Got my Echo Show last week, and packed it up today for return to Amazon.
The idea is promising, but the Amazon implementation is just not good enough. If this were a Google device, or possibly even an Apple device, I think there was more likelihood that the implementation would have been good enough (if not superb) for my intended use, but Amazon just isn't there yet with their voice technology (both recognition and playback).
I was actually thinking of getting my elderly mother a digital picture frame to which I could remotely upload pictures, when I saw the deal on the Echo Show on DDMS.
After reading some of the online reviews, especially of people buying it specifically for elderly parents, I decided it might work and ordered one. I was going to first set it up at home, see if/how I think it might work, and then install it for my mother. So I set it up first with my own Amazon account, and decided to try it out.
After initial plug in and set up with Wifi and Amazon account, it was up an running. Showing current time and weather, but also a lot of other "nonsense". This was problem number one. If I need to set this up for an elderly parent, I need to be able to decide what content will or won't pop up. I understand Amazon is trying to leverage this to sell Amazon Music and other things, which I might have signed up for, but I really needed to be able to filter out meaningless (for the intended user) headlines and suggestions. There might be a way to do this, I didn't intuitively find it.
It did easily come up with weather forecasts for various locations, and setting up an alarm was also quite intuitive.
Next feature I was going to try out was calling. Voice recognition seemed to work rather well, figuring out the right contact, but the confirmation feedback is terrible. I actually had a hard time understanding what it was saying. One should be able to adjust the speech playback as it relates to pitch, speed, and possibly other parameters. The only adjustments I saw were US English, UK English or German. The intelligibility of the confirmation playback for both US and UK English was subpar (though it was OK when telling a joke or reading an Encyclopedia entry). Video calling is OK (if Alexa is installed on other device - though at least the iPhone version of Alexa seems very heavy). If calling someone without Alexa set up, it will default to POTS calling, but if one has Alexa set up on a device, it will by default try that rather than seek confirmation, or retry using POTS if Alexa calling doesn't work. I deemed this too confusing for an elderly parent. I thought drop-in feature might work well, but DW was concerned about privacy issues, if I could just "drop-in".
Next feature I was hoping to have use of was showing a slideshow of photos. Since I'm a prime member, and have Amazon Photos installed on my phone, every photo that's on my phone is backed up to Amazon Prime. That includes a lot of things that I wouldn't want displayed on such a device. I don't know how this might work if the device was set to a different Amazon account, and then I would manually have to select which photos to share, but when synching to one's own account (if I were to keep this for private use) seems to be an issue. The other issue is that since various pictures are shot in portrait mode, those don't really display well on the device (limitation understood of either working well with landscape OR with portrait mode, but it definitely is an issue). On the plus side, I was able to remotely upload and select a background picture.
Another feature I was hoping to find, but was rather disappointed, was some mind stimulating (or other) games, that my mother could play. Asking Alexa for a crossword puzzle yielded nothing. Asking for a Trivia questions did come up with some questions, but I wasn't really impressed.
Next, I decided to try its AI in music choices. Asking for Chassidic music yielded nothing. Asking for Jewish Music yielded..... "Hatikvah"
So I decided to try by artist. Asking for music by Avraham Fried yielded one song, and nothing else. Asking for Yom-Tov Ehrlich yielded nothing. Asking for MBD did come up with an album being played. Asking for Jewish Acapella music yielded nothing. Some requests came up with offers to buy albums from Amazon (understood, and fair) and some came up with an offer to try Prime Music for $3.99/month (which I might have signed up for if I felt the device was worth keeping and that this could well entertain my mother).
So my bottom line verdict is an Amazon return label. Hoping for a better device (with a larger screen and hopefully Google quality AI and voice technology) in the future.
