Amazon Discovers The Touchscreen Hub, Heralds End Of App Reliance.
Amazon Discovers The Touchscreen Hub – It’s not often that electronics companies and digital companies meet in the middle but it seems they may have after Amazon (finally) released a touchscreen security and home automation hub called Echo Hub that sits at the heart of a very familiar looking ecosystem.
Amazon’s new Echo Hub is designed to sit at the middle of an Alexa-powered home’s smart device constellation – speakers, sensors, lights, cameras and whatever other Alexa-compatible devices you want to add.
As well as RJ-45 connectivity, it has Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and Zigbee radios and can connect to Thread, Sidewalk and Matter devices without needing phone connection for commissioning.
Echo Hub has the form factor of a small tablet – it’s a little larger and slimmer than most security keypad hubs at 8 inches, with lashings of functionality pushed onto the screen, including CCTV, security, automation, weather, music, comms and more.
It’s not as though Amazon did not have an Echo interface before now – the Echo Show – but this new Echo Hub is different, given it’s designed to allow a group of residents to manage a local system without using their smart device or a connected tablet. Show was all about displaying often annoying recommended content, while Echo Hub is about system management.
In terms of the keypad layout, rooms are listed on the left and you tap them on screen to see the devices each room contains. Devices are arranged in groups along the bottom so they can be turned on or off together – this is ideal for automation functions like lights.
Amazon Discovers The Touchscreen Hub
Better for users, the home screen can be customised to display the functionalities that get used most often – lights, security, CCTV, intercom, music, weather, etc. Echo Hub also plays music and movies and you can control it with Alexa voice commands.
Meanwhile, Echo Hub also allows users to control routines, schedules and rules – for example, you can create a routine in your Alexa app that locks the doors, arms the security system, and turns off the lights when you say, “Alexa, I’m leaving”.
It’s taken a long time for Amazon to discover the universal appeal of a clever keypad anyone in a home can drive without fussing around getting their face recognised by dad’s phone. App control is great when you are out of the house but there are times when just pressing a button is far easier.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Echo Hub from the point of view of security installers is that it suggests modernised traditional system layouts still have strong appeal and digital providers are finally recognising this.
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“Amazon Discovers The Touchscreen Hub, Heralds End Of App Reliance.”
