DAY 01
TWO WEEKS WITH THE AMAZON ECHO SHOW 5
£80 / stuff.tv/EchoShow 5Matt Tate enjoys a fortnight of being coaxed into consciousness by Amazon’s
latest screen-equipped, Alexa-powered smart home assistant and alarm clock
Is there a gap somewhere in
your house? Then there’s almost
certainly an Alexa-infused Echo
device you can fill it with.
The latest arrival in Amazon’s
ever-growing family of smart
home assistants is the Echo
Show 5: a smaller version of
its 10in namesake and a rival
to Google’s Nest Hub, Lenovo’s
Smart Clock and, whether it was
meant to be or not, Amazon’s
own Echo Spot. And while it’s
not perfect, the Echo Show 5’s
impressive feature set and low
price point make it an extremely
tempting proposition.
Its diminutive form means it
can fit pretty much anywhere you
need it to. Just 3.4in tall and 2.9in
deep, it’s easy to accommodate
on a crowded kitchen top, desk
or bedside table.
The previous Echo Show was
already a little on the unwieldy
side; next to its little brother itlooks comically enormous. With
its 5.5in display and big bezels,
the Show 5 looks not unlike an
iPhone 8 Plus being propped up
on a portable Bluetooth speaker.
The extra inch and a half it has on
Lenovo’s Smart Clock makes a
difference, though, and I can easily
glance at a video news bulletin
from across the room.
Amazon has opted for a similar
fabric-wrapped back to the big
Echo Show, lending it a pleasingly
clean, minimalist aesthetic. You
plug it into the mains at the back
(no wireless option) and there’s a
microUSB port here too. Why, I’m
not entirely sure. Across the barat the top you’ll find volume
controls and a slider for enabling
and disabling the camera in the
top right corner.
If your Echo Show 5 is going to
live in the bedroom, a camera is
always going to be a controversial
inclusion, but it couldn’t be easier
to block it from staring at you
while you get undressed. For
the ultra-cautious cloud cynics,
an additional button also kills
the microphones.
On the subject of those mics,
there are two. They shouldn’t
struggle to pick up your voice
close by, but you’ll need to speak
up if you’re across the room.Wake news
Having a camera on an alarm clock is
controversial, but it’s easy to block it
from staring while you get undressed