Echo Show 5 (2nd Gen, 2021 release) | Smart display with Alexa and 2 MP camera | Charcoal

Dear amazon,

i got the echo show 5 a few days ago. I got it because i have been transitioning to all smart devices such as bulbs, cameras, plugs and speakers. This is perfect to control my light bulbs by saying “alexa, turn on…” instead of always having to go to my phone to turn on my lights or to view my camera. I have a ring front door camera, living room, and backyard. The screen is big enough for me to view my cameras and the ability to turn on the light with my voice vs my phone is awesome. I am still learning how to use the device but it seems like a good device to control all your smart devices. I’m an apple fanboy but none of my smart devices can be used on the apple smartphone app. I could control everything other than my cameras on google home but alexa can control everything i have.

This devices screen is super clear and the sound is very rich with deep bass. Or at least it is deep for me. I put one in my master bedroom and one in my living room. I love the drop in feature. It’s very nice to use because the one in our living room is on my wife’s desk so i can use the drop in feature to communicate with her instead of calling her.

Overall, this device is handy and makes my life easier. I will update after a few more weeks when i’ve had more time to play with the unit. I wished they had the blue version available for shipping right away because my entire setup is black and navy blue.

I was not expecting the things that you could do with this and i am very pleasantly surprised! I didn’t even know that you can get on there and watch tv shows and whatever and it’s made my nighttime routine 100% better! My wife watches her shows on the tv in the room now i can watch my show on the echo five while i’m laying in the position that i like to fall asleep in. Also morning routines awesome i’m able to change the baby and even wake up the other children with my echo by playing music to get them ready for the day and night depending on when it is. If i give it 10 stars i would. One thing that i do think they should do is make the screen adjustable in some sort of way maybe legs little tiny legs in the back of it so you could face it more direct down or whichever you would prefer. Right now i have to put a book underneath the back end of it so that it tilts down because of where i have it if it was to sit the way it normally does i won’t be able to see the video. But that’s just because of my situation nothing to do with the product itself but if you do that amazon let me know cause i’ll be expecting that check lol!

These are the best alarm clocks — the size is good and you can chose the display settings to make it visible from a distance. I automate my mornings by having it fade the lights on, wait, start audio (it can play sounds, audio from apps like sirius, tunein or apple music, or it can load regular/local radio station streams), and then turn it all off when it’s time to go to work! If you don’t want to program a routine, just say, ‘alexa, wake me up at [time] to on .’ i don’t normally use this alarm setting because it displays the clock smaller while it is playing the music and i prefer the control and fine-tuning my routine allows.

Pro tip 1: if setting a routine and you want the clock to show instead of the audio, either set a different routine or tell your routine to wait and show the home screen a minute or two after the audio starts, otherwise it stays on the audio screen.

Pro tip 2: if you’re using it mostly as a clock, you may want to go into display preferences and turn off most of the rotating screens and then tell it to only rotate through them once. The only annoyance is that amazon occasionally seems to turn some of these back on.

I bought this to use as a satellite monitor for my integrated kasa cameras which i am using as nanny cams. While it does not work for that matter, as it breaks connection every few minutes forcing me to tell alexa to display the camera over and over–it has become a useful item in other ways.

-our kids are having a blast telling alexa to play games or children’s songs.

-it has reliable weather updates

-it has been a wonderful timer for things like the kid’s screen time, baking, etc

-we can ask it questions, helping our kids work on sentence structure and speech development

-after some adjustment, it doesn’t have intrusive bloatware or too many ads that we were fearful of

-we have integrated our google calendar into the device, so it gives us reminders and updates while we are away from our phones

overall, after giving it a chance it’s fun and helpful.

I would easily recommend this to friends and family.

I was not sure if i needed this particular device. I already have eco.systems in every room. But they gave me a deal on it and i decided to try it. Turns out that it is now an essential part of my system. What i like about it most is that it is visual. I can create reminders that are visual just by speaking to the unit. The weather information is visual and far more sophisticated than the audio devices. It has several interesting clocks on it and clock faces which are adjustable. When it is dark in the room it automatically turns into a beautiful nighttime clock that is not bright but easily viewable. It also connects into my blink camera systems that i can also see by voice control. So it is sort of like a visual alexa system. I have not used the camera portion part of it yet and i have the camera shutter turned off at the present time for privacy reasons. This of course is optional. I consider this to be an excellent addition to the echo.systems. Very happy that i purchased it.

So the secret is i purchased the echo show 5 2nd gen solely as an “add-on” bc it only cost me an additional $10 as part of a prime day deal (w the purchase of 3 blink outdoor cameras- which i love)

the pros are that it’s extremely easy to set up (uhhh, just plug it in), has great voice recognition, decent screen quality, and it’s the perfect size for me on the night stand (neither too big nor too small). I also like the clock feature(s) and all the different ummm apps? Which you can download to use on the es5 (like netflix). Now, that being said, i haven’t watched a single thing of substance on it yet (no movies, videos, video calls) bc i have my ipad, iphone, etc. For all of that stuff.

I also like all of the different settings and features available, allowing you to customize your es5 screen(s).

Finally, i like how you can easily block the front-facing camera on the home screen so no bored pervs at amazon can watch me sleep.

Now, the one negative … Which i 100% knew going in … So it’s not really a fair knock … But unless you’re willing to pay substantially more (at least in the prime day deal i was offered), you can’t select one single lock screen for the es5 to display all the time (such as an alarm clock face or the weather forecast). Instead, it’s always scrolling through various screens.

Now, you absolutely can get all the information you need on the screen at times; but, unless you pay extra, your es5 screen will also contain auto-scrolling nonsense as it shuffles through various faces (stocks, scores, weather, pics, etc.). I’d love to be able to use the home screen solely as a weather station or solely as an alarm clock, both while i’m using it (as a speaker) and while i’m not using it at all. To be fair. I’ve really only used it as a bluetooth speaker so far, and it’s been really good for that limited purpose.

Again, in full disclosure, i only purchased the echo show 5 2nd gen as an inexpensive add-on to a prime day deal, so keep in mind it’s always possible (likely) i’m only tapping like 3% of it’s actual abilities, but that’s ok too, bc i’ve been really satisfied with it as a bluetooth speaker so far.

Final thoughts- if you can get it as an inexpensive add-on as part of another deal/item, that would be ideal. However, it’s still a good + solid product that delivers as promised, which may not sound like much, but is actually quite the rarity these days.

Final verdict: solid buy … As long as the price is right

We initially got it mostly because it was a package deal with a ring stick up cam & basically got it for $5. We always thought it was kinda unnecessary and didn’t want to pay that much for something we didn’t need. But now we are glad we got it. We love it, and couldn’t imagine not having it now. My 4 year is constantly telling alexa to play some kind of music and dancing, or telling her to bring up one of our cameras and talking to us while we are outside smoking lol. My 9 year old plays games/trivia with it. Our alerts for our doorbell and other outdoor cameras are announced on it and brings up a live view of them instantly. Love having it. Great purchase.

Easy to set up as i already have an amazon account and other amazon devices so my data was already linked. I just plugged it in, tweaked a few settings (shouldn’t have done that amazon kids!) and let it update. I only ran into a problem when i asked it to turn lights/switches on and off. ‘i can’t do that.’ argh! It took me over an hour to figure out that i needed to disable amazon kids. It’s working great now.
I like the american voice 2 (male) over the original female alexa voice. I’ve switched both my echoes to that now.
It links well to the kasa smart switches i’ve purchased after installing them and linking in the kasa app.

I just set this unit (echo show 5 second generation) up and could not be happier. We have echos all over the house, including an echo 10 and 15. I wanted to get an echo dot 3rd generation for the man-cave… And saw the echo show 5 was only $39.95… Not much more than the echo dot 3rd gen. I always held off getting a echo show 5 thinking the screen would be too small (its not). The display is high res, and the sound is quite good (better than the echo dot 3rd gen?) . It does everything its big bother the echo 10 does. Pretty amazing, esp for the price

It’s a very helpful device. I think i paid just under $40 for it and i’m happy i took my coworkers advice on trying it. I mainly got it for its “drop in” feature which allows you to look thru the lense of the echo show to see, hear & communicate with your home on your phone. It’s awesome about sending us reminders to wake up or take our medicine or not forget appointments. When your too tired to set your alarm clock for the morning, you just yell out “alexa wake me up at 5am! And she will. If you’re not home she sends reminders to your phone. She gives you tips and reads you the news or books. She’s like a little personal assistant that’s not on salary! I’d say try it out if your thinking about it.

Edit & update 9/29/22: i received a call from amazon fulfillment center upon posting the review only hour or so after and they helped me alleviate some of the issues i was having with circumventing the settings and u.i. To change the options to have it set up how i wanted. I no longer have the issue with it dimming and going into night mode because lights get turned off or transitioning to ‘the amazon marketing’ stuff instead of staying on my clockface as i wanted. I raised the review from 2☆☆ to 4☆☆☆☆ to reflect this level of customer service from amazon. Impressive to say the least. I fear other customers who are not as tech savvy might struggle though to figure this thing out still so it’s not quite a 5☆☆☆☆☆ product but i am happier with my purchase now.

I was looking for an alarm clock and a clock display i could put on my computer desk that would look snazzy. It does the job but it’s not all that customizable or easy to navigate through the ui. I should’ve known an amazon product wouldn’t have intuitive programming and that. I don’t use 99% of it’s features so i won’t judge them but for what i have used it for my intended use i don’t think it’s all that great. Interacting with it on a daily.

I mainly bought it on the basis i could use it as an alarm clock but interacting with it to shut off the alarms made me just stop using it as an alarm clock. Having to see unwanted amazon crap scroll onto the screen too means it’s not a very useful clockface either for displaying time and date and weather on the pc desk. Then when you try to swipe it back to the clockface it doesn’t always respond. It shouldn’t transition off from the clock face in the first place. It’s probably an average product in execution (not the worst but not the best) but it entirely failed me for my intended use case.

Sometimes i just want this device to be a clock…that is more difficult than it sounds. For some reason the product developers decided to make it quite a task to turn off all of the many info screens that pop up. It is even worse if the little camera cover is open and the device can ‘see you coming’. It changes from the nice full-screen clock into a tiny clock in the corner and some sort of info message pops up on the screen.

The ui is also a bit sluggish when ‘pulling down’ the menus and navigating through the various options. I guess that should be expected with such a low-cost device and it really isn’t much of a problem as once things are set up, most of the interactions can be performed via voice commands. There are still, however, occasions where i need to set an alarm, but don’t want to wake someone up and need to use the menus which is a bit annoying to crawl through the menus. It does, however, play youtube through its built-in web browser as well as amazon videos and music.

We have three of these devices – two are basically just used as alarm clocks next to a bed. The cameras are always covered and for the most part they work well – i do like the ‘night mode’ where it turns the digits red so it is not blinding at night. The 3rd device is primarily used for playing amazon music and as one might expect, works well – except for one somewhat significant irritant. It doesn’t show the time within the now playing app! I really like the now playing information as it is nice to be able to see the artist and song names, but it has no clock…and as mentioned above, it is a pain to slog through the menus to switch back and forth. Well, it is still an upgrade from the dot which i was using that has no interface at all i guess…

Overall, this is a pretty nice device even with my various complaints about it. It is priced well – especially with the discount that often comes with prime day, however, the stand that is available for it really should be included…the angle of how the device sits is almost never ideal and the lacking of an adjustable stand without buying a very overpriced ‘upgrade’ is disappointing.

I bought this item for my bathroom, as i often like to play music while i’m in there. It actually has a slightly larger speaker (1.7”) than the current and last versions of the echo dot (1.6”). The music apps work well, as i can use amazon music, apple, tunein and others to stream what i want to hear. The sound is adequate for its size. I have the screen set scroll pictures of my family while it’s on, and it’s bright and clear enough for detail to be seen. Most everything you would want is programmable. The only reason i gave it 4 stars instead of 5 is that i bought a competitor’s device that is very similar but plays the youtube tv app that can play tv on the screen. A very nice feature. If the echo 5 show had that one added feature, i’d easily bump it up to 5 stars. You can play netflix on the echo show 5, which may suffice for some people. Although i don’t use it as such, i could see it being a very nice nightstand device for listening, alarm clock, and turning on/off devices from bed.

For the discounted price i’m somewhat satisfied with the purchase, though there are a few shortcomings, odd oversights, and typical annoyances when dealing with ai assistants (in this case, alexa) that leave me wondering how often i’ll actually use the echo.

Some grievances that come to mind… The apparent inability to keep my photos playing on the screen for very long before being replaced by other default messaging (news, tips, weather etc). Why this is not an option is beyond me.

Photos also look a bit dull from what appears to be a lower resolution than what’s on my phone for example. The 2:1 aspect ratio also results in a large empty space in the screen when viewing photos. An odd screen size choice considering the iphone doesn’t even allow this size when taking photos. Cropping your favorite photos prior to adding to the echo is a hassle and results in poor looking overly cropped images.

Yeah, i realize the echo wasn’t intended as a digital picture frame, though i find it odd that it won’t even second as a basic photo display.

Other annoying quirks in the amazon ecosystem were experienced when setting up certain things. I’ve found this to be a common issue with amazon products (though admittedly not as bad as google).

I suppose the only real use i’ll get out of this echo will be as a hub for controlling my smart plugs and the security camera that was bundled along with the echo. The ability to watch youtube or listen to spotify seems pointless considering the echo’s speaker is ridiculously bad sounding and there’s no portability like with my iphone. Actually, is there anything the echo can do that my smart phone can not?

I picked this echo show 5 (2nd gen) when i saw it on sale at the beginning of august so i haven’t had it very long, but this is my experience to date. It came linked to my amazon account so all i had to do was enter our wi-fi password and amazon password and it was up and running; very easy setup. Just to test it out we played some music and video clips. Picture quality is very good in my opinion. Sound quality is just good. Being a smaller unit i guess i shouldn’t expect it, but it does not have near the low end frequency the show 8 has. The show 8 will blow you away and shake the counter top if you turn it up. I suppose i got spoiled with it haha. Don’t get me wrong, it will get loud but it is missing deep/thumping tones. A couple of things to note and the reason for removing a star (aside from the lackluster low end frequency) camera angle is not quite what it should be and time/date problem. I had read many reviews before ordering this that mentioned the camera angle being a problem for them so i proactively purchased the stand for the show 5 at the same time. It’s a good thing i did since the camera angle didn’t work for us where it’s new home is. The little stand fixed that. The time/date problem was something else. Technically it was my fault, but i should not have had to adjust it. The time/date is set automatically and you can not adjust it from the screen. After searching for time/date problems with this unit i noticed most advised checking the time zone. The only way to do that is through the app (guess there is a way to do it through amazon site too but didn’t look there). Downloaded the app and checked my devices. Sure enough the new show 5 was set to the wrong time zone. I confirmed the address which includes city and state were correct from the show’s display. Why would i need to change the time zone when the show knows where it is (city and st) and it’s registered to my account with the other devices all in this time zone. Anyway, corrected the time zone and it has been fine since so now i can use it as an alarm clock too. If you have a larger space to put one, i would recommend the show 8 over the 5, but this overall is very nice if you only have a smaller space to put one or cannot afford the higher price of the 8..

I am deeply entrenched in both the google and amazon ecosystem as i adopted the home automation rabbit-hole early when these devices began showing up. So, i own half a dozen of each 1st, 2nd and 3rd generations of both alexa’s and google smart speakers. I like them both, but for different reasons. In my opinion, they aren’t a 1:1 replacement for each other although they do perform many of the same features.

I purchase this echo show after frustrations viewing my eufy and wyze cams around my home with the google nest hubs. The streams on google nest hubs are very flaky, laggy and often time out. I always thought it was a problem with the video cams because the google nest hubs work very well with google’s ai smart doorbell.

This echo show was on sale that i decided to give it a try. While the screens are no where near as good as the google nest hub displays, they do stream eufy and wyze camera streams reliably. I had my echo show stream my wyze cams literally for 12 hours straight and the feed was steady. I would be lucky if i could get 20 seconds with the google nest hub.

Everything else works pretty much like my echo dots except these have displays and a selfy camera for video conferencing which is a nice touch. I am gradually replacing all of my 3rd gen dots to these echo show devices so i can call upon them to see who might be around the property. I just ordered another one. Amazon does have larger echo show, but i like the <40 usd price point since i can buy multiple of these devices for every room. Unfortunately, they will not stream my google doorbell camera. I imagine it may have to do with the in-fighting between amazon and google. Hopefully both companies will sit down around the fire and smoke a peace pipe.

For $40, you can’t beat the price. You get alexa plus a nifty screen. This little box does a lot for sure. But i can’t help but feel like i’m being manipulated by it. Like amazon is always watching and now has a way to be more in your face and make more money off of you by integrating itself into your life (which is probably why they offer the device for such cheap money – the real money comes once the device is up and running). I bought it for the sole purpose of being a second chime for the doorbell. I have the camera and mic turned off most of the time since i don’t have many smart devices in this house to control (after a while this tech starts to be too much) and i don’t want alexa listening to my work conversations.

I also wish there was a ‘sleep’ feature for the screen. I don’t need the screen running when no one is around. It is a waste of energy. Consequently, i just turn the brightness way down all the time which works for my use case, but likely not for most people’s.

I already had 3 echo dots and loved them, so why not add video to the party? I haven’t used for video conferencing but have watched streamed content from various sources and it works well.
I wanted something inconspicuous for the nightstand and this little box is great for that. The fact that you can link devices together for music play is great and this device additionally will display the lyrics when playing amazon music. I find the multi room music a great feature when connecting the dots (get it?) to the show. It’s nice to walk from room to room and not miss a beat and would be especially good for party gatherings.

The screen on this show is necessarily small, but i don’t find this a problem if you are viewing close up. If you need something you can see and read from the other side of a room, there are other size options available. The picture quality is fine and the touch screen features seems to work well.

If i had to find one fault, it would be the camera angle. Given that the box is fixed form, if placed on a level surface, the screen slants slightly upwards from that plane which is not ideal if you want to use the device to spy on your dog chewing your best leather shoes on the floor, for example. Yes, there are solutions to change the angle of the screen more towards horizontal, but these are either a makeshift lift or buffer to the rear casing or the purchase of a stand accessory which allows the pivot of the screen in multi directions. Not a huge deal but i think future designs would benefit from some screen pivot capability built in.

All in all, i like this size show and am happy with my choice. Recommended for folks who want a discrete, minimalist box with all the alexa functional goodies and great video built in.

I honestly don’t know if this is a good product or not. Why? Because i cannot get it to connect to my wifi. Why? Because it has an ‘unexpected network error’ and then will not wait long enough for me to type my network password. Then it repeats: ‘unexpected network error’, so i bring up my wifi network, start typing as fast as i can, and halfway through… You guessed it, it goes back to the ‘unexpected network error’ screen. Over and over. And over. The alexa app is no help because it doesn’t seem to recognize an echo show 5 as an echo and won’t help with set up. My fire 8 doesn’t see it either. Didn’t have this issue with my echo dot(s). They really are plug n’ play. The show 5? Well, not so much.
Update: okay, i am a little embarrassed. Had i waited a few minutes to let all the network dust settle i would have seen that the show 5 had indeed connected with my wifi and all was well. Or it could have been the fact that i rebooted my modem, but the bottom line turned out to be that the show 5 was basically waiting for me to finish the set up. Which i did. And yes, it is basically an echo dot with a screen that is way too small to do much of anything beyond telling what the song playing is or the temperature or the time. But that is quite okay. I read in other reviews about the ‘problems’ of playing a netflix movie or whatever video you care to mention with the show 5, the lack of deep base audio, etc..really? You expect a 5′ screen and a 4w speaker to reproduce a theater experience? Seriously? That’s what that 55′ lcd tv over in the corner and it’s $1500 polk digital audio system are for, right? So yeah, the show 5 is what it is, nothing more and nothing less. And for some of us, that is enough.

To start off with. I bought this on prime day 2022. I also bought the blink security cameras on the same day because they were also cheaper! I honestly never considered getting one of these until i got to looking at the cameras and realized that this works as a hub of sorts for the security cameras as well. You can see any of your cameras from this device. Another reason i bought it is because i can watch videos on it. I wasn’t sure what all video apps it would allow but come to find out it allows all of them. This thing is super loud, small enough to not be in my way and large enough to see the screen well from my bedside table. I am moving (that’s why i bought the cameras) and am trying to figure out the setup already for the new place. I’ve decided i don’t need a tv in my room. I’m going to decorate the walls the way i want and not worry about that at all. This will work perfectly for those late nights in bed when i want to watch a few episodes of something as i pass out. Basically this is an awesome smart alarm that doesn’t wake me unless i need or he woke and also has a brightness option so it’s not to bright at night. If you want to customize it this will do it. It currently is showing my photos that i’ve chosen to go across the screen as a screen saver. Also like all phones this pulls down to the screen that i’ve showed in the photos. This is much better quality than i’d ever thought. I spent around $30 for this and don’t regret it a bit. I also have decided to get several more. Side note this has a sliding thing to turn off mic and camera whenever you choose! And i can also set it up for movement detection to see who comes in my room as it will send me a notification. I can also drop in so to speak like with the other amazon devices but also view what’s going on in the room at the same time. If i had to change one thing i guess it would be maybe the quality of the little camera i’ll be using while i’m at work to see if the kiddos sneak in there to and get into my stuff like i’ve suspected lol. You’ll love it!