This Amazon tablet solved my biggest smart home problem—and it's on sale now

What's up?

The Amazon Echo Hub is a surprisingly reliable smart home panel with Alexa. You can get it for $125, with a $55 (31%) discount for the perfect gift for a smart home enthusiast.

---

Key insights from ZDNET

• Amazon usually sells this Echo Hub for $180, but it's on sale for $125.
• The Echo Hub gives Alexa the space she deserves in the smart home market: a control panel for easy access to smart devices, without ads and unnecessary bells and whistles.
• The Smart Display can be slow and buggy, especially when loading multiple camera views.

---

Many smart home enthusiasts, myself included, are tired of juggling dozens of apps on their phones to control the smart devices in their homes. While Matter's release alleviates this annoyance, the new smart home connectivity standard has yet to receive enough support to eliminate the problem.

For this reason, many of us are looking for smart displays that give us quick access to control our devices. Some tech-savvy people may use a repurposed old tablet mounted on the wall as a smart home control center, while others may opt for a smart display like an Echo Show or a Google Nest Hub that already works on the go Box can act as a smart home controller, among other things.

Also: Better than a ring? This video doorbell has all the benefits and no monthly fees (and it's on sale)

These devices always have their disadvantages. Amazon's Echo Hub is intended to fill a gap in the smart home controller market by being what these devices are not: a smart home controller and only that.

There are no bells and whistles with the Echo Hub. There's no spatial audio speaker attached to the base, no ultra-high definition for streaming, and no ads to display in standby mode. It serves no purpose other than acting as a hub and controller for a smart home.

Testing the Echo Hub over the past few months has been a refreshing experience. Navigation is divided into categories and widgets. At a glance, the Echo Hub displays your widgets on about two-thirds of the screen, with your Routines and Rooms on the left and device categories at the bottom. You can customize the widgets and download more from the Widgets Store.

The 8-inch touchscreen display is wall-mountable, which I like best as I've always wanted to repurpose a tablet as a wall-mounted smart panel or rest it on a flat surface with a table stand.

Plus: I gave away my Kindle and iPad within hours of testing this tablet—and it's up to $180 off

As the name suggests, the Echo Hub is a smart home control panel with the Alexa voice assistant. It also works to connect Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Zigbee, Matter, Thread and Sidewalk smart devices.

Wait, if Amazon already has the Echo Show, why make the Echo Hub? The Amazon Alexa smart home network is quickly becoming one of the largest and most intuitive smart home automation systems on the market. The system supports 100 million devices and is the most compatible.

The Alexa app quickly and effortlessly connects new devices you add to your smart home and allows you to control devices from different manufacturers in one place. When a smart home device says it “works with Alexa,” you can trust that the technology is easy to set up and control with the Alexa app, voice assistant, and now the Echo Hub.

Also: Amazon's Echo Show 5 has turned me into a smart display believer

I currently have four Echo Shows and four other Echo speakers, so there's plenty of Alexa in my home. As an Apple HomeKit house, I picked up an Echo speaker to see how Alexa stacks up against Siri.

I then got my kitchen's Echo Show so I could listen to music while cooking dinner, watch the news, and control smart home devices, but also because I thought the display would give me better insight into my calendar possible, which was not the case. The Echo Hub does exactly what it promises: It gives me a clear view of my smart home and a quick way to control it.

I've never hidden the Echo Show's shortcomings, especially as someone who uses the technology daily. I don't like that I can't control what's shown in standby mode, that Alexa only understands me about 70% of the time, that the hardware itself is slow and sluggish, and that an app like YouTube that requires a browser It's so hard to use navigate with your voice, and smart home control is such a secondary feature.

ZDNET's buying guide

Because Alexa can handle a variety of devices, maintain a reliable connection, and make routines easy to use, I'm afraid to admit that I find myself reaching for it more often than my Apple Home app. The Echo Hub brings all of this convenience to my wall, within my reach. I can easily run routines through the hub, arm or disarm my Ring alarm system, check my security cameras, adjust the downstairs thermostat, or turn the lights on or off on the way upstairs for the night.

During setup, you can choose which Echo device in your home will play music when you ask Alexa to play something on the Echo Hub, as it's not a speaker – another differentiator between the Echo Hub and other Echo devices. This approach means you don't get an Echo Hub instead of an Echo speaker if you still want to play music, especially if you want smart speakers in your home.

Like many smart home users, I'm reluctant to give in completely to Alexa and Amazon for privacy and security reasons, especially given that the data isn't processed locally. While companies can always claim that consumer privacy is a priority, when it comes to your personal information, you can only take them at face value.