# New Amazon Echo with touchscreen?



## Betsy the Quilter

https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-plans-to-unveil-new-echo-1494272821

Amazon.com Inc. is due to unveil a new Echo speaker with a screen that will incorporate video calling capabilities, according to people familiar with the matter, keeping the online retailer one step ahead of tech rivals in seeking to control smart homes.


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## hamerfan

It may be as soon as tomorrow:

http://fortune.com/2017/05/06/new-amazon-echo-touchscreen/


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## The Hooded Claw

Here it is! $230, or buy two and save $100 with a special code. No interest from the Claw.



Oops, forgot to post the link.


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## Leslie

There is interest from me! I have already pre-ordered. I have points, so I was able to get 2 "Echo Show" for $106. That seems like a deal!


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## The Hooded Claw

Good deal Leslie! Of course you had to answer the most difficult question of black or white or one of each. I hope the deliberation wasn't too tough!


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## D/W

Leslie said:


> There is interest from me! I have already pre-ordered. I have points, so I was able to get 2 "Echo Show" for $106. That seems like a deal!


Wow! That's a great deal!

On the Echo Show product page it states: "Make hands-free video calls to friends and family who have an Echo Show or the Alexa App." To me, that implies the *Alexa App* will have video-call capabilities in the near future, which is exciting! 

UPDATE - See this page at Amazon: Coming soon--Alexa calling and messaging. *Use your Echo device to call or message anyone with a supported Echo device or the Alexa App--for free*. The future is here!


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## Leslie

The Hooded Claw said:


> Good deal Leslie! Of course you had to answer the most difficult question of black or white or one of each. I hope the deliberation wasn't too tough!


I actually chose white for both. My three other Echos (original, Dot, and Tap) are all black so I thought it was time to switch it up a bit!


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## gdae23

I decided on the 2 pack, both in black which fits better with my other tech items. I do like the look of the white one too, though. I think having the screen will make it easier to browse and select music, check my shopping list, etc.  I wonder if I'll still use my 2 original Echos after I get these, but if not, I can pass them on to friends / family. 

I see the Alexa app has already updated and lists a (future) video category. It's quite a different setup from the previous version of the app and at first I had trouble finding things. Getting used to it already, though.


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## Sandpiper

Hmmmm. I could say I'll have to think about it first. Yeah right.  Probably order _one_ today. I have two Echos in my one bedroom condo (black in the living room, white in the bedroom). I like having one in each room. Expect will put the Echo Show in the living room. Another white.


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## Andra

I'm still on the fence about this one.  I didn't see much use in the Echo at first and now we have lots of them.
I'm eager to hear what you guys think when you get yours.


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## gdae23

I'm starting to see/hear news stories saying that the Echo Show will have a motion detector, and will turn on automatically when you walk into a room, instead of listening for the wake word. That is different from what it shows on the Amazon page about the Echo Show, which states that you turn it on by saying Alexa. This might be a dealbreaker for me, if the motion detector option can't be turned off completely and if you can't still just use the wake word to start up the Echo Show. There's the privacy issue and also the fact that I would walk in and out of the rooms where these devices would be many times during the day. The news stories do say that you can turn off the camera, but I'm not sure how that would affect the video screen for other functions.

I heard this first on my Alexa flash briefing. (Oops! I'm dictating this message on my iPad and that last statement just caused the real Alexa to start my flash briefing!) Here's a link to one of the stories that came up when I googled "Echo Show motion detector".

http://news.morningstar.com/all/dow-jones/us-markets/2017051110467/amazons-new-echo-device-will-be-watching.aspx

Edited to add: I just sent Amazon an inquiry about this and will post a follow up here if I get any more information about this from them.


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## Atunah

This isn't about this new device, but about the new calling. My husband and I been doing this the last 2 nights. He is out of town and we both got set up, very easy. And then he calls me via the app and I talk to him via my Echo. So much easier than either holding a phone to my head or using the crappy speaker phone on the home phone. I was able to walk around quite far and he could still hear me and the sound quality was really good, considering he was on speaker on his phone. I can also call him by telling her to do so. Pretty neat. 

Although I think the Echo show seems like a cool device, I wouldn't really have use for it. Besides my husband when he is out of town, I wouldn't have anyone else to call like that with video. And in order to use the youtube and such, I would have to be close to such a small screen and where would I put it. If its on the night stand, you'd have to face it all the way around and I'd have to lay on the side. I have a TV in the corner with Roku for that stuff. But for big families, I can see this being neat. Its just the two of us here so no use for it. 

I really like the new app, things seem to make more sense now and it looks nicer. Also snappier than it was, at least on my android phone. I haven't updated my fire yet.


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## gdae23

Atunah said:


> This isn't about this new device, but about the new calling. My husband and I been doing this the last 2 nights. He is out of town and we both got set up, very easy. And then he calls me via the app and I talk to him via my Echo. So much easier than either holding a phone to my head or using the crappy speaker phone on the home phone. I was able to walk around quite far and he could still hear me and the sound quality was really good, considering he was on speaker on his phone. I can also call him by telling her to do so. Pretty neat.
> 
> Although I think the Echo show seems like a cool device, I wouldn't really have use for it. Besides my husband when he is out of town, I wouldn't have anyone else to call like that with video. And in order to use the youtube and such, I would have to be close to such a small screen and where would I put it. If its on the night stand, you'd have to face it all the way around and I'd have to lay on the side. I have a TV in the corner with Roku for that stuff. But for big families, I can see this being neat. Its just the two of us here so no use for it.
> 
> I really like the new app, things seem to make more sense now and it looks nicer. Also snappier than it was, at least on my android phone. I haven't updated my fire yet.


I'm not sure if I'll use the Alexa phone service, but I'm curious about how it works. Does your cell phone have to be on for the call to go through to the Echo? Does the cell phone still ring when the call comes in, or does only the Echo respond in some way?

So far, I'm not really interested in the screen as a video phone. I'm thinking it would make it easier to choose music to play, review shopping lists, etc., with the visual element. I often have used the Alexa app for these purposes, but don't always have the device with the app handy in the same room. So I like the idea of the screen being self contained with Alexa. I plan to put the devices on a desk and on a table, so if I want to use them to watch video, that should work. But I think your points are valid, since in the promotional video and photos the Echo Show is on a night table, kitchen counter, etc.


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## Atunah

gdae23 said:


> I'm not sure if I'll use the Alexa phone service, but I'm curious about how it works. Does your cell phone have to be on for the call to go through to the Echo? Does the cell phone still ring when the call comes in, or does only the Echo respond in some way?
> 
> So far, I'm not really interested in the screen as a video phone. I'm thinking it would make it easier to choose music to play, review shopping lists, etc., with the visual element. I often have used the Alexa app for these purposes, but don't always have the device with the app handy in the same room. So I like the idea of the screen being self contained with Alexa. I plan to put the devices on a desk and on a table, so if I want to use them to watch video, that should work. But I think your points are valid, since in the promotional video and photos the Echo Show is on a night table, kitchen counter, etc.


Well, if you want to make the call, the phone has to be on and it goes via the app. My husband used the app on his iphone. The alexa app. When you install the new updated app, it will tell you it will pull info from the contacts to find those that have echoes. You then authorize the phone with a text code. So yes, it uses the phone on that end. Now when he called me, I didn't hear my phone ring, but my Echo was turned up really loud, so I can't be sure. But I don't think it rang. I didn't have the app open anyway. 
I don't think on my end my phone matters as I have echoes and so will call those. Alexa will turn green, make some weird sound and says so and so is calling. Then you just say alexa take the call and there it is. On his end it would have been a regular call I assume.

If he was at work locally, he could do it from his dot, call me on my echo at home and we both be'd talking on the devices.


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## gdae23

Atunah, thanks for explaining more about how the Alexa phone service works. I realize I didn't word one of my questions well. When I asked if the phone had to be on, I meant, does it have to be on at the receiving end in order for the call to go through to the Echo? If you were home and your cell phone was turned off when your husband called you, would you still get his call via the Echo?

I received a response to my inquiry to Amazon about the motion detector issue I mentioned above. Unfortunately, the response is largely incomprehensible. This is the gist of it though:



> Upon further research we're unable to see the official notice about this motion control feature and there is no option available to disabling this feature.So there is nothing to worry about this concern but I'll share your comments with the Alexa development team


In other words, the Amazon employee (contacted via the Alexa app) doesn't know anything about this issue at all. I'm now wondering if it was just a fake story that somehow ended up in a legitimate source. I first heard it on my Alexa flash news briefing, on the Wall Street Journal tech report. When I googled for more info, the WSJ story was one of the results that came up, but it's behind a paywall, and I couldn't read the whole story. I didn't recognize any of the other sites that came up in the results list. So I may be doing my part here to perpetuate a rumor.


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## Atunah

gdae23 said:


> Atunah, thanks for explaining more about how the Alexa phone service works. I realize I didn't word one of my questions well. When I asked if the phone had to be on, I meant, does it have to be on at the receiving end in order for the call to go through to the Echo? If you were home and your cell phone was turned off when your husband called you, would you still get his call via the Echo?


Yes, last night my phone was dead, I mean android battery logo on screen dead. I left it laying around. It doesn't need the phone on the other end, it calls the echoes one has in the house. He says even on his end, it sounds much better than the calling we did before. Sound quality is good he means.


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## Betsy the Quilter

So, I went ahead and set this up.  Showed it to hubby.  He's just shaking his head.  Don't know if he'll use it or not.  I could see me calling him from somewhere though.  If I can figure out how to have it call home, LOL.  How did you do that, Atunah?

Don't like that the app on the iPad will now only show in portrait mode--I use the iPad in landscape mode.  I sent them feedback (which also took some effort to find).

Betsy


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## Atunah

Betsy the Quilter said:


> So, I went ahead and set this up. Showed it to hubby. He's just shaking his head. Don't know if he'll use it or not. I could see me calling him from somewhere though. If I can figure out how to have it call home, LOL. How did you do that, Atunah?


As long as the person you are trying to call appears in the list of people in the app. It did that by allowing when you first set it up to take the info from your contacts. At first of course I didn't have anyone on the list. Then my husband got the app, signed in to amazon and then confirmed his cell # with a text. Once that was done, he now shows up in You find who is in your list on the home page in the app, clicking the little man logo on the top. I have an android, so don't know if it looks the same on ithingies. Then all I would do is say, Alexa, call suchandsuch. Whatever the name is they show up there. Since it pulls the info from contacts, it would use that. When he calls she says there is a call incoming and all I do is say Alexa take the call. I am sure there are some other trigger words, but that is what I tried first and it worked.

Thing is, once its set up, anyone can do it. I only have one person on my list, sad me. But as long as its set up with all the folks showing up in the app list and they have their end verified, all you do is tell the Echo, or the app. That is it.

Setup was surprisingly easy to be honest. Just kind of works automatically and they walk you through. Then done. It took a bit for Alexa to find my husband to call. He showed up in the list, but when I tried initially, she said he's not on the list, or some thing. Can't recall now what she said exactly. You can also say, make a call and she'll ask you who to call.

Kind of neat. Because the speaker on the Echo is so much better than any phone speaker, I was able to walk around and tidy up while talking on the phone. Instead of having to carry my phone around, laying it just right so I could still hear, or be heard.


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## Betsy the Quilter

So I set up the app on my iPhone, and I gave it my cell number. And hubby was able to call me on my cell by telling Alexa to call me.  But how do I get it to call my home using my cell phone?  That's what I'm not figuring out....


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## Atunah

Betsy the Quilter said:


> So I set up the app on my iPhone, and I gave it my cell number. And hubby was able to call me on my cell by telling Alexa to call me. But how do I get it to call my home using my cell phone? That's what I'm not figuring out....


Open the alexa app and click on the person looking logo on top. If you are not on that screen, there are 3 logos on the bottom. You want the text bubble one first. Then go to top person logo. That will give you your contacts. There just click on the name you want to call and you'll have a phone logo there.

I assume there isn't much difference in the apps. My husband has an iphone and that is what he did he says. So same thing.


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## Betsy the Quilter

Atunah said:


> Open the alexa app and click on the person looking logo on top. If you are not on that screen, there are 3 logos on the bottom. You want the text bubble one first. Then go to top person logo. That will give you your contacts. There just click on the name you want to call and you'll have a phone logo there.
> 
> I assume there isn't much difference in the apps. My husband has an iphone and that is what he did he says. So same thing.


But I'm the only contact I show, with my cell phone. How do I get the home echo on there to call?


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## Atunah

Betsy the Quilter said:


> But I'm the only contact I show, with my cell phone. How do I get the home echo on there to call?


I might be slightly confused, but the Echoes don't show up there. You just tell the echo to call such and such, but that contact does have to be in the list. I am not in my own contacts, so not sure why you see yourself. 

I am also not clear on how this works within the same household. My husband has his own amazon account. I don't know how that would have worked if he had the same account, I assume his number would still appear as its a different phone number. The home echo is connected to whatever account the app is connected to. I think I am still confused. I didn't have to fiddle much, it just did its thing, hubby did his thing across the country and there it is.


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## Betsy the Quilter

Ahh.  The problem may be that we only have one cell phone.  I was thinking that if he could call me on the cell phone from the Echo, I could call the Echo from my cell phone....

*ponders*

Betsy


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## Betsy the Quilter

OK, I had an epiphany as I was falling asleep the other day but just got to try it.  If I want to call my own Echo, I tap on myself in my contact list on the phone..  Duh.

Works great, the ring on the Echo turns green and it announces that I am calling.  Of course, it freaked the heck out of my husband who was downstairs in the family room/studio and this voice came out of Alexa, LOL.

Betsy


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## Ann in Arlington

Betsy the Quilter said:


> OK, I had an epiphany as I was falling asleep the other day but just got to try it. If I want to call my own Echo, I tap on myself in my contact list on the phone.. Duh.
> 
> Works great, the ring on the Echo turns green and it announces that I am calling. Of course, *it freaked the heck out of my husband* who was downstairs in the family room/studio and this voice came out of Alexa, LOL.
> 
> Betsy


Good. Then it worked exactly as expected.


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## Betsy the Quilter

Ann in Arlington said:


> Good. Then it worked exactly as expected.


 

Have I mentioned that he's really old? Not good to startle the old guy....


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## Atunah

Betsy the Quilter said:


> OK, I had an epiphany as I was falling asleep the other day but just got to try it. If I want to call my own Echo, I tap on myself in my contact list on the phone.. Duh.
> 
> Works great, the ring on the Echo turns green and it announces that I am calling. Of course, it freaked the heck out of my husband who was downstairs in the family room/studio and this voice came out of Alexa, LOL.
> 
> Betsy


Oh wow, I did not think of that, but it makes sense of course. Duh indeed.

My husband freaked me out the other night. He's been gone for business and usually I am still downstairs where the Echo is. Its volume is at a pleasant 5. But one night he echo called me and I was upstairs, where we have a dot that is connected to a larger speaker. Unfortunately I had jammed there earlier to some Cat Stevens and the volume was kind of high. So when I walked by it like 2 feet it started its calling sound. About got a heart attack. I was just on the way to turn in for the night. 
Note to self, make sure to turn volume back down to normal levels after jamming session is done.


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## D/W

The Echo Show, currently available to pre-order, will be released this Wednesday, June 28.

Here's a very informative video review:


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## Leslie

Mine is due to arrive tomorrow. Looking forward to testing it out!

L


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## Sandpiper

Did you get it?  Comments?


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## gdae23

I set my Echo Show up yesterday so based on just these two days here are some comments. I do plan to send feedback to Amazon after I've used it a bit longer. The features that already worked on the Echo continue to work on the Show, so I'll only comment on new features.

Set-up went smoothly. There was an immediate update needed which took about 10 minutes. (Alexa informed me in advance that it would take that long.) I also decided to unpair a remote from my Echo and use it with the Show, and that's working fine.

The one thing I dislike the most, and that many online reviewers have also commented on, is that there are Alexa tips showing on almost every screen, with no way to turn them off. So while I'm listening to music and looking at an album cover, there's a tip letting me know how to ask Alexa about sports scores. I think it's helpful to have these tips readily available somewhere in the app., (such as in their own tab) but it's distracting and annoying to have them on every page.

I like that I can now see the visual details when I'm listening to music, like the album cover and track playing. I've been creating long playlists from Amazon Music Unlimited, often with new artists I'm only a bit familiar with. I often like to shuffle play my music, which meant that I was constantly asking Alexa "What track is this?"I like being able to just glance quickly at the Echo Show screen for this same information. I'm a bit disappointed that I can only see the overall playlist names, and not open the playlists to see the individual track names, which I'm able to do in the Alexa app. That makes it somewhat less useful, but hopefully this feature will be expanded in the future. I did find a song with lyrics, and that feature worked nicely, scrolling to the current line as the song progressed.

I tried a video from Amazon Prime by asking for a TV series I've been watching, Red Rock. On the screen, it gave me the option of season 1 or 2, but I couldn't find a way to see a listing of all that season's episodes. When I selected season 2, it started to play the next episode I was up to. When I asked Alexa to go back one episode, the reply was that that option could be used with music but not with video. I forgot to try just asking for a specific episode by number, so that might work. Given the small screen size, I don't really expect to watch movies or TV on this device. I just tried this out of curiosity. Edited to add: I just tried asking for only season 2, and a scrollable list of each individual episode for that season came up, so you can go right to a particular episode.

I do think I'll want to use it sometimes to watch shorter YouTube videos, and I tried that as well. That feature needs some work, I'm afraid. I couldn't find any way to search for or request a specific video I knew was on YouTube. If I said something like "Show me YouTube videos by The Beatles", it brought up a whole bunch of videos in completely random order. Some were specific songs, others were news interviews, etc. Each one is numbered, and you just ask Alexa to play a particular number. Unlike music selections, which can at least be selected manually from the Alexa app, there is so far no equivalent in the Alexa app for video. There's also no way so far to save favorite videos to watch them again. Although I did find things I liked, it was completely random.

I do like being able to see my shopping and to-do lists on the screen, and to easily scroll the lists. With the Echo, Alexa would read only 5 items at a time and then stop and prompt to see if I wanted to hear the next 5 items. You can also remove items from the lists via the device.

The weather report now shows several days of forecasts on the screen, which I like. I also got one segment of video news (via CBS, which is affiliated with my local news station) in my flash briefing, but so far, all the other sources remained audio only.

I haven't needed to use the timers / alarms yet and don't plan to use the phone / drop in features so can't comment on those. I don't have any smart home devices either. I haven't experienced any issues with motion detection. I did cover over the video camera, since I don't plan to use that.

When you stop your session on the device, it will first show your home page, and then after several minutes will go darker. If you use the "ambient clock"option, the clock will glow on the screen at this point, which may be annoying to some people. If you turn off the clock in settings, then after a few minutes, the screen will go completely dark.

By the way, you can get to the settings by swiping down from the top of the screen. If you want to see the user manual, go to the Help section of the Alexa app. This can be accessed by clicking on the small question mark inside a circle that's next to your name at the top of the drop down list of topics in the app.

Edited to add: I forgot to comment on the sound quality (mainly in terms of listening to music), and actually I'm sitting on the fence about that. So far, I think I prefer the sound of the basic Echo, mainly because the sound on that is 360 degrees. It may also be that I'm just used to the older one. Right now, it feels like there's a trade off between the sound quality and the enhanced visual features, which I do like.

Overall, I'll probably keep the Echo Show, but I haven't decided for sure yet.


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## Sandpiper

Any other users and opinions here?  Review percentages on Amazon are so so, a little more on the positive side.


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## Leslie

I've had my Echo Show for about 10 days now. As with so many things in Amazon-land, it has lots of potential and I am sure it will get better and better, but for us early adopters, we are dealing with the "not quite ready for Prime time" version.

The Show does everything the regular Echo does, which is great. At the present moment, however, the optimization to having a screen and video is limited. For example, the weather is...the weather. No pictures or maps or other visuals. NPR news shows the NPR logo. Listening to an Audible book shows you the cover of the book. In fact, Audible was a little frustrating because there are no other on-screen commands, such as "back up 30 seconds," like I have on my phone.

Jeopardy is fun--you can read the clues (and they are read to you) and then shout out your answer. And "Word of the Day" shows you the word so I can learn how to spell it. Word of the Day is amazingly fun and almost everyday they come up with words that are new or almost new to me. 

Watching John Oliver on YouTube was very frustrating because there was no way to search to identify the video I wanted to watch. I ended up going back to my computer. Searching Prime videos was fair.

For the moment, I have completely given up on trying to figure out how to do video calling. It doesn't find people in my contact list (except Betsy True) and as far as I can tell, the Alexa app for calling only works on my iPhone, not my iPad.

Music playback is good and for many songs, it will show the words on the screen, which is fun. If they don't have the words, it will show an album cover (or something similar).

The screen is about the size of my iPad mini so it is more of a one-on-one or one-on-two person experience--definitely not big screen theater.

As others have noted, it has to be plugged in--no battery.

That said, the screen is very bright and clear and the speakers seem excellent. 

I was lucky to get two Shows for $106, using the discount that was offered and points I had, so I got a great deal. For that reason, I am not going to return it. Amazon does seem to be strong on supporting devices and adding new features and upgrades going forward (except for the Fire phone) so I am hopeful that the Show will get better over the coming months. I was an early adopter of the original Echo and certainly what it does now is light years ahead of what it did when I first got it.

But--unless you like to be the "first in the neighborhood" to own the newest gadget, or you have a great need for video, I would not recommend rushing out to buy the Show at this moment. Particularly if you already have a some version of an Echo. If this is your first one--and you can afford $230--then maybe this would be worth buying. But if you are just testing the Echo waters, you can do so much more cheaply with the dot.

L


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