Amazon Echo Hub (newest model), 8", Redesigned with customizable control and Alexa+, Compatible with thousands of devices

Originally I was going to maybe rate this 4 stars, but honestly, this is EXACTLY what I've been looking for and nothing even comes remotely close to it, so I'll go ahead and list everything it does great, followed by what needs improvements, and finally what you should NOT purchase this for... and at the end I'll go over the "general" stuff like screen and sound. IF YOU DON'T WANT TO PULL OUT YOUR PHONE & GO TO ALEXA APP This is honestly the only reason you should be buying this. Because you can already do everything and more directly on the Alexa app on your phone. So you need to (a) see yourself using the Alexa app a lot, and (b) wish you had it on your wall. IF YOU HAVE SMART DEVICES Without these, this is just an overpriced and very bad tablet. Maybe you want to control a few devices around your house like your lights, look at the front door camera. If your requirements aren't too specific with these and you just are willing to take what you can get, then this is it. IF YOU HAVE MULTIPLE OTHER ALEXA SPEAKERS This really does help bring them together, because you now have a screen, although you might save some money if you get one of the other Echo Show devices. It's cool to have it up on the wall, be able to again, not use your phone, not pull out some tablet, to change songs. IF YOU WANT A GENERAL OVERVIEW OF SECURITY & THERMOSTAT This will display your Ring alarm status, let you arm and disarm it, and see what your thermostat is set to from another location across the house (I wouldn't recommend putting them side by side, that's a waste.) IF YOU WANT YOUR HOME TO FEEL "MODERN" SMART This reminds me of things I've seen at high-end hotels. It's just cool to have a touchscreen tablet on the wall, and be able to adjust some lights, play music, adjust the temperature. ___________________ DO >>NOT<< BUY FOR: 1) Managing your device settings. This does a poor job. Your phone can do better. This should only be there to access frequently used devices you've already set up but don't want to navigate through your phone to access. 2) Speakers. This isn't it. The sound isn't awful but it's not great, and you should only use this as a supplement to other speakers you already have in your home. 3) Watching videos. Don't do it. I know you might think it'll be nice to put this in the kitchen and watch something while you cook, just get some other display or tablet. 4) Controlling everything. This kind of ties into #1 above but this should only be set it and forget it, quickly click what you can fit on the screen, and overview of your devices per room. Don't spend a lot of time navigating around. Just get any other tablet at that point. 5) Highly specific apps. The apps on it are lackluster. Have some really cool specific idea? You won't be able to do it or it'll end up being bad. You likely won't be able to do exactly what you want, only as I mentioned very very very basic things. __________________ THE REALLY BAD, DEFINITELY DON'T BUY: 1) Device groups. Currently not supported. If you "favorite" a group of smart devices, it doesn't display it and you can pretty much only do one device at a time, with the "group" being the entire group like "Living Room." This was almost a deal-breaker for me, hopefully they add it later, but I've since found some workarounds for me specific use case. But I wanted to group four mart lights in a room, per room, and have it all display under favorites and could not do that. 2) Smooth tablet experience. Nope, this is going to feel like a really cheap tablet because it is a really cheap tablet. You're going to have to be patient and wait one second or maybe even two for some things, and you'll see it stutter once in a while. This is still miles better than anything else like it that's meant to go on your wall. But probably one of the worst if you're comparing it to an iPad or high-end Samsung tablet. __________________ The Screen: Feels like a really cheap tablet, but they make it work for what it is. The size could have been bigger but honestly then it'd look weird and not like a wall panel. I like it, I just wish there was some more customizability (there isn't really.) The Audio: Again, feels like a really cheap tablet or laptop. The Design: Works out for being wall-mounted. I like the big bezel. Portability: No. Almost none. Do not expect to unplug this and move it around. The Software: Needs some work but it's not as terrible as people make it out to be. I've noticed a few minor bugs like arming my Ring if a device needs a bypass gets it stuck with no error, just loading. Smart thermostat (Nest) if you try to set it to let's say 72 to 73, it will error out vaguely when you should remember that you need a bigger gap between the low and high number. Cameras take a bit to load but they also do that on the apps in any case. It'll only get better from here. The Cost: I wish it would have been closer to $100, but hey, I bought it at full price because I saw the value. If you do not see the value, do not buy it, you'll be disappointed. This is the type of product that's simultaneously worth $50 and $500.

This is not a standard echo device. It is made to act as a control for your other smart home devices. For example, it is made to hang on the wall , so if you wish it to be place on a flat surface it will need a stand. It has a nice display and in itself is not an eyesore. The screen is customizable and is readable at a distance. It does have speakers but not really for listening to music as they are small. It does link to your echo and will use it or them for speakers. It uses voice comands as well as the touch screen. A plus is ease of setup.

UPDATE: it's worse than I thought. I decided to return it, but Amazon is making it very difficult to return. There is a Kohls a short walk form my house, but Amazon wants me to drive 45 minutes to a drop-off location. They know this thing sucks, maybe that's why they don't want to make it easy to return. This is a huge disappointment. Alexa is awesome because it's the hub that ties all of your smart home devices together. But there was never a good interface. The app is messy, and sometimes voice isn't the best way to control devices. I was hoping that this device called a hub would be the perfect solution. It's not. You need to own one to realize how bad it really is. Here are some examples... -The screen is REALLY sluggish. It's like a $30 no-name android tablet. -The icons are big and few can fit on the screen. -some screens will only display one icon at a time... I need to use the sluggish screen to scroll one at a time to see things when there is room for everything in that category. -you can't easily - maybe not at all - customize the home screen. -if you tap the weather widget, after a delay, you get a full screen showing only the outside temperature. That is much less than the widget shows. I expected to see more detail in full screen, not less. -It's great that it can show the status and limited control of my cielo thermostats, but... The control is temp up or down, and the power toggles on or off. Those three buttons don't fit on the full screen - you need to scroll to see the three buttons. Seriously... the full screen will not show you three buttons at once. You need to scroll. - you can't view and set alarms for other echo devices from it. -you can see your ring cameras. And that works pretty well. -it sees all of my Insteon light switches (that I have given an Alexa name), but I can't organize then in a way that's usable. There's all on and all off buttons at the top of the lighting screen that is useless. I use an all lights off scene every night - but it's not literally ALL of the lights. There are a few that need to stay on until the timer turns them off. -Maybe it's possible, but I can't figure out how to make it play music on my Sonos. I can't even figure out how to make it play music on another Echo. -It can use POE, but Amazon won't tell you how. Plus, how do you reboot it it you have it built into the wall? How is this any better than an echo show? If I were the project manager for this device, I would not let my boss see this version of it. It's really bad. I gave it two stars because I want it to be great, and I suspect there are ways to make it do more things I can't figure out. In my hands, it's a one star product. I think I will return it. Maybe next year there will be a better one. The screen is so sluggish, that it must be an under powered CPU, not just bad programming. All of the YouTubers are pretty optimistic about this product, but I suspect it's only because they want to keep a good rapport with Amazon so they will always get new products early.

Quick update. I have been using them for a week and when I read some of the comments in other reviews I am mystified. I use mine just like a normal Echo View. Stream, play music, get the weather, buy crap from the big A on them. No problems. The basic difference in functionality is the home screen on the Hub has actual persistent buttonology that the View lacks. This is because the OS is skewed toward physical AND verbal interaction with the device. I can swish and the weather is front and center. I can push the four buttons for my Ring system and it will bring up the four most recently viewed cameras as a set, which is very visible. Or I can select one view and it will fill the screen with that camera image. I can answer the front door or say hello to my wife in the driveway through the hub. As to sluggish, I am running a 900mbps mesh network and its not sluggish. The biggest delay is if the hub has to call up the image from the mothership in Amazonville. But I believe that since I executed find my devices last night the Hub should be able to access a camera locally and directly. At 900MBS. Which is not slow. The single gripe I have, and I suspect its neither unique to me, is the inability to tailor the home screen with the set of displays and buttons that I want rather than the default version. Most of the default buttons are not useful for me and the ones I want are off the screen and I have to go through multiple motions to access them. Clearly this is not what the designers wanted. The simpler and more intuitive the intuitive the interface is the more users appreciate it and help sell it to others rather than making what I view as mostly uninformed comments based on unrealistic expectations or wants. So far have two. One for my office and one for the wife’s Lazy Boy nest Some of these reviews are brutal. And in my opinion are due to a lack of knowledge or need for attention First it is convenient footprint. Been using a Show8 and this is better It allows me to control my 97 wireless devices when COMCAST is down. That alone is worth the money My lovely wife has been using RING on her iPhone. Don’t tell her but she can’t see very well. This Hub solves that challenge. She now can quickly bring up one of the 10 RING cameras and sea useful pictures I will do audio books on the hub. It’s good for that. And stream Reacher season 2. Again This is clearly an early version of what it will become. I’m happy with it. Going to get one for the bedroom

I generally really like the Echo Hub. As others have said, it's not an Echo Show, but a smart home center that can pull your cameras, Ring Alarms, Ring keypads, lights, switches, and other smart devices into a nice wall-mounted panel that offers convenience apart from your phone. It's meant to be set up, customized, and left alone. It's not meant to watch TV or interact with like a Show. I have one for each floor of a three-story house and another in our primary bedroom. Three are powered by the 12-volt wire that was already in the wall from our old security system, and one is powered by splitting off the PoE of an already existing in-wall ethernet port in the adjacent room. The Black Friday sale made these much more palatable at just over $100 each and I made my own fast-charging power adapters for just under $6 each. This is my biggest complaint with the Echo Hub. They aren't really PoE compliant or ready since they don't have an ethernet port and they don't just require a Power Delivery (PD) adapter like Amazon states. They require a PD3.0 or PD3.1 adapter that optionally supports Programmable Power Supply (PPS). After a couple of weeks of trial and error I made four power adapters from AITRIP PD65W Fast Charging Type-C USB modules that provided the proper PPS power. I added a REVODATA Gigabit PoE Splitter ($13 additional) to power one of them with 12-volts and 2-amps (24 watt) while maintaining the ethernet data port in the adjacent room. The Hubs look professionally installed since all the power connections are completely hidden in the wall. I also bought the Hubs for Thread and Matter support of window shades. Unfortunately, they didn't play nicely with other Echo's nearby, so I disconnected them. Thread connections are much more stable now. However, the shade motors will sometimes flash that they have disconnected. They usually reconnect but will occasionally become unresponsive and show as such in the Alexa app. Thread simply isn't ready for primetime. At least I have new Hub border routers and a several Thread shades to test software update stability. I wish I could talk to a second-tier engineer instead of getting canned responses from Amazon. Oh well. I didn't give 5-stars to the Echo Hub. There are more issues, mostly minor, than just the power and Thread issues. 1. The interface is SLOW. It needs more horsepower to be more responsive! 2. I think the Hubs looks pretty nice on the wall but could be more modern looking by being thinner and having smaller bezels. 3. One of the four Hubs shipped with a faulty power adapter that gave a startup error as many others have mentioned. 4. I find the brightness of the screen to be very difficult to precisely control. The Hub tries too hard to be "smart". Why not allow the user to set the exact lowest and highest brightness settings? 5. The proximity sensor works well, but I turned it off because the only option to allow the screen to toggle back to the main clock interface takes 10 minutes and can't be adjusted. WTH? The Hubs are wall-mounted in the highest traffic areas to make them accessible, especially for disarming the Ring alarms. The clock and background images almost never show when proximity is turned on since someone is almost always passing by.

I purchased to replace wired alarm system/keypad control panel with (Konnected Alarm Smart System) and add smart home devices on the hub to control from the hub. Overall setup is easy and uses devices and routines configured in the Alexa App. Customizing is very limited. Devices show in alphabetical order with no ability to change. One helpful tip is to create Groups (like lights) and then add those groups to a main Home Group. Widgets on the home screen are very limited as well. It's a basic hub that I wish Amazon will allow for more customizing. Pros: Uses existing Devices in alexa. Display is good and wakes up when you get close. Easy to use Camera integration to show camera when person is detected via a routine Alexa voice control Cons: Limited customization Fonts are too big and there is no way to change them Widgets only show on home screen and are very limited Requires upgraded USB power supply (had to replace my existing one used by a fire table) Alarm took me forever to figure out how to disarm with the Home/Away routines Buttons / quick actions at bottom of screen are not configurable and basically useless Routines show in alphabetical order if you want to use them from your hub you need to name them something like starting with "a eh - " to get them to show first or scroll through all your routines to find them. Cameras show up in alphabetical order with no way to configure Sound quality is just okay but adjustable (one of the few things that are) Display brightness and sleep work well Overall if you want a basic hub that works with Alexa devices it's worth getting. If you want a more customizable hub then invest time another Smart hub.

I use the Echo hub as part of my elaborate smart home ecosystem. I have over 200 smart devices. Water shut off valve, automated pool fill valves to compensate for evaporation. Water sensors by every water bib and faucet, and many-many smart switches. There are also smart locks, and over 200 Hue lights in the home in addition. I use a smart things hub to control all hue lighting, and Alexa for the majority of my over 100 subroutines running at all times in the home. I do NOT use the echo hub to control the entire home. I use it to control the devices most relevant to the downstairs living room/kitchen space. It is there to control lighting with dimming, temprature adjustments to the downstairs HVAC unit only, and to play music from different zones of the home. I like it so much, I purchased a second one for the upstairs as well to control the singular bonus room for lighting, temp ect. I also like the camera view for the ring cameras that I can select which ones are alway on and monitoring. This is not a TV, or a way to search the MEDIA. It is a touch device to control KEY items in a given space with a nice visual. It also doubles as a great looking clock. Do not purchase this item if you are looking for it to be an echo show. Those devices also have there purpose and I own 3 of them as well. The echo show 15 works better for keeping a post it type bored for family organization, calendar events, or to have a tv plying firetv. In conclusion, the echo hub is a smart home hub. If you do not know what a smart home hub is .... research that topic first to determine if you even need one. I know for a fact that I wouldn't want to be standing on my feet looking at the echo hub on the wall while I am making adjustments to my over 200 devices, when it is much easier to do that while sitting on my couch with an iPad. And I also wouldn't want to watch TV or a Movie though such a small screen. The echo hub is perfect for a 1st addition to the Alexa family for just what it is - a smart home hub for a singular room control. I will more than likely purchase a 3rd unit for placement in my garage/shop for control of lighting, temperature, whole house water shut off valve, and water softener bypass valves for servicing my water softener. The uses are endless when you know how to use something.

I am not sure how I have lived without this. We have tons of smart home devices, lights, switches, Alexa etc, This hub is exactly what we needed to bring control of these devices to one place and have a nice visual and control. We recently added Bringnox roller blinds with Mater motors and this HUB serves as a great Thread network controller. Highly suggest this hub.