Amazon’s Wall-Mounted Echo Show 15. The Echo Show 15 brings the company’s smart display technology to the wall in the form of a 15.6-inch 1080p screen that doubles as a massive digital photo frame. The $250 device is definitely a new take on the growing lineup that currently includes the Echo Show 5, Echo Show 8, and Echo Show 10 (also priced at $250), which has turned heads with a rotating screen that follows the your subject around the room. . The new device increases this particular importance with the incorporation of Visual ID, which uses facial recognition to identify a subject and offer personalized content.
Amazon’s Wall-Mounted Echo Show 15 has a big-ass smart display
If you’re having trouble visualizing how the Amazon Echo Show 15 would fit into your life, try thinking of it as a giant digital picture frame. The Echo Show 15 measures almost 16 inches wide and about 1.4 inches thick.
The experience is built around a customizable home screen designed to serve as a kind of dashboard for the Alexa home ecosystem. This is largely accomplished through customizable widgets, which allow you to add items like calendar events, to-do lists, and recipes, serving as a digital whiteboard or a collection of fridge magnets. The list also includes smart home controls, including security camera feeds and digital doorbells, which are housed as a single widget.
One thing Amazon’s Wall-Mounted Echo Show 15 has in abundance is a lot of real estate. This means you can get a bunch of different information at once, through a mosaic effect or using picture-in-picture, when you’re on a specific service and, for example, an alert video doorbell pops up. Really, it’s the dream of something like Samsung’s smart fridge cover, without shelling out a few thousand dollars for a device with built-in cameras.
Beyond that, the device can pretty much do everything you’d expect from an Echo Show at this point, essentially functioning as a large kitchen TV. This includes streaming from Prime Video, Netflix, Hulu, and Sling TV. The latter is coming soon, along with TikTok content, which you can now watch on a 15.6-inch screen if that’s your thing.
Amazon’s Wall-Mounted Echo Show 15 Image Credit
Amazon’s Wall-Mounted Echo Show 15; the 1080p screen is paired with side speakers. These will probably do for short clips, but you’ll probably want to connect to another Echo or Bluetooth speaker if you plan on streaming music or watching movies or TV for any length of time.
I appreciate the use of a white border here, which highlights the presence of a five-megapixel camera in the top corner. The presence of a virtually hidden camera can certainly raise other privacy concerns, but at least here a black circle is visible on a white background, alongside a flickering 15.6-inch screen.
Amazon’s Wall-Mounted Echo Show 15; The device can be used for video chat, which could ultimately make the product an attractive proposition as Amazon pushes its Alexa for Business offering to incorporate more of its hardware into work settings. You could see a product like this serving as a (relatively) inexpensive conferencing device for businesses with a tight budget and lots of conference rooms. It can bring you the weather and corporate events or room reservations on the calendar. It will be interesting to see if Amazon goes after IT departments more aggressively here.
There’s a physical shutter button on board to cover up the camera, but for the record, I’d say if I stayed in an Airbnb with one of these installed, I’d be the guy to unplug the thing and turn it to face the wall. Of course, I was also the guy who was extremely weirded out by the Echo Show 10’s face-turning feature, so take it as you will. When Amazon announced the feature last year, they were quick to note that it didn’t use specific facial details for tracking.
Amazon’s Wall-Mounted Echo Show 15 Review
Amazon’s Wall-Mounted Echo Show 15 is quick to point out here that Visual ID requires the user to opt in and enroll their face. Users can delete their profile on the device or through the Alexa app if they have questions. I anticipate that the feature will become ubiquitous in the company’s various Show products with built-in cameras.
The display is powered by Amazon’s recently announced AZ2 quad-core chip with an embedded Neural Processor, the successor to last year’s AZ1. The custom chip is designed to do much of the processing on board, which means it won’t send visual identification data to the cloud. However, given Amazon’s long history with facial recognition, the feature will undoubtedly continue to raise concerns among privacy advocates.
Show 15 introduces an update to the sound detection feature that was released in beta earlier this year. At launch, the offer was designed to detect specific noises, such as breaking glass or a baby crying, at which point it sends an alert to the account holder. Meanwhile, a new addition called Custom Sounds can effectively train the system for alerts by asking the device to listen.
If you’re mounting the Amazon’s Wall-Mounted Echo Show 15, be sure to position it at eye level so you don’t bend over or strain to interact with the screen. Note that the cord for this device is only five feet long unless you purchase the additional extension cord, so you’ll need to be close to an outlet. You’ll also need a level and a drill to hang it on the wall, but the rest of the process is no different from hanging a framed photo.
The software setup process for the Echo Show 15 is similar to Amazon’s other smart displays, including last year’s Echo Show 8. Once you turn it on, the Echo Show 15 will ask you to connect to your Wi-Fi network and sign in. you in your Amazon account. If you don’t already have them, you’ll be prompted to set up profiles for each member of your household to make it easier to use Visual ID, which is new for Echo Show 15. (More on this feature later. )
Amazon’s Wall-Mounted Echo Show 15 will also ask if you want to turn the Echo Show 15’s 5-megapixel camera into a surveillance device for quick check-ins while you’re away. And it will ask you to sign up for Amazon Sidewalk, which adds your device to the company’s massive (and passive) wireless mesh network. In both cases, you can refuse.
Amazon’s Wall-Mounted Echo Show 15 specifications, features
In addition to entertaining you and your guests with illustrated content, Amazon Echo Show 15 includes the company’s sound detection feature that helps notify users when the system detects noises like breaking glass or a baby crying. There’s also the optional Visual ID feature that allows Alexa to recognize you and your family members using facial recognition and provide a personalized experience every time you access the device. Under the hood, the Echo Show 15 features a new quad-core Amazon AZ2 Neural Edge processor that succeeds the existing AZ1 chip that powers the Echo Show 10.The Amazon Echo 15 measures 401.32 x 251.46 x 35.56mm
Don’t Forget The Camera
The Amazon’s Wall-Mounted Echo Show 15 has a 5-megapixel camera, which is decent enough for video calls via Alexa or Skype, but it’s pretty low-resolution compared to the Echo Show 8, which has a 13-megapixel photo with auto-framing. As a security camera it’s fine when the lights are on, but I couldn’t see anything at night.
The other drawback is that the Amazon’s Wall-Mounted Echo Show 15’s camera doesn’t have tracking or panning technology like the Echo Show 8 or Portal Go, meaning it can’t follow you as you move around a room. I rely on this feature of the Portal Go, which I also prefer because it is a mobile device that can travel with my son as they move around the house.
Amazon’s Wall-Mounted Echo Show 15; The camera also uses Visual ID, a new feature in the Echo Show range that determines who’s near the device using the faces it scans (which are then stored on the screen, not in the cloud). I added my husband and son, and sometimes it worked, but other times Echo Show 15 thought it was my daughter and blocked me from certain widgets because she has an Amazon Kids profile, meaning sometimes she couldn’t use the smart controls of home. . Not ideal!
Amazon’s Wall-Mounted Echo Show 15 for Kids
The Amazon Glow is a new device from the American company aimed at children. It has a dedicated 8-inch screen to help children read e-books or communicate with parents and family through video calls. It looks like the Echo Show models. However, as a distinctive gesture, Amazon has also included this time a projector capable of activating a projected space with a 19.2-inch touch screen to play games or create art while communicating through video calls. The company also announced Glow Bits learning kits that will soon come as separate accessories for Amazon Glow and will include physical objects such as shapes and figures to provide a next-generation interactive experience.
The Amazon’s Wall-Mounted Echo Show 15 Glow is a new device from the American company aimed at children. It has a dedicated 8-inch screen to help children read e-books or communicate with parents and family through video calls. It looks like the Echo Show models. However, as a distinctive gesture, Amazon has also included this time a projector capable of activating a projected space with a 19.2-inch touch screen to play games or create art while communicating through video calls. The company also announced Glow Bits learning kits that will soon come as separate accessories for Amazon Glow and will include physical objects such as shapes and figures to provide a next-generation interactive experience.
Amazon’s Wall-Mounted Echo Show 15 has bundled the Amazon Kids+ service with Glow to provide access to various books, interactive games, and art activities. Children will be able to read, play and draw with this set, which will be available free of charge for one year. Amazon Kids+ is normally available at $2.99 (around Rs 220) per month.
Parents can interact with children while playing or drawing through video calls to join them in their work by installing the Glow app on their iPad or Android tablet. The app will also be available for Amazon Fire tablets in the future. It can also be downloaded on smartphones, although that’s not the best way to get the interactive experience.
Once they join the conversation, parents can play various games with their children, such as Jigsaw with SpongeBob SquarePants, Chess, Checkers, and Go Fish, among others. Kids and parents will also have drawing activities like Tic-Tac-Toe and Spaceman, as well as art packs including Sesame Street to play together. Additionally, games and art activities will feature various Disney characters, including Anna and Elsa from Frozen, Woody and Buzz from Toy Story. However, it’s unclear whether Glow will continue to offer certain features after the bundled Kids+ service expires.
Amazon’s Wall-Mounted Echo Show 15 Glow also uses built-in infrared sensors to enable products to be scanned and turned into digital stickers or personalized puzzles. Kids simply place the object on the flat mat that comes with the device to scan it for future use. The 22-inch mat is also designed to project clear images on any surface.
On the privacy front, Amazon says it has included a physical privacy shutter to turn off the camera and disable the microphones. There’s also the Amazon Parent Dashboard, where parents can choose which contacts their kids can communicate with through Amazon Glow.
The Amazon’s Wall-Mounted Echo Show 15 Glow has an HD profile (720p) and projector cameras, except for a 3.3 x 1.3-inch 10W speaker. Connectivity options include Wi-Fi 802.11ac and Bluetooth v5.0. The device is designed for children ages three and up.
The Echo Show 15 has a 5-megapixel camera, which is decent enough for video calls via Alexa or Skype, but it’s pretty low-resolution compared to the Echo Show 8, which has a 13-megapixel photo with auto-framing. As a security camera it’s fine when the lights are on, but I couldn’t see anything at night.
The other drawback is that is the Amazon’s Wall-Mounted Echo Show 15’s camera doesn’t have tracking or panning technology like the Echo Show 8 or Portal Go, meaning it can’t follow you as you move around a room. I rely on this feature of the Portal Go, which I also prefer because it is a mobile device that can travel with my son as they move around the house.
The Amazon’s Wall-Mounted Echo Show 15’s camera also uses Visual ID, a new feature in the Echo Show range that determines who’s near the device using the faces it scans (which are then stored on the screen, not in the cloud). I added my husband and son, and sometimes it worked, but other times Echo Show 15 thought it was my daughter and blocked me from certain widgets because she has an Amazon Kids profile, meaning sometimes she couldn’t use the smart controls of home.
