Amazon Echo Present 8 evaluation: That is the sensible show to purchase

Greatest Costs Immediately: Amazon Echo Present 8 (fourth-generation, 2025)

Amazon has a brand new crop of Echo gadgets designed particularly for its huge AI revamp of Alexa, together with a few new Echo audio system, the Echo Dot Max (which we’ve beforehand reviewed) and the Echo Studio (our evaluation is within the works). Additionally within the combine are two Echo Present shows: the Echo Present 11 and the Echo Present 8, the latter of which we’re reviewing right here. 

With each of the brand new Echo Present shows, Amazon has served up modern new spheroid designs for the bottom that make their shows seem to drift in mid-air, and their sonics acquired makeovers as properly. Below the hood, the Echo Present 8 ($179.99) has a brand new processor designed to make Alexa+ reply extra shortly and precisely to the “Alexa” wake phrase, whereas new ambient sensor applied sciences assist Alexa detect when somebody’s within the room, and even who they’re. 

The Echo Present 8 can also be an leisure and communication machine, able to streaming films and reveals on Amazon Prime Video and Netflix, cranking tunes, and letting you join with far-flung pals and family members, both on voice calls or video chat. 

However the 4th-gen Echo Present 8 isn’t excellent, and it drops a key characteristic which may give privacy-minded customers pause. 

Design 

Essentially the most putting factor concerning the new Echo Present 8 (8.2 x 5 x 5.9 inches, WxDxH) is its design; fairly merely, it’s attractive, and an enormous enchancment in comparison with its chunky-looking predecessor. Gone is the wedge-shaped design of older Echo Present shows (the third-gen Echo Present 8 a minimum of adopted an edge-to-edge display screen and rounded corners). The brand new Echo Present 8’s display screen is now mounted on a spheroid base that makes the slim panel seem to drift in area. 

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This show itself measures 8.7 inches diagonally, with slimmer bezels than the earlier Echo Present 8 and its 8-inch display screen. The quantity buttons are on the proper fringe of the show, proper beneath a privateness button that mutes the microphone array and electronically deactivates the digicam lens (which sits within the prime bezel).

Good, however the fourth-gen Echo Present 8 loses a key privateness characteristic of the third-gen model: a bodily for blocking the digicam lens, which means you may need to suppose twice earlier than placing the show in your bed room. 

The 4th-gen Echo Present 8 appears nice by itself, nevertheless it appears even higher when paired with Amazon’s non-compulsory stand, a premium-looking metallic accent that magnetically snaps onto the underside of the show’s base.

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The stand feels reassuringly heavy and strong, and it lets you tilt the Echo Present 8 as much as 40 levels or spin it a full 360 levels—and sure, you may spin the show with out having to carry the stand down together with your different hand. Though it tacks an extra $40 to the Echo Present 8’s price ticket, the non-compulsory stand is properly well worth the added expense. 

Contained in the Echo Present 8’s fabric-covered spheroid base is a customized AZ3 Professional processor that’s been particularly designed for Alexa+, together with a revamped speaker array that features a pair of full-range drivers and a 2.8-inch woofer, an improve from the 2 drivers and the passive bass radiator within the earlier era. I’ll delve additional into the Echo Present 8’s Alexa+ and audio efficiency in a bit. 

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Setup 

I’ve complained previously about the method of establishing an Echo Present show—specifically, you needed to kind in your Amazon e-mail deal with and your password utilizing the on-screen keyboard, a course of that’s simple to screw up when you’ve got a powerful password. For a daily Echo speaker just like the Echo Dot, the method is way more seamless, because the Alexa app will merely detect the speaker and join it. Why couldn’t the identical factor occur with an Echo Present show? 

Nicely, I’m joyful to report that since my evaluation of the earlier Echo Present 8 (circa 2023), Amazon has given the Echo Present connection course of a severe improve. Now you merely scan a QR code on the Echo Present show utilizing your cellphone, and the Alexa app handles the remainder.  

There are some privateness disclosures and EULAs you’ll must examine off, and also you additionally should designate which room the Echo Present 8 will reside in. You’ll additionally must enroll your face if you would like Alexa to acknowledge you through the Echo Present’s digicam; the method is much like establishing Face ID on an iPhone and takes just a few minutes. (As a result of I had beforehand enrolled my face for the Third-gen Echo Present 8, I didn’t must do it once more for the brand new mannequin.) 

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General, the Echo Present 8 setup course of was a easy one, and I had the show up and working in roughly 5 minutes. 

Customizing the house display screen 

The Echo Present 8’s house display screen can present a plethora of content material, from slideshows of your snapshots and breaking information headlines to widespread recipes, sensible house controls, sports activities scores, and purchasing suggestions—together with sponsored merchandise; i.e., commercials. 

The presence of advertisements on a tool you’ve paid good cash for is a vexing one, and in my early days with the Echo Present 8, I grew uninterested in seeing purchasing advertisements pop up that have been clearly based mostly on my Amazon searches. For instance, after a day of buying VESA mounts on Amazon, I woke to seek out VESA mount advertisements on the Echo Present’s house display screen.  

Fortunately, it’s simple to customise what you see on the house display screen—and simply as importantly, what you don’t need. Below the Settings menu you’ll discover a House Display Classes part the place you may toggle varied house display screen parts on or off. Disabling the Buying class nixed the steered merchandise, for instance, and you may also select whether or not you need to see native or nationwide information, sports activities headlines, inventory market updates, climate experiences, and so forth. You’ll be able to nonetheless ask Alexa for purchasing suggestions after disabling the Buying house display screen class, however the purchasing advertisements received’t be pushed at you anymore. 

You may also add widgets to the house display screen for a dashboard-style view of your calendar, climate updates, lately performed music, and—maybe better of all—sensible house controls, excellent for providing you with contact controls on your varied lights, sensible plugs, and different sensible gadgets. Alexa can also be keen and in a position to management your sensible house, a subject we’ll get to in a second. 

Lastly, the Echo Present can show slideshows of both curated pictures and paintings from Amazon or snapshots out of your Amazon Photographs library. You’ll be able to change the velocity at which the Present rotates by way of the pictures (anyplace from 6 to 24 seconds per slide) and whether or not your images must be cropped, “sensible” cropped (which means the show picks essentially the most “attention-grabbing” elements of your pictures to deal with), or proven of their entirety.  

Personally, I don’t love the Echo Present in its digital photograph body mode because it tends to sandwich portrait-style pictures between thick bars, it doesn’t matter what crop setting you decide. Google’s Nest Hubs have a greater answer: they intelligently pair portrait images side-by-side, thus avoiding the entire window-boxing difficulty. 

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Good hub connectivity 

The 4th-gen Echo Present 8’s sensible house connectivity choices are unchanged in comparison with the earlier model. For starters, the show will act as a Zigbee sensible house hub, very best for connecting Zigbee-enabled gadgets comparable to sensible bulbs, sensible plugs, remotes, water leak sensors, and comparable sensible devices. The Echo Present 8 additionally packs a Thread border router, which means it will probably join Matter-enabled sensible gadgets to the web and to one another. And it’s additionally a bridge for Sidewalk, the Amazon-backed “neighborhood community” protocol that leverages close by Echo audio system and Ring cameras to attach low-power and far-flung sensible sensors and gadgets (together with the brand new collection of Sidewalk-enabled sensors that Ring introduced at CES in January). 

That’s a reasonably complete array of sensible connectivity choices, nevertheless it’s price noting that the Echo Present 8 doesn’t assist Z-Wave, a wi-fi sensible house and safety protocol with its personal wealthy ecosystem of gadgets. (No different Echo gadgets supply a Z-Wave hub both, though Amazon’s Ring Alarm and Ring Alarm Professional house safety methods do.) Additionally, not like a number of different Echo audio system, together with the Dot and the brand new Dot Max, the Echo Present 8 can’t be configured to function as a community node when related to one in all Amazon’s Eero mesh Wi-Fi routers. 

Good sensors 

The Echo Present 8 boasts a group of onboard sensors which might be primarily geared in direction of detecting when persons are close by—and, should you enable the show to take action, it will probably acknowledge who is close to it, which is good for serving to Alexa to offer you personalised responses.  

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Utilizing an Amazon know-how known as Omnisense, and with the assistance of its digicam and ambient temperature and lightweight sensors, the Echo Present 8 can detect when persons are within the room and act accordingly. For instance, the Present can change the model of its on-screen interface, boosting the dimensions of graphical parts when you’re additional away and shrinking them as you strategy, all the higher for including extra particulars when you’re nearer.  

Omniverse may also assist Alexa—and specifically, Alexa+—acknowledge people in its neighborhood, permitting it to tailor its responses (comparable to whenever you ask about upcoming calendar occasions). The know-how may also set off Alexa routines when individuals enter or depart the room, excellent for turning lights on and off based mostly on room occupancy or queuing up a playlist whenever you arrive house from work. 

Alexa+ and sensible house performance 

In fact, the star of the present in the case of the Echo Present 8’s sensible house skills is Alexa+, the long-awaited AI revamp for Alexa that’s coming as much as its first anniversary.  

Whereas it’s been out for almost a yr and is accessible for anybody Alexa customers who ask for it (and a few who didn’t), Alexa+ continues to be in an “early entry” section. As such, Amazon isn’t charging for Alexa+ but; ultimately, Alexa+ entry will probably be free for Amazon Prime members however $20 a month for everybody else. 

Alexa+ will work on virtually any working Echo speaker (together with the sooner puck-shaped Echo Dot fashions). That mentioned, the Echo Present 8’s AZ3 Professional processor helps the show to answer the “Alexa” wake work extra shortly and precisely, and it additionally permits the superior Omnisense presense-detection skills I discussed earlier. 

Just like the “traditional” Alexa (which continues to be round and can stay free), Alexa+ can management your sensible lights, take cost of sensible plugs, handle your thermostats, and run automated routines at your command. However whereas the previous Alexa demanded using considerably stilted voice instructions (“Alexa, set desk lamp 3 to 70 p.c”), Alexa+ can perceive pure language instructions. Say “Alexa, it’s darkish in right here, are you able to make it brighter,” and Alexa+ can—theoretically—work out {that a}) you’re in the lounge and b) that you just need the brightness of the lounge lights dialed up.  

When it really works, it’s fairly cool, however as I’ve written earlier than, Alexa+ ceaselessly disappoints as a lot because it impresses, variously mishearing instructions or misunderstanding your intent. Typically it precisely guesses that it ought to ship over your Roomba whenever you declare how soiled the carpets are; typically it should simply provide you with a speech concerning the carpet manufacturing business. Typically it’s juggling your streaming music playlists with ease, tossing your tunes from one speaker to a different; different occasions it appears unbelievably dense, just like the time it mistook a group of Taylor Swift 1989 covers for the precise 1989 album and doubled down after I identified the error. 

In brief, Alexa+ may be very a lot a piece in progress, which is why it stays in an early entry interval (and why I’m not giving it a full evaluation simply but). 

Similar to ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and Anthropic’s Claude, Alexa+ is continually evolving, and hopefully bettering because it does so. It’s additionally price noting that Alexa+ isn’t alone in having smart-home hiccups; Gemini at House has its share of foibles, too. Lastly, you may all the time return to the previous Alexa if you would like; not so with Gemini, which received’t allow you to return to Google Assistant. 

Video calling and communication 

Top-of-the-line options of a sensible show just like the Echo Present 8 is two-way video chat, and on this regard the product shines. The vibrant 8.7-inch, full-HD show can’t swivel by itself just like the motorized display screen on the Third-gen Echo Present 10, however the 13-megapixel digicam’s software program can nonetheless zoom in and observe you should you select to roam whilst you chat. 

The Echo Present 8’s digicam additionally gives some restricted home-monitoring capabilities, permitting customers to take a reside look by way of the lens when away from house. That mentioned, the show’s digicam can’t perform as a Ring digicam in the identical manner that Google’s camera-equipped Nest Hub Max can double as a Nest digicam.  

Apart from its video-calling options, the Echo Present 8 can deal with voice communication, too. For instance, you may name or “drop-in” on some other Echo machine by asking Alexa. Even higher, you should utilize Alexa to name any quantity within the U.S., Canada, or Mexico at no cost, though there’s a catch: you’re restricted to simply 10 contacts (a minimum of you may swap new contacts for previous everytime you need). 

In one other helpful perk, you may join Alexa to your AT&T, T-Cell, or Verizon cell quantity. You’ll be able to then ask Alexa to make hands-free calls, and as a bonus, Alexa can announce your callers, reply the decision, and even dangle up on an incoming name. 

It in all probability received’t be the most important display screen in your house, however the Echo Present 8 nonetheless works properly for taking part in movies from the large streaming providers, supplied you’re subscribed to both Amazon Prime Video (which Prime members get at no cost, though you’ll must pay somewhat extra to keep away from advertisements) or Netflix. Each of these providers supply native apps for the Echo Present 8, making for a lot smoother navigation and streaming. 

For every little thing else—Disney+, HBO Max, Hulu, YouTube and different providers—you’ll want to make use of the Echo Present 8’s Silk net browser, which works in a pinch however feels clunkier in comparison with the native video apps. 

If you’d like a extra well-rounded streaming video expertise from an Echo Present show, you’ll must step as much as the Echo Present 15 (both the primary or second generations) or the Echo Present 21, with these bigger shows supporting the full-on Amazon Hearth TV app, full with assist for all the large streamers in addition to dozens of area of interest streaming providers. 

So far as music goes, you may hyperlink accounts from such streaming providers as Amazon Music, Apple Music, Apple Podcasts, Deezer, Spotify, Tidal, iHeartRadio, Sirius XM, TuneIn, Audacy, and Audible. Lacking from the listing: YouTube Music and Qobuz. 

Ben Patterson/Foundry

Audio efficiency 

As I wrote earlier, Amazon has given the Echo Present 8 a severe audio improve in comparison with the earlier era, with the newer model swapping its predecessor’s passive bass radiator for a powered 2.8-inch woofer. 

The result’s significantly better bass, which grew to become evident after I performed Taylor Swift’s 1989 (sure, the identical album I used to be arguing with Alexa+ about) on the Third- and 4th-gen Echo Present 8 shows in succession.  

The older Present 8 sounded effective, completely serviceable for background music within the kitchen. The newer mannequin, alternatively, delivered audio efficiency that you can really deal with and revel in. We’re not speaking Sonos ranges of audio high quality, thoughts you, however for a sensible show, I assumed the revamped Echo Present 8 sounded fairly spectacular. 

Do you have to purchase the Amazon Echo Present 8? 

I definitely have my quibbles with the 4th-gen Echo Present 8. The shortage of a privateness shutter for the digicam is my greatest criticism, whereas the iffy video streaming assist is considerably ameliorated by the truth that the 8-inch display screen isn’t very best for severe video watching. And sure, Alexa+ continues to be a piece in progress, though you may all the time follow the previous Alexa should you want. 

However by way of a mainstream sensible show that you just place in your kitchen or front room, the Amazon Echo Present 8 hits the candy spot. It appears terrific, it sounds nice, it gives a galaxy of sensible house integrations plus a variety of connectivity, it’s excellent for video chat and may even place cell requires you. Supplied you’ve settled on the Alexa ecosystem and provided that Google’s Nest Hub shows are getting lengthy within the tooth, the 4th-gen Echo Present 8 is the sensible show to get. 

Do you have to improve from the Third-generation Echo Present 8? It relies upon. Sure, the 4th-gen Present 8 boasts a a lot sleeker design, whereas the newer Echo Present definitely tops the Third-gen’s audio efficiency, specific by way of bass response. However the older Echo Present 8 does have a privateness shutter, it gives the identical sensible house hubs and connectivity because the newer model, it helps Alexa+ (albeit with an older Amazon processor), and whereas its display screen is a tad smaller, it nonetheless appears simply pretty much as good as its successor’s. 

So, if you’re drawn to the new design of the 4th-generation Echo Present 8 otherwise you demand bleeding-edge audio and processor efficiency, certain, go forward and pony up for the newer show. But when you’re primarily involved about sensible house management, you’ll be effective sticking with the Third-generation machine. 

This evaluation is a part of TechHive’s in-depth protection of the perfect sensible audio system.