Alexa and the smart home are moving closer together! With the Echo Show Hub, Amazon presents a smart display for controlling lamps, cameras, etc. All information here!
If Amazon has its way, there will soon be an Echo Hub in every household as a control center for the smart home.
Alexa has always tried to help control home smart home devices. If you want, you can ask Amazon’s voice assistant to turn on the lights or display the live image from the surveillance camera on the Echo Show . For those who don’t want to talk all the time but would rather lend a hand themselves, Amazon is bringing the Echo Hub – a control panel that is designed for convenient smart home operation. COMPUTER BILD knows the details about the device.
Echo Hub: Talk less, type more
“If you have a lot of smart home devices in use, you can now manage them easily,” promises Amazon at its hardware event in Virginia (USA), where COMPUTER BILD was there live. To make this possible, the Echo Hub has an 8-inch screen (20 centimeter diagonal), which is intended to provide direct access to the most important devices in the house. The smart home control center should always be visible when someone approaches the Echo Hub. There are infrared sensors in the device for this presence detection. During “work breaks,” the Echo Hub presents vacation photos or the time on its display.
The smart home dashboard should be customizable as desired. Lamps , heating thermostats , smart locks , etc. can be managed, grouped or organized into widgets, routines and scenes. In order to be able to integrate as many devices as possible, the Echo Hub masters the most important wireless standards with ZigBee, Thread, Bluetooth and the new smart home language Matter . Anyone who has surveillance cameras from the Amazon subsidiary Ring in their home can arm them with a tap of the finger or have the live images from the cams displayed in an overview.
Flexible: stand up or nail to the wall
Because the Echo Hub does not have a battery and has to be plugged into a power outlet for power, it needs a fixed place in the house. But at least you don’t have to constantly look for it between the sofa cushions. The Echo Hub can be wall-mounted or placed on a table or shelf using a stand. The Echo Hub doesn’t have a camera on board, but it does have microphones so that Alexa can be contacted at any time. The internet connection required for this is via WLAN or wired via an Ethernet adapter. Alexa should also be able to process many requests quickly and directly on the device. Of course, the Echo Hub can also be used for other things beyond smart home control, such as playing music or as a shared shopping list.