With a bigger screen, new features, and an improved way to view videos, the Amazon’s Echo Show is an improvement over the first-generation product.
Well before any of its competitors put out a similar device, Amazon introduced the Echo Show in mid-2017, incorporating the sound and intelligence of Alexa with visuals to accompany voice responses.
Some of the lessons learned from the first Echo Show are addressed in a second-generation device, which offers a bigger screen and improved user interface for streaming video and made its debut during an event last month at Amazon headquarters, where nearly half a dozen new Alexa-powered devices were rolled out .
The Echo Show comes in charcoal and sandstone, costs $229, and goes on sale Oct. 11.
One thing you notice immediately is that the switch from a 7-inch to 10-inch screen provides a richer experience, as does an increase in pixel density and an HD screen. The 10-inch screen is consistent with 10-inch offerings from the Smart Display category for Google Assistant.
The second-generation Echo Show also includes design adjustments that may seem basic at first glance but that together make for a more modern device. First, the Echo Show’s two speakers have been moved behind the screen, giving the device the look of a seamless screen. (The first-generation Echo Show had speakers directly underneath the screen for a face that resembles a small television.)
A thinner bezel means four of the eight microphones were moved to the face of the device.
The other major hardware change is that the Echo Show now comes with a Zigbee hub for controlling smart home devices, allowing you to control your smart home devices even when Wi-Fi goes down.
The new Echo Show also has a much improved user interface, which includes quiet actions — essentially, a list of your smart home devices on a screen that let you turn things on and off with touch. Quiet actions are available for alarms and routines, as well as controlling smart home devices, and can be accessed with a swipe down from the top of the screen.
Touch control of smart home devices is also programmed to show up each time a smart home voice command is used.
You will notice another big change when you turn the device on and glance at the home page. Rather than a set of bullet points for home page cards, as in the first generation, this device does away with bullet points and arrows on the edges, which means content on the larger screen now appears to float.
The home screen also gets a range of new content — such as box scores for games that just ended and announcements about when your team will play next.
There’s also more trending video from providers like USA Today, along with movie trailers and some world news.
I hope the content comes to include local news and more ways to vary content flashed on the home screen, but for now it seems to be a smattering of national and international news headlines. Trending topics can share video or a quick snippet of text on the topic.
This feature will get even more interesting as Amazon becomes more contextually aware and personalized to serve up intelligent query ideas.
Alexa is learning how to suggest skills based on how relevant they are to your question — without you needing to say the name of a skill for it to launch. This means you can say “Alexa, help me book a handyman,” instead of “Alexa, launch HomeAway.”
When Alexa recommends skills, visual skills are not yet prioritized, but the Best on Screen choice sits atop the smattering of Alexa skills that appear on screen when you say: “Alexa, show me skills.”
The second-generation Echo Show comes with many additions to its video offerings, and that’s by necessity. About two months after the first generation Echo Show came out and lost its ability to play YouTube videos due to a public spat about listing Nest products on Amazon’s online marketplace.
There’s the Fire TV Recast, which uses over-the-air digital signal antenna can pick up about 25 to 30 channels for live TV anywhere. Fire TV Recast will include a DVR and respond to the voice command “Show me my recordings.”
In addition to streaming DVR, the second-generation Echo Show also comes with an improved Amazon Prime Video user interface, which allows you to sort through content by categories or get recommended titles for what to watch next. Prime Video was available on the previous Echo Show, but only really offered you the ability to toggle between titles left to right instead of seeing a grid of several options.
What you see when you come upon this Amazon Prime Video interface matters because it doesn’t just change what people see when they say “Alexa, show me Prime Video,” it also changes the answer to what people see when they say much more generic commands like “Alexa, show me movies” or “Alexa, show me TV shows.”
A similar interface to that for Amazon Prime Video is used for video skills kit users, starting with Hulu and NBC, to give their content a kind of landing page. Hulu and NBC video skills were not made available by the time this review was published.
Alongside the Hulu and NBC partnership and all the other news last month, was news that Alexa will begin to make proactive notifications for users called hunches. These are focused on smart home hunches today such as a reminder if you forget to turn off a light when you go to bed, but hunches for TV shows or content could be amazing and really change the way they think of devices like the Echo Show.
Another great addition to the visual experience for Alexa is the Alexa Presentation Language (APL), which will give Alexa skills developers the opportunity to introduce more visual content for voice apps.
The Echo Show and its competitors in the visual smart speaker space have always been about helping people cook, and the Echo Show got a more pronounced way to guide people through a recipe step by step.
I think closing the loop on what Amazon seems to want to accomplish by helping people cook dinner is offering Dash Replenishment or a quick add of a recipe to your shopping list or Whole Foods cart.
That’s not available today, but I can’t imagine it’s far off.
It would also be helpful to be able to press a single button and add the ingredients to your shopping list.
In the hands-on review that was done by VentureBeat last month after the Echo Show made its debut in Seattle, it was suggested that you can use a new feature to add multiple items add to your shopping list, but it turns out that’s not very simple you can find that this maxes out around 5 or 6 items at the most.
