Vision of the future Amazon’s new Alexa control centre is a real game-changer for smart home tech
IF YOU’VE tiptoed slowly into the world of the smart home, you’ll likely already know of the many frustrations and limitations that world contains.
For me, it’s always been about control. I like the voice assistants – they can be quick and reliable, but occasionally, you just want to see what’s going on.
And for that, you’ll need to get your phone or tablet, fire up an app – maybe Google or Apple’s Home app, and take it from there.
There has to be a better way, and it turns out there is – enter Amazon’s new Echo Hub.
I’ve been testing this mini marvel, and it’s a real winner if you like a visual approach to managing your smart home.
It’s essentially a customisable 8ins screen that is designed to hang on a wall in the most convenient spot – you might find it useful by your front door or in your hallway. You can buy a stand for it, too, so you can place it on a surface in a good spot.
It’s very focussed on being a smart home control, operated by touch and visuals, but it is also an Alexa smart speaker, so you can control it via voice too.
It also has a decent enough speaker to allow you to use it as a music player – you can sync it with any other Echo smart speakers you
might have to control music (or even audiobooks and podcasts) playback all over the house.
That’s more or less all it does beyond smart home controls, but if you want more than that, then an Echo Show is probably more up your street.
Because it’s so focused on that control system, it makes for easy set-up and simple operation.
It’s compatible with thousands of devices, too, via its Matter, Thread, Bluetooth, wi-fi, and Zigbee connectivity – it would, I think, be quite difficult to get hold of a smart home device that it wouldn’t work with.
As well as the obvious Ring and Blink compatibility (both brands made by Amazon), it will also work with kit made by Philips Hue, Eve,
Yale, Hive, iRobot, and TP-Link. As well as many others – anything that Alexa can work with works here too.
The interface is essentially a home page with widgets that you can easily customise.
So you may have a lighting system, a security system, and a heating system all on your network, and you can add widgets to control all those, including running automations with a touch, to your home screen.
Other widgets available can display useful information from your calendar, lists and reminders.
The screen also acts as a display for any cameras you have on your system, so if someone pushes your Blink doorbell, you can see who is at your door on the screen – in fact, it can display a live feed from up to four connected cameras.
Of course, it works perfectly with devices made by Amazon subbrands like Ring, too – so it can become a hub from which you can control the Ring Alarm System, for instance.
The possibilities for smart home control seem endless. It feels a bit like the missing piece in the smart home jigsaw for me – controlling everything via voice fails to offer that immediate feedback.
That problem of not knowing if you’ve been heard or understood by Alexa is immediately remedied by the visual feedback the Hub delivers.
And as a central location for control it cannot be bettered, I don’t think. It goes a long way to solving that “why can’t we just have a switch?” question that those who are perhaps a little underwhelmed by the possibilities of the smart home world often have. You can have a switch and voice control too. And it all works together to bring a complete system that makes the smart home even smarter than ever.
■ Cost: The Amazon Echo Hub is £169.99 at amazon.co.uk