TLDR: I work as a developer and love smart home products. I could not believe how difficult this thing is to set up. Will probably return it because I'm pretty certain that an ipad glued to a bluetooth speaker would be leagues better than this.
Full complaint:
So I purchased the echo show 8 for the primary purpose of being the visual component to the security system which consists of 2 blink doorbells, and 3 blink cameras. I wanted to put it in my kitchen so I could also listen to music, watch tv, or ask questions while I cook.
Here are some of my major frustrations:
~~~~~~~~Echo Show 8:
1. Generally, the UI is just plain terrible. It is really hard to find things I am looking for and many aspects I can only change on my phone. Like why are there settings that can only be changed on a smaller screen?
==>Amazon responded to this by saying that "Echo Show devices are more voice-command centric with an added visual/touch component" But literally every time you want the Echo Show to learn something new, you have to add it in the Alexa app on your phone... however, all Amazon needs to do is put the Alexa app on the tablet and all of these headaches would be solved!
2. The home screen is not customizable at all. Sure there is a settings page with like 3000 toggles for things that can flash across my screen in a individual, full screen, marquis fashion, but I don't know how that could possibly be helpful. I'm just supposed to stand there and stare until the weather or whatever happens to swipe by? Why can't I just have a screen with my most common apps on it? For example, I would love to have a home screen with a button for each of my common cameras, fire tv, and netflix. This is why I made the comment about a tablet glued to a bluetooth speaker would be better. I could have all the apps I want, where I want them. Siri will open the alexa/blink/spotify app for me.
3. Advertisements. This concern is also with my Fire Stick but why are there ads? This is not a subscription service, I PAID for this device. I remember Amazon played this game with the Kindle so that you could by a cheaper Kindle that would have ads on the lock screen, but now they just put ads everywhere no matter what. Why can I not turn off ads?
==> Amazon responded to confirm that you cannot turn ads off any of their devices!
==> This is number 3 on this list but is also number 1 on my list of reasons I will no longer buy any amazon tech products in the future.
5. Alexa will show me my cameras, but keeps telling me that it can't connect to either of my doorbells, even though I can view the doorbells in my Blink and Alexa apps on my phone.
==> Amazon tells me to disconnect them in the app and try again, but, as I've already said, if you put the app on the tablet, this issue would would not exist or be easier to solve.
While this review is about the Echo Show, my primary reason for purchasing was to use with Blink systems, so I'm going to add my reviews on them here too:
~~~~~~Blink App/cameras
1. Can't add multiple accounts to system. There are 4 people that live in my home, why can't I add members to the household instead of having to give them my email/password?
==> It would also be great if I could give them different permissions or assign only certain doorbells/cameras as viewable to specific users. This is standard in almost all of the other smarthome gadgets I have that involve security (such as smart locks, etc)
2. If open my app to view the doorbell or cameras, it shows a live view for about 20 secs and then turns off. Why can't I just live stream? I'm still on the free trial, but it says I won't even be able to live stream at all if I don't pay a monthly fee, so, If I'm paying for a service, why can't I have the service??
3. It takes way too long for any and all devices to load the camera view. This is especially critical when someone rings the doorbell and they have to wait for my app to open, then connect, and then for the audio to transmit
4. Speaking of audio, when I turn on my microphone, the person on the other side can barely hear me.