What’s the deal?
The Amazon Echo Hub is a surprisingly dependable smart home panel with Alexa. You can get it for $125, a $55 discount (31%) for the perfect gift for a smart home enthusiast.
ZDNET’s key takeaways
- Amazon typically sells the Echo Hub<!–> for $180, but it’s on sale for $125.
- The Echo Hub gives Alexa the place it has earned in the smart home market: A control panel to easily access smart devices, no ads, and no unnecessary fluff.
- The smart display can be slow and buggy, especially while loading multiple camera views.
Many smart home enthusiasts, myself included, are tired of juggling dozens of apps on their phones to control the smart devices in their homes. While the release of Matter alleviates this hassle, the new smart home connectivity standard has yet to get enough support to eliminate the challenge.
As a result, many of us are left looking for smart displays that can give us quick access to control our devices. Some tech-savvy folks may use a repurposed old tablet mounted to the wall as a smart home control center, while others opt for a smart display like an Echo Show or a Google Nest Hub that can already function as a smart home controller out of the box, among other things.
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These devices always have their drawbacks. Amazon’s Echo Hub–> is designed to fill a gap in the smart home controller market by being what these devices are not: a smart home controller and only that.
There are no frills with the Echo Hub. There’s no spatial audio speaker attached to its base, no ultra-high definition for streaming, and no ads to display while in standby mode. It doesn’t serve any purpose besides being a smart home hub and controller.
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Testing the Echo Hub for the past few months has been a refreshing experience. Its navigation is sorted into categories and widgets. At a glance, the Echo Hub displays your widgets on about two-thirds of the screen, with your routines and rooms on the left side and device categories at the bottom. You can customize the widgets and download more from the widgets store.
Source: Robotics - zdnet.com