5 reasons to buy an Amazon Echo Show
There are a lot of devices and services that make up the Amazon ecosystem, fromAlexa-enabled speakersto streaming music, Fire TV streaming dongles, and a growing list of smart displays. With options from tiny to massive, this diverse lineup of devices is much more than just an Echo with a phone or tablet screen tacked on to it.
So, what makes the Echo Show line of smart displays worth buying, especially withPrime Dayand the great prices it brings just around the corner? Beyond being able to browse the internet and play movies fromPrime Video, what did Amazonaddto make this line of devices stand apart from the plain Echo lineup? A lot, it turns out. Most of the Echo Show displays are drastically different from one another, so some will do these things better than others, but they’re all still more than able to step up to these tasks.
1. Video chat made easy
One of the most obvious benefits of the screen on the Echo Show line is that it makes it an easy-to-use video chat device. Over a year ago at this point, we got an Echo Show 8 for every immediate family member’s home, just to make it as easy as possible to see each other. Even the less tech-savvy people in my family can easily call everyone else like this after it’s set up. Another great use of this is with sign language use. Several children of deaf parents and hard-of-hearing people I know have an Echo Show to make communication convenient.
If video chatting is the big feature you want out of a smart display, the Echo Show 8 and Show 10 both have a 13-megapixel camera with motion tracking similar to Apple’s Center Stage. On top of this, the Show 10’s display has 360 degrees of rotation and can follow you around the room while you’re talking. You may not think that useful, but it can be a godsend when chatting with a grandchild that’s bouncing around the living room or with your mother putting away dishes all over the kitchen. If you’re concerned with privacy when not using it for video chat, all models of the Echo Show have a physical camera shutter that makes for some easy peace of mind.
2. Smart home control
Smart home control via voice can get hard once you have more than a few devices in a couple of rooms, but with the smart home controls you can just do the same thing via touch. Precise, simple touches let you avoid the dreaded and familiar “I’m sorry, I don’t see any lights in the living room” that’s become the bane of smart assistant users the world over. Annoyingly specific voice commands aren’t the only reason to avoid talking to your smart assistant, either. Sometimes you need to turn lights off in more than one room so you don’t wake a sleeping child while you’re carrying them to bed. And if not a child, maybe it’s your partner who fell asleep while you were up late working.
Smart homes are much more than just lights at this point. Between Ring, Wyze, Blink, Arlo, and more, there’s no shortage of smart home security cameras that integrate with Alexa, and most of them can be pulled up on your Echo Show. So, whether it’s theWyze Cam Pan, or Amazon’s own first-party Ring cameras, pulling up a camera feed on your Echo Show is a great way to check out the raccoons going through your garbage outside. There are lots of othersmart home devicesthat play nice with the Alexa ecosystem, too. Setting up new devices with the Echo Show 10 is a breeze since it doubles as a Zigbee smart hub. While the Show 15 may lack that same Zigbee integration, It makes up for that by letting you keep smart home controls right on its home screen via a widget — no swiping required, unlike the rest of the Echo Show lineup.
3. Glanceable info
Every time I open my phone, there’s at least a 50% chance that I’ll end up doom scrolling social media without thinking about it, even if it’s just to check something like the weather. I could ask a smart assistant and get the high and low temperature for the day, but I really prefer seeing the hour-by-hour breakdown. Not to mention, if I’ve got my earbuds in, checking my reminders without interrupting my listening is super appealing.
Another weakness of a voice-only assistant is how slow it can be to listen to it rattle things off one by one. Seeing a list that you can read at your own pace is a nice get, not to mention much better for the hearing impaired crowd. The clear king of this category is theEcho Show 15with its massive screen real estate and widgets. You can customize its home screen with things like the weather, reminders, your shopping list, the aforementioned smart home controls, and plenty more.
4. Help in the kitchen
Everyone in my family loves to cook, but we’ve all been through this before. You’re in the middle of cooking a new recipe you found online, hands covered in flour (or worse, oil), and you forgot how much of an ingredient you need. Unless your phone or tablet is open in front of you, your only options are to wash your hands now, or clean your device later. Alternatively, you could always read the recipe from an Echo Show on your countertop.
An Echo Show 5 or 8 are pretty easy to tuck off to the side of your kitchen, but if you’ve got a bigger kitchen with an island in the middle, anEcho Show 10can give you a lot more coverage since, in addition to its larger 10” screen, the 360 degrees of rotation can make it visible from either side of your kitchen. If you’re familiar with the recipe you’re doing already, the Show lineup still has a helpful trick in the form of timer banners. Instead of having to ask your assistant how much time is left on your timer, it’s in a banner at the top of the display. While this definitely falls under glanceable info, with as much cooking as I do, timers innately feel like cooking tools to me.
5. It’sstillan Echo
All these smart display features may be great, but it’s important to remember that they do this allon top ofnormal Echo things. If you listen to Amazon Music on your Echo, you’re able to do itwith lyricson an Echo Show. If you ask Alexa what a pierogi is, any Echo will read the Wikipedia page, but an Echo Show will alsoshow you pierogiswhile it does that. You can ask any Echo for local movie screening times, but you can watch trailers for them on an Echo Show. So while everything in the Echo Show lineup is still an Echo, none of them isjustan Echo.
If you’ve come around to owning one, be sure to find thebest Echo Showfor your use case before you buy. Whether you’re getting your very first Alexa smart device, you just wanted to upgrade your kitchen Echo to anEcho Show 10, or you’re deciding between anEcho Show 5and anEcho Show 8for your end table, there’s plenty to learn.
Buy an Amazon Echo Show
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