It’s the first Echo Show to support full HD resolution streaming from Netflix, Amazon’s Prime Video, Hulu, and others. The larger screen also comes into play with the new picture-in-picture feature, which allows you to view a security camera feed or video doorbell while also looking at other content. Half the screen is always dedicated to the rotating home content seen on other Echo Show displays - the other half is where widgets live. Unfortunately, it won’t be possible to utilize the whole display with your own preferred items if you wanted to create a smart home dashboard, for example. The Echo Show 15 splits its screen between a standard Amazon smart display carousel and new widgets. Amazon is building a handful of these widgets itself, but it’s also developed an API that developers can use to add them to their Alexa Skills. Those widgets can be customized depending on your preferences, whether you want to show a calendar, to-do list, recipe recommendations, favorite smart home controls, or whatever. It’s capable of all the things prior Echo Show smart displays could do, such as playing music, showing weather reports, streaming video, controlling smart home gadgets, and all the other stuff you can ask Alexa for.īut the Show 15 leverages its larger screen to also show more useful, permanently placed widgets alongside the familiar carousel of headlines, third-party skill advertisements, and so on. It envisions it being placed in communal spaces - a living room, frequently accessed hallway, and, of course, the kitchen. It’s also got a different design than the company’s prior models - instead of being a touchscreen attached to a bulky speaker, the Echo Show 15 is flat and can be hung on the wall.Īmazon’s pitch for this smart display is for it to be a shared hub for families to see things like upcoming calendar appointments, to-dos, sticky note reminders, and shopping lists.
The new $249.99 Echo Show 15 is the largest smart display the company has released so far, with a 15-inch, 1080p HD display. But for the most part, it's a reliable and hassle-free way to make your sideloaded apps show up easily.Amazon is once again expanding its lineup of Echo Show smart displays, and this time, it’s going bigger. Thus there are a couple of quirks, such as issues with sorting apps within channels. Keep in mind that the app is created by a hobbyist developer. It's also possible to add the same app to multiple channels. As such, you can mix and match between the two formats, creating a seamless experience. When you chose which existing apps to add to your new channels, Sideload Channel does not distinguish between regular apps and sideloaded content. However, from the standpoint of adding sideloaded apps to your home screen, the app is also useful. For a long time, users have complained about having all selected favorites on a single, infinitely long row.
This single feature instantly makes the Android TV home screen more user-friendly.
After this, it lets you add your newly created "channel" to the home screen, and will display the apps you added in the adjacent row. You can group your Android TV apps into new channels.