Amazon has just released a surprise new version of its Echo Show smart home hub and it's the largest smart display the company has ever offered. It has almost double the screen space of the popular Echo Show 15, which gives you tons of extra space to manage your smart home devices, watch videos and use all of the other Echo Show functionality.
And it's not just the Echo Show 21 that's new — Amazon announced a refresh of its Echo Show 15. While it isn't a huge revolution compared to the existing model, the changes are smart and worthwhile if you don't already own the Echo Show 15.
Echo Show 21 — what's new?
The biggest thing to note about the Echo Show 21 is its overall size. The 21-inch display is larger than Amazon has offered for its smart home hubs.
But it's not just physically bigger. Amazon says the Echo Show 21 offers better sound than its smaller predecessor with immersive sound, double the bass and room adaption technology. We'll need to test it ourselves to see how much the audio has improved, but since one of the primary complaints about the device — including in our Echo Show 15 review —was the audio, any changes are welcomed.
Additionally, Amazon has improved the camera, which should make video calls more enjoyable. The company added auto-framing (similar to the Echo Show 10), doubled the field of view and increased the zoom by 65%. The hub also received noise reduction technology to eliminate background noise during calls.
The hub offers Matter and Thread that'll run your smart home, which was possible with the previous version. However, the new model gets Wi-Fi 6E support, so it should be faster. Additionally, Amazon says it can control some devices locally, such as lights, switches, and plugs, a feature introduced with the Echo Hub in 2024.
With the extra size, the Echo Show 21 becomes a viable place to watch any of the best streaming services, and it comes with Fire TV built-in to access all of the apps you'd expect to find on any of the best streaming devices.
It's not a cheap device at $399, but it seems like an acceptable price for the size of the screen and its functionality. It comes with an Alexa Voice Remote and wall-mounting equipment, ready to go out of the box.
Echo Show 15 — incremental changes
The Echo Show 15 gets all of the updates outlined above for the Show 21 with the exception of the huge screen. Like the previous Echo Show 15, you get a 15-inch screen. Otherwise, it gets the Wi-Fi 6E support, Matter, Threads and everything else.
Essentially, it's just like the Echo Show 21 but smaller. It's also cheaper at $299 and comes with the Alexa Voice Remote and wall-mounting equipment.
Both the Echo Show 15 and Echo Show 21 look to stake their claim on our list of the best smart displays; currently, Amazon has by far the most — the Echo Show 5, Echo Show 8, and Echo Show 10 — whereas Google has just two. But, there are a lot of rumors that Apple is planning to launch its own smart display sometime next year.
