Live With It: Amazon Echo Show

Amazon Echo Show

$149 (formerly $229)

2nd gen 10.1” screen

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077SXWSRP?ref=ods_ucc_aucc_bp_rc_nd_ucc 

- Because the newest Echo Show was announced last month at Amazon’s event, we now have 4 Echo Show models - the Echo Show 5, the Echo Show 8, the Echo Show (that’s mine), and the Echo Show 10.

This has been an interesting Live With It! Let’s break it down.

First Impressions

- Dead simple to set up. You pretty much plug it in somewhere, connect to your internet, and that’s it. Adding basic info like your location will give you weather updates. If you have smart devices, it’s a great hub to control them. Some Alexa skills can make use of a video screen which is fun to tinker with. There are built-in Silk and Firefox browsers if you want to browse the web. And my Echo came with a full free year of Food Network Kitchen!

- Because of the 10” screen, it looks like a tablet. Yes, the speakers and stand give it a wedge form factor, but it’s not heavy, and so I wasn’t even thinking at first that its location in my house should be permanent, because it has to be plugged in. I know the Echo Show isn’t a tablet but I’m so used to anything with a screen being mobile! Thinking of it as the cool cousin to the rest of my smart speakers that I never unplug or move around made more sense, eventually.

- Changing the wake word to “Echo” was the best thing I ever did so that if I wanted to interact I didn’t also wake up my other three smart speakers. Yes, I have too many smart speakers.

Location

— Location #1

As many of you DTNS folks know, I live in a small apartment which is directly on top of Studio Redwood AKA my garage. So there’s upstairs and downstairs, that’s it. When I first unboxed the Show I was in the studio and thought that was the right location. But it didn’t quite work, in fact it was sort of distracting. If I’m in the studio, I’m recording a show, I’m editing a podcast, I’m researching, I’m doing something work-related. I’m already sitting in front of a big 4k monitor, and I have a Sonos One in the room. I’m not casually needing something like an Echo Show. Felt redundant.

- Location #2

Tom suggested the bathroom, which I hadn’t even thought of. I happen to have pretty ample bathroom counter space and an outlet in the right spot, so I gave that a try for about a month. It was mostly great! I had this cool device showing me weather, the time, I was playing podcasts and music during showers… but eventually the food stuff started to bother me. I don’t want to think about food when I’m in a bathroom. Yes, I can completely customize my home screen slides and get rid of anything food-related, but I also LIKE food content. I just didn’t like it in the bathroom. People talk about the creepiness of a camera in the bathroom which I never worried about, there’s a physical off-cam button, you either trust Amazon or you don’t. But the Echo Show needed a new home.

- Location #3

My kitchen is packed. There is very little counter space for anything, especially a 10” screen. But I put the Echo Show on top of my microwave and this has worked much better for the past month with no weird electrical issues or interference I can see. Food content feels appropriate and it’s nice to have a screen in an otherwise sort of dead corner. But again, my apartment is really small. My TV is on the wall on a swivel. I’m never in the “other room”, there is no other room. So the Echo Show feels like a decadent device that I try to come up with reasons for using, rather than needing.

Video Calls

- This is a thing I do not do. If you FaceTime me, I will not answer. Echo Show/Facebook Portal people swear by these devices to connect with families and friends, especially those who live far away. With travel being so borked during the pandemic and I totally get that and think it’s awesome. I just don’t enjoy video chatting, I don’t like the invasiveness of it, and nobody in my family has an Echo Show so that entire feature (and it’s arguably the biggest one) is lost on me.

Overall Thoughts

- I think with the price drop to $149 this is a pretty excellent device for the right household. The newest model has the swivel so it can follow you around and that definitely is cool, but for my tiny little home that isn’t really necessary.

- If you have a smart home already and are used to barking orders at Alexa, I’m curious to know what the Echo Show offers you that makes you really appreciate the screen. Because I mostly bring up info like weather, news briefings, and podcasts, none of that is essentially visual. But maybe that’s just because it’s what I’m used to.

- I assume families with kids love some of the kid-friendly features and that kids could sit there all day having a blast. Unfortunately Otis the dog isn’t ready for the ecosystem yet.