The third-generation Echo Show 8 sold for $149.99, so this new model comes with a $30 price increase. The fourth-generation Amazon Echo Show 8 is available in black or white, with an optional stand for an extra $39.99 (note that buying it in a bundle with the stand doesn’t actually save you any money). It can sit upright on flat surfaces independently, but the stand allows for easier adjustment of the screen’s rotation and angle.

Amazon launched the Echo Show 8 alongside the Echo Show 11 ($219.99), a new screen size for the line that replaces the Echo Show 10. The only differences between the Echo Show 8 and 11 are price, screen size, and a slightly larger base on the bigger model. Amazon sells them alongside the Echo Show 5 ($49.99), meant for small spaces like desks and nightstands, and the Echo Show 15 ($299.99) and Echo Show 21 ($399.99), meant for mounting on the wall.

Left to right: Echo Show 11, Echo Show 8 (Credit: Andrew Gebhart)

The design of the Echo Show 8 and 11 combines aspects of the previous Echo Show 8 and Echo Show 10. The screen is slimmer than that of the third-gen Echo Show 8 and appears almost detached from the rest of the body, similar to the Echo Show 10. The screen itself measures 8.7 inches with a resolution of 1,340 by 800 pixels, a slight upgrade from its 1,280-by-800, 8-inch predecessor. The Echo Show 11 features an 11-inch screen with a resolution of 1,920 by 1,200 pixels.

The Echo Show 8 has a simple curved base (Credit: Andrew Gebhart)

The body behind the screen is a slightly oblong sphere instead of the rounded rectangular shape of the old Echo Show 8, but it retains the same fabric covering. It features an indentation at the bottom where the optional magnetic stand can be inserted, and a single power port located on the back. Otherwise, you’ll find a volume rocker on the right side of the screen just below a button to disable the camera and microphone. A 13MP camera (the same as in the old Show 8) sits front and center above the screen, with pinhole microphones on either side.

Altogether, the fourth-gen Echo Show 8 measures 5.9 inches by 8.2 inches by 5 inches (HWD), which is slightly larger than its predecessor, which measures 4.2 inches by 7.9 inches by 5.5 inches. The Echo Show 11 is larger, measuring 7.2 inches by 10 inches by 5 inches, but otherwise has the same shape as the Echo Show 8.

It has some physical controls (Credit: Andrew Gebhart)

Notably, the 2025 Echo Show 8 and Echo Show 11 lack the physical camera shutter found on the third-gen Echo Show 8. You can still kill the camera with a voice command, a button in the app, and the physical button above the volume rocker, but a shutter does provide extra peace of mind that the camera is truly off.

The Echo Show 8 and 11 both feature a new AZ3 Pro chip with an AI accelerator. It represents a distinct step up from the third-gen Echo Show 8’s AZ2 neural engine, which was already several years old when that model first launched. The AZ3 chip was designed with Alexa+ in mind, and both new displays have Amazon’s new AI-powered assistant ready to go at launch. The chip allows it to run more smoothly and multitask, for seamless switching between voice and image responses without pausing.

The more conversational version of Alexa is also available on older devices in the Echo Show lineup by signing up for early access. Currently, Alexa+ is free, but it will increase to $19.99 per month when it launches next year. It will also be included as part of Amazon Prime, which costs $14.99 per month.

Alexa+ can offer suggestions if you can’t think of anything to ask (Credit: Andrew Gebhart)

Alexa+ enables you to use voice commands to control your smart home devices, play music or videos, search the web, manage your calendar, receive recipe recommendations, summarize your schedule, shop on Amazon, and more. It also comes baked into Amazon’s new smart speakers, the Echo Dot Max ($99.99) and the Echo Studio ($219.99), but the screen on the Echo Show allows you to keep up with the conversation with a transcription, and lets the assistant show pictures or videos as a visual aid when appropriate.

While a lot of its capabilities are somewhat similar to the old Alexa, Alexa+ is much better at building off of previous prompts and responding to natural commands. You don’t need to remember an exact syntax to control smart home devices anymore, and you can even use Alexa+ to create automated routines on the fly.

For audio, both the Echo Show 8 and Echo Show 11 feature two front-facing, full-range drivers and a 2.8-inch woofer to add low-end resonance. It’s the same speaker used in the latest Echo Studio, which has an additional driver. The Echo Show 8 features spatial audio, similar to its predecessor, with double the bass, according to Amazon.

Ambient light and ambient temperature sensors join a new Omnisense presence sensor, which combines ultrasound and Wi-Fi radar for fine motion detection. With the new sensor, the latest Echo Shows can use your presence to more accurately trigger personalized routines, such as turning on the lights and changing the temperature of your smart thermostat when it detects your presence. As before, it’ll display information in a larger font if you’re further away, and adjust the screen brightness based on ambient light.

The camera features built-in facial recognition, allowing you to enable a feature that recognizes you as you approach and tailors the screen accordingly, such as displaying your calendar and controls for your favorite smart home devices. You can also use the camera to make video calls to other Echo Shows; it can follow you to an extent as you move about the frame, and digitally zoom up to 3.3x.

The Echo Show 11 displaying the camera feed of a nearby Echo Show 8 (Credit: Andrew Gebhart)

The Echo Show 8 and 11 connect to Wi-Fi and have a Wi-Fi 6e antenna, but they can’t act as a relay in an Eero Mesh Network. They can function as a Thread Border Router, allowing them to act as a control hub for smaller Matter-enabled devices that need a bridge to the cloud. They also support Zigbee for the same purpose, and they offer Bluetooth input and output, allowing you to stream music from your phone to the Echo Show for playback, or from the smart display to a different speaker.

On the smart home front, you can use the Echo Show 8 to check the footage from Ring video doorbells or security cameras. You can also have it announce if your Ring camera detects motion or if someone rings the bell. It’s compatible with Ring’s new AI-powered notification summaries, which provide a concise overview of what happened instead of informing you about every trigger, and smart video search, which allows you to search for specific footage, such as a delivery person’s arrival. These AI features require a subscription to Ring Premium.

The Echo Show 8 works with the company’s Sidewalk feature, a wireless protocol that enables different Amazon devices, including Ring security cameras, to create a communication mesh network for extending their usable range and tracking lost objects. We generally recommend opting out of it for privacy reasons, which you can do when setting up the Echo Show 8 or 11.

In terms of accessibility features, you can interact with Alexa using an on-screen keyboard. It can also display captions or magnify information, and adaptive listening provides you with more time to complete your response before it responds.

You can use the browser on the Echo Show 8 to find videos from lots of platforms (Credit: Andrew Gebhart)

Alexa can launch video content on compatible devices, such as Fire TV media streamers. You can also use voice commands or the video submenu to quickly launch content natively from Fire TV Channels or Amazon Prime Video. It also supports services like YouTube, YouTube TV, TikTok, Peacock, and HBO Max in the connected browser, allowing you to search for these channels by voice. For audio playback, the Echo Show is compatible with most popular services, including Amazon Music, Apple Music, Deezer, Pandora, Spotify, and Tidal.

Initial setup is easiest with the Alexa app (for Android and iOS), but can be done on the Show itself if you don’t mind typing out usernames. The process is quick and primarily involves connecting to Wi-Fi and logging into your Amazon account. After that, if you’ve opted into it, Alexa+ will start listening and can pull up any other settings you need to adjust.

Alexa+ allows you to almost entirely forgo searching through menus to find detailed settings, which is incredibly helpful. I couldn’t figure out how to set up facial recognition in the Alexa app, so I asked Alexa+ and it immediately guided me through the process. Setting up routines in which multiple smart home devices respond to a single command used to involve a decent amount of fiddling with the Alexa app. With the Show 8, I simply asked Alexa+ to set up a routine in which my smart bulb would turn on when my door unlocked, and the process was complete.

Alexa+ appears well-suited to respond to a wide range of commands. I was able to control my smart lights by saying, “It’s too dark in here,” rather than having to specifically ask to turn the lights on. I found songs based on the handful of lyrics I could remember. I even changed my default music service from Amazon Music to Spotify with a voice command.

While at its best when controlling the device and responding to basic queries, Alexa+ also does a fine job of searching the web more broadly, and it smartly builds on previous questions. I also enjoy seeing a transcript of what it hears so I can tell immediately if something goes wrong.

Alexa+ misunderstood me slightly, but still generally figured out what I was talking about (Credit: Andrew Gebhart)

I wanted to use Alexa+ to build my skills in a video game I’m playing, Elden Ring Nightreign, and asked it to teach me how to parry. It only heard the word “pair” and gave me instructions on setting up multiplayer in the game. When I corrected it by spelling out the word, it responded with a decent amount of detailed information. It did occasionally confuse the game I was asking about with its prequel, but the information it provided was mostly accurate.

It didn’t provide enough specifics to significantly enhance my knowledge of the game, and Alexa+ won’t display YouTube videos for a suitable visual tutorial unless you ask it to search the platform directly. Still, I was consistently able to ask my next question, interrupt, and clarify what I wanted, and it continued to respond appropriately without needing a reminder of the topic.

Through the optional Follow Up mode setting, Alexa+ remains listening for a short period after a command to facilitate a more natural give-and-take, although you can disable it if you’re concerned about privacy. To find the setting, I again asked Alexa+ for a walkthrough, and it knew what I was talking about even though I used the wrong name for the feature (I called it “continued conversation,” which is Google’s version).

Through the Alexa app, you can also adjust the voice of the assistant and the wake word used to get its attention.

Unlike the intuitive Alexa+ voice command experience, both the Alexa mobile app and the Echo Show’s touch screen interface are crowded and confusing. The Alexa app opens to a long list of suggested favorite activities and smart home controls. You can tab over to the Device section, which features a shopping option at the top before displaying your own devices. The More tab offers an additional wealth of information, including an options menu and buttons to set up features such as routines and music services.

The tabs of the Alexa app (Credit: Amazon/PCMag)

On the Echo Show 8 itself, swipe up from the bottom of the screen for a list of recommended topics to raise with Alexa+, and you’ll see buttons in the upper corner of this menu to type out your query or see a history of past conversations. A bell icon in the top left corner shows your notifications, and you can tap the menu button next to it or swipe down from the top for a list of icons that roughly mirrors the More tab of the Alexa app. You can use this menu to manually adjust the screen brightness, enable Do Not Disturb mode, or access submenus similar to a smart home control panel.

You can edit your home screen with optional widgets, including calendars, finance, news, weather, and more, and reorder them as you prefer. Certain widgets will pop up automatically on the right side of the display as you enter a room, and you can scroll through them by swiping to the left. By creating a list of favorite smart home gadgets, you can quickly control them with a tap via a widget.

Hit the menu icon in the upper left corner to find these options (Credit: Andrew Gebhart)

I live by myself, but in a family setup, the facial recognition feature combined with the calendar widget that shows personalized schedules could be especially useful to replace the analog family calendar on the fridge.

You can set up the Show’s idle screen to scroll through news, recipes, personal pictures, artistic pictures, or any combination when it’s not in use. The touch screen is consistently snappy and responsive when swiping or interacting with any widget.

It’s an apt sous chef as well. You can search for recipes by name or ask for a recipe to cook based on the ingredients you have on hand. Alexa+ and the Echo Show 8 screen do a decent job of walking you through a recipe if you decide to cook something. The page will display all the steps and ingredients, and then you can ask Alexa+ to start a walkthrough. It will verbally announce each step one by one. This walkthrough shows the transcription of what’s being said on the screen, but I prefer Google’s recipe interface on the Nest Hub Max ($229.99), which announces each step while keeping the list of ingredients handy to one side.

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The picture on the Echo Show 8’s screen is consistently sharp and colorful, and it does a good job adapting to ambient light. It’s large enough to display pictures and videos from across a room, although it doesn’t bring the same warmth to personal photos as the Google Nest Hub ($99.99).

You can use the Echo Show 8 to check on your Ring cameras (Credit: Andrew Gebhart)

You can Drop In on the Echo Show 8 using the Alexa app if you want to see what’s going on at home while out and about. The picture from the camera looks crisp for both video calls and still images. In testing, the tracking followed my movements with careful precision, not rocking too quickly as to be distracting.

I first tested the audio quality of the Echo Show 8 in my kitchen, which has slightly echoey acoustics. I started with our bass test track, The Knife’s “Silent Shout,” and had the volume set to 75%. At first, I was concerned as the notes came out in a whisper. As it turns out, Alexa was just listening for a follow-up command. Once it turned off the mic and focused on the music, the vibes hit the room like a cannonball to the extent that my cats literally ran for cover.

The Echo Show 8 is loud. Even at 50% volume, it pumps out enough sound to easily fill a medium-sized room. The mics are sensitive enough to hear commands despite ambient noise, even over music at 75% volume.

Especially given the Echo Show 8’s small size, I was impressed by the bass on “Silent Shout.” Amazon uses digital signal processing to adapt its music output based on the environment, and the Show 8 made the track bounce off the walls of my kitchen without creating any kind of annoying reverb.

Bear in mind, this is still a small speaker, so the bass won’t actually thump, but it was present enough in every track I played to create a nice balance without noticeable distortion. The mids and highs of Yes’ “Roundabout” sounded clear and well pronounced, with the opening acoustic chords given a pleasing sense of fullness.

Music sounds rich and full on the Echo Show 8 (Credit: Andrew Gebhart)

I didn’t notice any stereo separation from the two drivers, but that’s to be expected from a single, small device. Every instrument of Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Boxer” still came through distinctly, even during the multi-faceted crescendo. I found myself engrossed in the swells and forgot to take notes for a while during the song’s climax.

In terms of sound quality, the Echo Show 8 distinguishes itself from the similarly sized Google Nest Hub Max, which struggles with clarity at high volumes. It’s a step forward from its predecessor as well, with better bass and detail. While not meant to replace a dedicated sound system, the Echo Show 8 has more than enough audio presence to rock out to your favorite playlist while making dinner.