Tech companies spend a lot of time thinking up the perfect name for their products but have proven time and again to be short on creativity. We’ve heard some truly awful gadget names in the past decade, ones that should never have left the concept stage but somehow slipped into production.
Today, we’ve discovered the worst one of all. Yes, even worse than the “Samsung :)” phone, Cisco “Cius” tablet, or the “I’m Watch” watch.
What name could be so bad to have achieved this dubious, and yet highly competitive honor?
The “Ninety7 Dox”—a portable battery base for the Amazon Echo Dot.
Forget about the fashionable word-plus-number combo for a moment and focus your attention on “Dox.” At face value, it seems like a pretty good name—it’s short, has an “x,” and has that nauseating sci-fi flair tech companies love so much. But the problem is less about the name than the product it’s assigned to.
If you’re familiar with the word “dox” then you already know why this is such a terrible name for a smart speaker. If not, don’t worry, Merriam Webster is here to help: “to publicly identify or publish private information about (someone) especially as a form of punishment or revenge.”
https://twitter.com/xarexerax/status/929808672661954561
If your fears about Amazon’s spying robot assistant collecting your darkest secrets aren’t enough, the name of this accessory suggests it will publish them all on the internet.
As you’d expect, social media is a having a field day with the Dox.
https://twitter.com/CodeSwitchATL/status/929846457871544321
https://twitter.com/trvanes/status/929870842003054592
https://twitter.com/dogbonestudios/status/929927866548150273
I need more hands for this. pic.twitter.com/IBybmtgbLf
— Petteri Tuomimaa (@RekryPetteri) November 13, 2017
Just to clarify, the Dox was not made by Amazon or Google. It’s the creation of a third-party manufacturer and is designed to work with the Amazon Echo Dot.
Despite its name, the Dox (probably) won’t release any of your personal information. Amazon Echo Dot owners can place their speaker into the Dox base to get 10 hours of cord-free battery life. If you can get over the name, it could actually be a pretty useful accessory.
