as I used it I noticed that Alexa's voice had changed as she now had a very distinct American accent and sounded totally different from her counterparts in the bedrooms! I don’t know if it’s down to the amplification and change of speakers but it is so noticeable it has been commented on by others who have their own devices.

The second thing, and way more annoying than the above, is it’s unwillingness to connect to my Apple AirPort’s 5GHz network. It (the Echo Dot) can see and connect to the 2.4GHz network but can’t see, list nor connect (even manually) to the 5GHz one. When I first installed the Dot the 2.4GHz network was off so the only one I could use was the (distinctly) named 5GHz one, but it simply didn’t appear in the list!

Attempting to do it manually resulted in a stall then timeout, so not impressed with this part of it, as it says both these bands are supported. But as a product I think they’re great, even though they spend 99% of the time showing a red ring. I now set a sleep timer at night and have it read me a book at bedtime, it’s like being a little kid again.

Has anyone managed to connect these devices to a 5GHz network?

[#2]

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201602110

https://www.cnet.com/uk/how-to/4-common-amazon-alexa-problems-and-how-to-fix-them/

 From https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201549640

If you don't see your Wi-Fi network, scroll down and select Add a Network 

[#3]

Also it may be an issue with WiFi channel choice in the 5Ghz range

http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Networking-and-wireless/Amazon-Echo-Dot-amp-SuperHub-2/td-p/3237...

I have had the echo since day one and it has worked perfectly on 2.4Ghz. I received my echo dot last week and have consistently failed to get it to connect or if connected to stay connected. Yesterday I spent 5 hours changing all the settings on my SH2. Neither the echo nor echo dot could see the 5Ghz option so I tried playing around with the security settings for 2.4Ghz (seemed to work at first, but ultimately failed). I also forced a specific channel rather than let the router select and temporary success. Played havoc with my other devices. I decided to investigate why 5Ghz was not appearing. It appears that the 5Ghz has three bands, A, B and C and that only A and B are used on the SH2. I could see from the router that the selection was automatic and at the high end of band B. I forced channel selection to be at the bottom end of Band A and the echo dot could then see 5Ghz and connect to it without a problem and 24 hours later all devices working perfectively. Seems like a fiddle rather than a fix but it does appear to work. I have read that not all countries allow the same number of channels (range of frequencies) and am wondering of the echo dot is set for US channel recognition and it is not fully compatible (but overlaps) with some of the UK channels. By way of example in 2.4Ghz North America uses channels 1 to 11 whereas in the UK we use channels  1 to 13. Is there an expert out there that may be able to explain this? I did try setting up a guest 5Ghz SSID but there is no means to select a channel so it failed.

[#4]

Thanks @SpendLessTime, but I have tried the manual approach you mentioned in your first post but your second post gave me an idea.

Using the AirPort utility I set the channel to 40 which was nearly the middle of the range being offered. I then went through the process of updating the WiFi via the Alexa App on one of the devices and I got it on to the 5Ghz Network, I then did the same with the other device having tried the same channel to no avail so I changed it to 44 and it connect but as soon as the process was over it went offline!

In fact it turns out that neither of them are actually on the 5GHz network, but on the 2.4 having fallen back to their previous connection setting. So I think this may be a question for Amazon support.

[#5]

Beware of Alexa.

http://news.sky.com/story/amazon-echo-orders-dollhouses-after-hearing-tv-presenter-talking-10722985