Dot to Dot. With 85 minutes, we'll dive straight. For everyone who's simply dirty about Alexa. Hello, you Dot to Dot listeners.
This is David Ward from Across the Pond. It's good to be with you this week. I'm going to share something really exciting and new, and that is new hardware that has come out connected with the Amazon Echo line of devices with our favorite A-Lady. They kind of stuck up on me that I'd never heard about.
Now I'm going to mention that I'm at the workplace recording this today, so there may be some background sound, so I apologize for that. But the new hardware is called the Echo Hub. Yes, I know that name is not terribly friendly to me either, because we have had devices that have very similar nomenclature, if not identical nomenclature, in the past. In fact, I think we had back in the days of the Amazon Echo Pringle cans, I think we had an Echo Hub or an Echo Hub Pro, but anyway.
Don't find it the best name, but that's what it is. It is the Echo Hub Smart Panel. And as of February 21st, there was a recent blog entry from Amazon about this new piece of equipment. So we're talking relatively recently, this stuff has just come out, and you're starting to see some blogs come out from different reporters online describing and contrasting it.
So I'm going to give you a little crash course on that. I'm not sure if it's available in your area or in the woods yet, but if not, hopefully it will be soon. That way you can take a look at it for yourself. So the Echo Hub is really, in my mindset, somewhere between an Echo Show 8 and an Echo Show 15, kind of with some blending of concepts.
Really, in many ways, I feel like it's Echo 15, a reiteration of the concepts of the Echo 15, kind of taking it to another level. But anyhow, the Echo Show Hub, as the hub denotes, is really geared towards a home automation. So it has a lot of radio support in there for Zigbee home automation things, the new Matter Protocol, and even it acts as a thread support, thread border router, for home automation connected with a Matter standard as well. So that's kind of like the taken to the ninth level, Matter support.
So it supports those more advanced, higher bandwidth functions. It also supports Amazon Sidewalk, and all those radios that are connected with those capabilities, and of course, standard Wi-Fi, although it doesn't have the newer chipset supporting 6E, which supports the 6 gigahertz radio spectrum. So it doesn't support that. It's still using some of the older Wi-Fi chipsets.
It's a little disappointed by you, Amazon, with that, especially the price point we're going to talk about this product being at. Now, it's branded, or I should say packaged, a little differently in the fact that it's really geared, as it says, smart panel in the name, to be stuck on the wall. So it comes with a wall mounting kit and screws and all of that kind of stuff, a template for mounting it on the wall, and supports a USB-C to be powered. So you can mount it to the wall and actually dangle the cord down the wall and plug it right into a wall outlet.
It comes with a 12.6-watt wall charger. Or conversely, you can get an adapter, a Ethernet to USB-C with PoE support. Here in Virginia, where I live, any low-voltage USB or power over Ethernet is completely fire-code friendly, and there's no extra hazard of fire starting in your walls with that kind of thing. Obviously, you want to buy the right kind of equipment that goes through the walls and things like that, but that is completely kosher here.
By all means, if that's something you're thinking of doing, check your local building codes and fire codes. But it is kind of neat that that is engineered to do. Now, obviously, if you plug in the Ethernet that way, it can gain its Internet access as well. If it doesn't have that, you, of course, have that Wi-Fi support, although it isn't the newest chipset.
Now, the price at this point is pretty staggering, $179 on Amazon. I've seen it slightly on sale occasionally. I mean, it's because I'm a Prime member for like $176. Now, let's compare this.
It is a flat panel, smart panel, so think of like basically mounting an 8-inch tablet on a wall. But as the Hub denotes, it's for home automation. But let's compare it to the Echo Show 8. So the Echo Show 8 was just revised this past fall.
It was actually featured in the Amazon events in September with all the smart AI stuff. It has a much more robust speaker set. It's designed to actually be set on a desk. It has two 2-inch speakers, high fidelity, with some onboard chipsets for spatial audio.
It's going to just sound a lot better. It also has a built-in camera. Well, the Echo Hub has no camera, which may be a plus to you, so the sound quality, you're not going to have the camera, some of those functional things. Now, both of them have 8-lady support, so you can say the 8-lady name and give it verbal commands.
I think the Echo Hub has like a 4-mic array, so that's going to work as well. But you're not going to get that good feedback with the tiny little speakers probably in the Echo Hub. It's going to sound something more like something akin to a tablet, a smartphone, maybe a laptop, a low-grade laptop. But it isn't going to have that full-rich sound that the Echo Show 8 clearly, clearly does.
Now, both of them have that 8-inch screen, so that's comparable. The interface has changed a little bit. So with this Echo Hub smart panel, a lot of the reviewers and bloggers are talking about how it's a much more touch-first-centered experience, so you can configure widgets and things on your main screen and pop up right there to your ring video doorbell or whatever, right on the main front page. So much more touch-interface-oriented.
Now, to be fair, the Echo Show 8, if you swipe the screen over, you're going to see widgets and things like that. But I have heard it's maybe not quite as configurable as this smart panel, the Echo Hub, is. So at present, the Echo Show 8, the newest generation, I'm just starting a few months old with an 8-core processor, is roughly selling on sale right now for $99. That's basically an $80 difference.
And I think for $80, you're really probably spending your money better on an Echo Show 8. Now, the typical price of an Echo Show 8, $180, not on sale. That's a $30 difference. I don't know.
Even then, I'm not too sure for what you lose. You lose the camera, you lose the better sound. You might even lose a better processor. I'm not too sure it's really a winner.
Now, some of the blogs have commented on the laggy nature of the software as well, not being super snappy. Maybe that's because it hasn't been really refined. This is like the 1.0 of the product. But with those kind of factors in mind, it's saving $80.
And the Echo Show 8 having Zigbee, Thread, Matter, Sidewalk Support, all the same hub functionalities, the best as I can tell with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi support, I'm really leaning strongly towards, I would say, stick with an Echo Show 8. Now, I did say I compared this to the Echo Show 15 only in the sense that the Echo Show 15 was originally sold in the same kind of way and is a flat panel, really designed to be mounted on the wall as well. Now, when the 15 originally shipped, which I think was back in 2021, I don't know if it shipped with all the same wall mounting equipment or not. You might have to buy some extra stuff.
I don't really recall. In both cases, with the Echo Hub or the Echo Show 15, you can buy a separate, I think, like base to mount it on or sit it on the table as well. But the 15 was kind of originally marketed in a similar way as a panel you would put on the wall. It would serve as kind of like the family community calendar slash pegboard slash sticky note board slash thing.
It did have a camera and was in the $200 plus range, somewhere between $200 to $300. And unfortunately, they're still selling that bad boy, and it's still not that cheap, even being extremely older hardware. But the concept, I think, the Echo Hub is really an iteration upon this. A cheaper price point, smaller screen.
I think it's really probably where they originally wanted the Echo Show 15 to be. I wouldn't be surprised to say that the Echo Show 15 will go out of stock. And once it's out of stock, you're probably not going to see another one of those. This may be the new product line that's going to be like that, the Echo Hub.
So if they're going to continue to iterate on this, you may see an Echo Hub 15 here in the future or the like. Now, I will mention, the Echo Hub does have some sensors on it. It has an infrared sensor for, I think, motion detection. That probably wakes up the screen if you walk in front of it or maybe takes it out some sort of screen saver mode.
It also has a light sensor on it, probably so that at night it can dim the screen or optimize the battery or power usage to brighten or lower the screen, depending on the ambient lighting situation. Maybe so you don't get blinded by the thing if it's on full brightness. So it does have those sensors, but once again, no onboard camera. Okay, so that's basically a crash course in the Echo Hub versus the Echo Show 8 and the Echo Show 15.
Ultimately, much more geared towards mounting on the wall. Falls a little short in some of the hardware specs, I feel like, and really the price point is where it really starts to lose you, especially that $80 gap with something that else is practically brand new, the Echo Show 8, which may have a superior processor, definitely has superior sound, and has camera capability. So really, we need to fit a very particular niche. You know, if you're willing to shell out that kind of money, you know, in a hallway where you have nowhere to really sit in Echo Show 8, you know, like on a stand or on a countertop or something, we need to fit a very specific need.
But anyway, that's my little crash course on the new Echo Hub for y'all. By the way, it does support all the same accessibility things that we've come to love on the Echo Show line of devices, such as VoiceView for the blind or vision impaired, a built-in magnifier client, and a plethora of other tools used for other disabilities for the deaf and things like that. So you will find all of that listed under the Amazon listing for the Echo Hub smart panel. Go check it out.
Well, we thank you for listening. If you want to find out more from me, you can always check out me at goodwillvalleys.com slash newvision.