Amazon Echo Hub | 8” smart home control panel with 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 APPThis 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 DEVICESWithout 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 SPEAKERSThis 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 & THERMOSTATThis 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" SMARTThis 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.

There are many reviews high and low for this hub. What you intend on using it for is what you should be looking at. I have had an excellent experience with it so far, because I am using it as a second alarm control, control my lighting and quick view of my Ring cameras/answering the doorbell. It can handle media, music, etc, but that is not its primary use. It is quick and responsive when controlling all of my Ring products, very good at my lights and switches, and very good at locking/unlocking my doors. It works perfectly as a second alarm panel for my Ring alarm. It does a admirable job with my ecobee controlling the Hvac. It is also outstanding as a home intercom, assuming you have Amazon Echos set up in other rooms to drop in on. It is not so great for Amazon music, etc, just get an echo dot for that. It is also not really good to use for video streaming... Yes, it can do that with it, but it begins to lag a bit when it does. This is not a tablet either, as it does need to remain plugged in, so if that is what you are expecting, look at a fire tablet.If you want a device to function as a hub for smart home devices to quickly control, plus need a 2nd Ring alarm panel, THIS IS IT! If you are looking for a media controller, you probably need a fire tablet.It has been excellent for me, was easy to set up and use. I also used a wall wire phish tool to get the USB cord through the wall to keep it looking sharp.

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.