This is a pretty cool experiment. As someone that recently worked on an app that was doing speech to text in near and far field, calling this a $10 echo is like calling a Honda Civic a $15K Ferrari. I'd love to see the video of the author speaking to this microphone from 10' away, or even 5' away in a room with no padding.

The Echo's ability to do voice to text is like nothing that's ever come before it based on my experience building, and speaking with a consultant in the field that worked on the Echo team.