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Credit: Illustration by Ian Moore and product image courtesy of Amazon.
Smart-home devices can make life easier, but things can quickly get messy if you have too many and they all need separate apps. That’s when a smart-home hub can come in handy. Amazon’s new Echo Hub came out this February and is already discounted at $144.99 (originally $179.99), the lowest price it has been since its release, according to price-checking tools.
You can think of the Echo Hub as an Echo speaker with a touch screen, although the speaker is much worse. The point is to consolidate your smart devices into one hub you can control and see better than opening multiple apps. It’s designed to be wall-mounted, although you can also buy a stand for it for $30.
The contents on the screen like widgets and your smart devices are fully customizable. It has an “Adaptive Content” feature that basically wakes up the screen when you walk by it. What sets this apart from the Echo Show devices is rather than using it to watch videos or ask it questions, you’ll be able to see and control all of your smart devices more easily (although you can still play music and videos from YouTube, if you want to).
The Echo Hub is great for people who own Ring or Amazon smart devices, although it’s also compatible with locks, lights, thermostats, speakers, cameras, TVs, and other smart devices that work with Zigbee, Matter, Sidewalk, and Thread. You can connect with wifi or Bluetooth. It is wired, so you need to make sure you have an outlet nearby wherever you decide to set it up.
There is no camera on this device, so you won’t be able to video call people. The screen is an eight-inch with a 1,280 by 800-pixel resolution. You can read about it in more detail in PCMag’s review.
Compared to other smart home control panels, the Echo Hub is much cheaper and works well. At its current price, it’s a great option for anyone with many smart home devices.
