Amazon announced a gang of new devices on Wednesday, but smart home enthusiasts might want to be most excited about the new Echo Show 8, launching Oct. 25.
Like previous Echo Show devices, this is a tablet-shaped device meant to sit on your table or countertop and act as a hub for all the things you like and care about around the house. You can use it to stream movies or make video calls or even control your lights, and Amazon made it better at all of those things this time around.
Here's how.
SEE ALSO: All the new devices Amazon unveiled at its fall hardware event, from a new Echo Show 8 to a Fire TV soundbar1. Spatial audio
Everybody loves music, right? I guess there's always someone out there who hates everything, but for the sake of argument, let's assume that statement is true. If that's the case, the new Echo Show 8 should be a little more enticing than its predecessors.
According to Amazon, the third-gen Echo Show 8 "automatically analyzes the acoustics of your room" to produce spatial audio, or audio that feels like it's happening around you rather than being beamed at you from one specific direction. That would make the Echo Show 8 perfect for listening to music while doing — well — whatever it is you want to do while listening to music. That's none of my business!
Of course, we won't know exactly how well this works until the device is in people's hands. But on paper, it sounds pretty cool.
2. Dynamic interface
One of the most intriguing things about the Echo Show 8 is a new feature that changes what's on the screen depending on how near or far you are to the device, physically.
The idea here is that a home screen with clock and weather information usually isn't that useful from 15 feet away because of the limitations of the human eye. If this feature works as intended, stepping away from the device should make the clock (as one example) much bigger on screen, so you can see it from across the room.
Or this could be a feature that is totally broken and acts really wonky. That might be fun, too.
3. Better for video calls
This last addition isn't quite as transformative as the others, but it's worth noting nonetheless.
To be more specific, the 2023 Echo Show 8 has a new centered 13MP front camera for video calls. Amazon also said it has better microphones, so whatever happens on your end shouldn't be an assault to the ears of whoever you're calling. Once again, we can't possibly know how true that is without trying it out for ourselves, but it sounds great on paper.
Speaking of paper, the Echo Show 8 costs $150 — $20 more than the previous version. Better start saving up now.
