Amazon Echo Hub, 8” smart home control panel, Designed for Alexa+, Compatible with thousands of devices

Just got it today, still doing some settings and trying to set Alexa to respond to commands but nothing so far. So far device works okay except the Alexa issues, will update when finished troubleshooting device. Although, came in carefully packed and good condition, not screen damage or scratches. I am posting this at 2100 hr. Update after troubleshooting (22:29 hr), well I finally got the Alexa "No response" issue. I placed it closer to the wifi-extender and it started to talk right away... Just network issue. Working great now, happy with my purchase...follow the instructions concerning proximity to network connection, and it should work as expected.

This was simple and exciting to setup. It took a couple minutes to be fully set up and functioning under my own amazon account. I really like that my info was pre installed it's like the device knew who I was. Really nice size for my at home work desk I work remote and it has been a really nice additionto my day! The alexa+ feature makes communicating with alexa effortless and personal. Not having to say alexa everytime you need to say something is awesome. This hub offers a lot of apps and skills that are useful. One that I use daily is the blink camera skill. I love being able topull up all my security cameras on one screen with my voice. Being hands free has made my life so much easier. The screen quality is top notch crisp and clear. The sound quality is fantastic for the size but the best part is you can play the music out of all alexa devices. Never have to miss the music I have it playing in all rooms. The hub can be mounted on the wall but i have been using a stand. The hub is sturdy and durable for the size. Can be moved if needed. The power cord is super long which makes it easy to install. The touch screen works fast and is easy to clean. This hub has been a game changer in my day to day. Fantastic value for the money. Has buttons and controls on the hub. can also be muted so alexa does not wake up.

I generally really like the Echo Hub. As others have said, it's not an Echo Show, but a smart home center that can pull your cameras, Ring Alarms, Ring keypads, lights, switches, and other smart devices into a nice wall-mounted panel that offers convenience apart from your phone. It's meant to be set up, customized, and left alone. It's not meant to watch TV or interact with like a Show. I have one for each floor of a three-story house and another in our primary bedroom. Three are powered by the 12-volt wire that was already in the wall from our old security system, and one is powered by splitting off the PoE of an already existing in-wall ethernet port in the adjacent room. The Black Friday sale made these much more palatable at just over $100 each and I made my own fast-charging power adapters for just under $6 each. This is my biggest complaint with the Echo Hub. They aren't really PoE compliant or ready since they don't have an ethernet port and they don't just require a Power Delivery (PD) adapter like Amazon states. They require a PD3.0 or PD3.1 adapter that optionally supports Programmable Power Supply (PPS). After a couple of weeks of trial and error I made four power adapters from AITRIP PD65W Fast Charging Type-C USB modules that provided the proper PPS power. I added a REVODATA Gigabit PoE Splitter ($13 additional) to power one of them with 12-volts and 2-amps (24 watt) while maintaining the ethernet data port in the adjacent room. The Hubs look professionally installed since all the power connections are completely hidden in the wall. I also bought the Hubs for Thread and Matter support of window shades. Unfortunately, they didn't play nicely with other Echo's nearby, so I disconnected them. Thread connections are much more stable now. However, the shade motors will sometimes flash that they have disconnected. They usually reconnect but will occasionally become unresponsive and show as such in the Alexa app. Thread simply isn't ready for primetime. At least I have new Hub border routers and a several Thread shades to test software update stability. I wish I could talk to a second-tier engineer instead of getting canned responses from Amazon. Oh well. I didn't give 5-stars to the Echo Hub. There are more issues, mostly minor, than just the power and Thread issues. 1. The interface is SLOW. It needs more horsepower to be more responsive! 2. I think the Hubs looks pretty nice on the wall but could be more modern looking by being thinner and having smaller bezels. 3. One of the four Hubs shipped with a faulty power adapter that gave a startup error as many others have mentioned. 4. I find the brightness of the screen to be very difficult to precisely control. The Hub tries too hard to be "smart". Why not allow the user to set the exact lowest and highest brightness settings? 5. The proximity sensor works well, but I turned it off because the only option to allow the screen to toggle back to the main clock interface takes 10 minutes and can't be adjusted. WTH? The Hubs are wall-mounted in the highest traffic areas to make them accessible, especially for disarming the Ring alarms. The clock and background images almost never show when proximity is turned on since someone is almost always passing by.