Now in its third technology, the Echo Present 8 stays Amazon’s most compelling good show. With an 8-inch display, it strikes a great steadiness in dimension and energy between the cheaper and slower Echo Present 5 ($49.99) and the dearer and specialised Echo Present 10 and Echo Present 15 ($249.99 every). It is dearer than its predecessor at $149.99, however its well-balanced, room-filling sound and quick efficiency assist justify the rise in worth. The third-gen Echo Present 8 is a helpful good show for just about any room in your house, incomes it our Editors’ Selection award.
Design: Largely Unchanged
The third-generation Echo Present 8, obtainable in black or white, retains the identical common form as its predecessor with just a few tweaks. It nonetheless incorporates a flat display that’s angled barely upward and a rounded, fabric-covered physique that holds the speaker drivers. The glass on the entrance is now utterly edge-to-edge, the digicam has been moved to the center of the highest bezel (from the higher proper nook), and the physique is barely pinched in. It’s slightly bigger at 4.2 by 7.9 by 5.5 inches (HWD), however solely by just a few fractions of an inch.
On the highest fringe of the Echo Present 8 sits a mechanical privateness slider for the digicam, a separate button to mute the microphone, quantity up and down buttons, and two pinholes for the far-field microphones. The again holds a connector for the included energy adapter.
Specs: A Quicker Processor and Matter Assist
Audio and video capabilities, at the least on the {hardware} aspect, appear to be utterly unchanged from the second-generation Echo Present 8. The third-gen mannequin has the identical brilliant, colourful 1,280-by-800-pixel 8-inch display and two 2-inch speaker drivers.
The principle audio enchancment right here comes within the type of software program, because it now helps spatial audio and may analyze the acoustics of the room it’s in to regulate its steadiness. That stated, there are limits to what audio processing can do with a stereo speaker association in a comparatively small gadget, so in case you really need Alexa-driven spatial audio, we advise testing the Echo Studio speaker ($199.99) as a substitute.
It additionally sports activities the identical digicam because the earlier Echo Present 8 and the Echo Present 10, a 13MP sensor that helps auto-framing. It is a huge step up from the 2MP digicam on the Echo Present 5 and the 5MP digicam on the Echo Present 15.
The third-gen Echo Present 8 options an octa-core processor with Amazon’s AZ2 neural engine, an almost two-year-old chip that additionally powers the Echo Present 15 and the Echo Pop good speaker. It’s nonetheless a marked improve from the second-gen Echo Present 8’s MediaTek MT 8183 chip, enabling sooner efficiency. Alexa is extraordinarily responsive, answering most of my instructions immediately in testing. Contact controls are additionally easy and content material performs rapidly.
(Credit score: Will Greenwald)The Echo Present 8 is properly geared up for wi-fi connectivity and will get just a few new residence automation tips. Similar to earlier than, it helps dual-band 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi for connecting to your private home community and Bluetooth for streaming music out of your cellphone. For this technology, Amazon has added a Zigbee good residence hub, a function beforehand obtainable solely on the Echo Present 10 and a few Echo audio system. It additionally now helps the Matter good residence interoperability customary and is supplied with a Thread border router, which is one other wi-fi community protocol Matter units can use alongside Wi-Fi. In contrast to an Echo speaker, nonetheless, the Echo Present 8 can’t operate as a Wi-Fi node in your Eero mesh community.
Privateness-conscious customers needs to be cautious of the Amazon Sidewalk wi-fi community the Echo Present 8 can hook up with. It’s a wi-fi protocol that lets totally different Amazon units, together with Ring safety cameras, discuss to one another and allow a communication mesh community for extending their usable vary and monitoring misplaced objects. We usually advocate opting out of it for privateness causes, which you are able to do when establishing the Echo Present 8.
Voice Assistant: Alexa’s Talents
Like each Echo gadget, the Echo Present 8 is constructed with Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant in thoughts. Simply say, “Alexa,” (or Amazon, Pc, Echo, or Ziggy, in case you change the wake phrase within the Alexa app), and provides the good show a command. Alexa has been steadily evolving with new options and language processing enhancements, and could be very helpful for controlling your good residence, looking for content material, making calls, checking your schedule, making lists, and easily delivering common data just like the climate.
(Credit score: Will Greenwald)Alexa is nice for looking and enjoying music, podcasts, and reveals on the Echo Present 8. For audio, Alexa permits voice playback from Amazon Music (in fact), Apple Music, Apple Podcasts, Audible (naturally, since Amazon owns it), Deezer, iHeartRadio, Pandora, SiriusXM, Spotify, Tidal, TuneIn, and Vevo. The checklist of Alexa-enabled video companies consists of Amazon Prime Video, Amazon Fireplace TV Channels, Hulu, Netflix, and Tubi. That hardly covers the total span of streaming media companies, however it’s a strong assortment that ought to cowl most music and TV tastes. Take into account that the display is just eight inches, so it’s not the most effective major show for watching your favourite reveals.
Good residence management is one other huge draw for Alexa. The voice assistant has been appropriate with 1000’s of good residence units for some time now, and assist for the Matter customary makes it much more highly effective. Alexa can work with nearly all main linked residence safety cameras, lights, locks, and thermostats, and can even management most TVs and plenty of soundbars and media streamers. The Echo Present 8 will show dwell feeds from many residence safety cameras and affords contact controls for many linked lights and different good residence units.
Contact Display screen: Faucet to Do (Some) Issues
The Echo Present 8 may be managed through its contact display, although utilizing your voice offers you extra choices to deliver up precisely what you need. Many of the panels that the house display rotates by means of have some type of contact interactivity, like tapping on a headline to open up a video. You possibly can allow or disable any of the handfuls of several types of Amazon content material solutions, with solely a handful of persistently helpful choices, except you actually wish to always get tips about what you are able to do along with your good show.
The restricted display house on the Echo Present 8 means it will probably’t present a number of widgets directly just like the Echo Present 15 can, so widgets successfully act as single apps. There are 5 buttons within the higher proper nook of the house display that present fast entry to your alternative of 4 widgets, with the fifth button opening the widget library. By default, the 4 different buttons allow you to open a really restricted choice of music solutions and lately performed tracks, a calendar view, a contact checklist, and any purchasing lists you’ve made.
The widget library is initially baffling, and at first appears utterly ineffective on the Echo Present 8. For those who attempt to add any widgets from the library view with the default settings, it offers an error that the utmost variety of widgets are already on the gadget. That is as a result of the 4 customizable widget slots are already taken, and the library does not allow you to take away them. As an alternative, it’s important to faucet and maintain on the buttons to take away each.
There are only some dozen widgets obtainable, and whether or not they’ll be helpful to you is determined by your style. I like having the calendar accessible, in addition to two different widgets that may play thunderstorm sounds and cat-calming music after I need. There’s not a complete lot of usefulness past that, and curiously, the Silk net browser isn’t obtainable as a widget. You possibly can entry the online on the Echo Present 8, however you want to ask Alexa to open the browser first.
(Credit score: Will Greenwald)Swiping down from the house display opens a helpful menu from which you’ll be able to entry the Echo Present 8’s settings, browse streaming music and video companies, and management your good residence units.
Digicam: Make Calls and Watch Your Residence
Amazon places cameras on most of its Echo Present units primarily for video communication. You should utilize the Echo Present 8 to make audio or video calls to another Amazon person with an Echo gadget or the Alexa app on their cellphone. It additionally enables you to make calls over Skype and Zoom, and place cellphone calls to most numbers within the US, Canada, Mexico, and the UK. The digicam and microphone present brilliant, clear audio and video to the individual you’re speaking to, and the Echo Present 8 helps automated face monitoring if you stroll round in entrance of it. The display is massive and detailed sufficient, and the audio system get sufficiently loud that you shouldn’t have any drawback seeing and listening to the individual on the opposite finish of the road.
The digicam is beneficial for greater than video calls, enabling the Echo Present 8’s new elective Adaptive Content material function. It’s a easy little trick that modifications what’s on the display based mostly in your distance from it. For those who’re removed from the display, it reveals an image body view or data in a big, easy-to-read format. While you get shut, it routinely shifts to a extra condensed and detailed view. For instance, the climate widget would possibly present an enormous icon and the temperature if you’re standing throughout the room, however as you method it reveals a full forecast. It’s a pleasant contact, and one which has additionally been added to the second-gen Echo Present 8.
(Credit score: Amazon/Will Greenwald)For those who’re keen to depart the digicam on if you’re away, you should use the Echo Present 8 to keep watch over your private home. The Alexa app enables you to faucet into the gadget to get a dwell feed from the digicam, with audio and the flexibility to speak by means of the good show. It solely gives a dwell view, although, and may’t make recordings or ship notifications if it detects undesirable exercise like a devoted indoor residence safety digicam.
Audio: Larger Sound By means of Software program
The Echo Present 8 delivers room-filling audio, however don’t count on a lot low-frequency. Our bass take a look at observe, The Knife’s “Silent Shout,” produced some hints of thump that considerably distorted at most quantity. The highest quantity degree is not very loud, and seemingly applies digital sign processing (DSP) to tamp down on the audio system’ output to forestall sub-bass motion from bodily harming the drivers.
Bass is dealt with conservatively on different tracks, although to not the purpose of creating the speaker sound hole or tinny. The opening acoustic guitar plucks of Sure’ “Roundabout” obtain sufficient resonance within the low finish to offer a way of fullness, with loads of treble element to let the string texture come by means of. When the observe correctly kicks in, the bassline sits a bit again however doesn’t disappear from the combination, whereas the drums, guitar strums, and vocals all come by means of with a pleasing steadiness.
(Credit score: Will Greenwald)Spatial audio can’t supply a major profit by way of directional imaging because the Echo Present 8’s stereo speaker drivers are so shut collectively. Nevertheless, the expertise helps the good show produce a larger-feeling sound area than the second-generation mannequin, assisted by the brand new automated room acoustic changes.
It sounds loud and clear, letting me hear balanced, detailed music from throughout my condominium. Whereas its restricted bass means it received’t shake the partitions, it’s nonetheless a strong improve in sound output contemplating the speaker drivers themselves are unchanged.
Nonetheless the Finest Good Show
The third-generation Echo Present 8 is a little more costly than its predecessor and its upgrades are pretty delicate. Even so, it is nonetheless the most effective good show for most individuals due to its huge sound, smart display dimension, and Alexa’s in depth talents. It’s louder and sounds higher than the Echo Present 5, and it’s considerably extra reasonably priced than the Echo Present 10 and the Echo Present 15. The Echo Present 8 strikes simply the correct steadiness for Alexa lovers, incomes it our Editors’ Selection award for good shows. Google Assistant customers, in the meantime, ought to take a look at the $99.99 Nest Hub and the $229.99 Nest Hub Max.
