Amazon's Echo Show 8 (2nd Gen) Is The Smart Display Your Home Needs

 

Large and in charge

If you’re familiar with the 1st gen Echo Show 8, you know it’s not exactly a compact device — and the 2nd gen Echo Show 8 is the same size, measuring in with an 8-inch screen and a 4-inch by 8-inch footprint. That could be a pro or a con, depending on what you’re looking to get from the device (and where you want to put it).

I love the size for my kitchen because it’s nice to have a large screen there for recipes, and it’s a gathering area for the family where we can easily make video calls. On the other hand, it would be way too big for my desk.

If you plan to use your Echo Show for streaming, you’re going to want to spring for the bigger Echo Show 8 rather than the Echo Show 5 (which also just received a revamp).

And because this device was essentially made for video calls and connecting, you want to put it somewhere where the household would naturally gather anyway. There are plenty of places that I could put it, but they’re not areas where we typically congregate.

Zoom… maybe

Because of the kind of work I do (writing), I attend lots of online cooking classes and workshops. And one of my little pet peeves is having to move my laptop into the kitchen for these meetings so my phone’s not tied up.

So one of the features of the Echo Show 8 that I’m most excited about is that it supposedly works with Zoom with essentially no setup required. I was super pumped to test out the feature with a cooking class. After a quick Google search, it was easy enough to get everything in place. I synced my Google calendar to Alexa, waited for the meeting time, and said the magic words: “Alexa, join my Zoom meeting.”

And… she said there was no dial-in number so it was a no-go. I even generated some meetings of my own to try to test out the feature but none of them had a dial-in number either, so they all received the same message.

I had that beautiful Echo Show set up all nice in my kitchen but still had to move my laptop into the kitchen for my class. Womp, womp.

On the other hand, I like that the Echo Show 8 gives me helpful calendar reminders without intrusive notifications so I can easily see when my next meeting is.

One of the new features of these 2nd gen devices is motion-activated Alexa routines — which could really be a game-changer for setting home office hours. Imagine a low-key instrumental playlist starting when you walk into your office while Alexa automatically starts reading your calendar. Nice.

Note: from my understanding, the Echo Show 8 is the ONLY Echo Show device that can join Zoom meetings. So if that’s something that’s important to you, this is the one you want. I am anxiously awaiting a fix for the “dial-in” issue because it would make the Echo Show 8 a nearly perfect device in my eyes.

Hands-free kitchen assistant

I subscribe to a meal kit delivery service that shares their recipe cards digitally. On that note, I created a routine to automatically open the browser so I can navigate to the meal kit website when I say, “Alexa, let’s make dinner.” It was nice to have Alexa set timers when I pop something in the oven, rather than setting it manually on the oven.

And when I just need to pull up a recipe, it’s so much easier to use the Echo Show 8 than to constantly check my phone or run back and forth to my laptop. Maybe it’s because I spend so much time in the kitchen between work and feeding my crew, but I really feel like it’s where the Echo Show 8 shines. The smaller Echo Show 5 is nice, but it definitely wouldn’t be near as useful for looking at recipes due to its compact screen.

Still, it’s way more than just a high-tech cookbook stand.

Easy, flawless video calling

If you’re all about video calling, this is absolutely the Echo Show device you want. The camera is a significant upgrade from the 1st gen Echo Show 8, jumping from 1 megapixel to 13.

During calls, the camera will pan and zoom automatically to stay focused on the people who are in the camera’s view — and that’s a huge plus for parents of squirmy kids and people who’d like to multitask on a video call instead of holding their phone in front of their face