Echo Show 8 (newest model - 2024) Charcoal

The Echo Show 8 2024 Charcoal is an 8 inch HD touchscreen with a 13 megapixel centred camera above it, and a speaker good enough that people use it as the kitchen radio.

• The Echo Show 8 2024 Charcoal is a hub with a screen on it
• The camera is centred, and that changes calls
• It is also the monitor for your cameras
• The privacy hardware
• Which Echo Show 8

The Echo Show 8 2024 Charcoal is a hub with a screen on it

Zigbee, Matter and a Thread border router are built into this one, so bulbs, plugs and sensors pair straight to the screen with no gateway on the shelf and no second app. Then every device you own appears on one dashboard you can actually touch. That combination, a hub and a control panel in the same object on the kitchen counter, is what separates this from every other screen in the range.

The camera is centred, and that changes calls

13 megapixels, mounted in the middle of the top edge rather than off in a corner, with auto framing that keeps you in shot while you move around the kitchen. A call on this does not require you to stand still in front of it. It is a small engineering decision that makes the difference between a device people call from and one that gathers dust.

It is also the monitor for your cameras

Pull up compatible security cameras, several feeds at once, on the 8 inch screen. For a house with a camera at the gate and another at the back, having a permanent screen on the counter is far more useful than reaching for a phone every time the dog barks, and it is the use that survives once the novelty of the rest has passed.

The privacy hardware

A shutter you slide across the lens with a finger, and a separate button that cuts the microphones electrically. Both physical. On a device with a 13 megapixel camera pointed into your kitchen, that is worth more than any assurance in a settings menu.

Which Echo Show 8

This is the 2024 model, and the one with the hub radios in it. We also stock the 2nd generation Echo Show 8 in glacier white, which is an earlier model without the Zigbee, Matter and Thread hardware. If a gateway matters to your plan, that difference is the whole decision.

Smaller and cheaper is the Echo Show 5. To pair Zigbee devices straight to this screen, start with the Zigbee door sensor. The Echo Show family tree is on Wikipedia.