With Amazon pushing further and further into smart home integration, during a press event on Wednesday the company announced a new device designed to manage all the various devices in your house called the Echo Hub.
Instead of being a traditional tablet or a portable smart display, the $180 Echo Hub is an eight-inch display meant to be mounted on a wall. Just like an Alexa-powered smart speaker, users can control connected devices using their voice while also being able to view live feeds from security cameras and toggle settings via a customizable dashboard. The Echo Hub was also designed to support Amazon’s upcoming Map View UI, which will be added to the device sometime in early 2024.
The Echo Hub includes support for all the major smart home protocols including Matter and Thread. And while by default it relies on Wi-Fi, there will also be an optional USB-C adapter that allows it to connect to power-over-ethernet routers like those from Eero.
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This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazons-180-echo-hub-is-a-smart-home-control-panel-for-your-wall-163231567.html?src=rss