Top critical review
1.0 out of 5 starsNot ready for prime time!
Reviewed in the United States on July 7, 2017
I have very much been looking forward to getting my Show, & bought two of them. However, I am FAR from being satisfied with its performance. I'm a professional engineer, with more than 50 years technology experience, & I have 18 Amazon devices listed under www.amazon.com/mycd, so I'm not exactly an amateur on their products. I also own a computer consulting company that has dealt with integrating audio, video, & computer networks for more than 30 years, & our home is very "smart."
However, in the two days I have been running my Show, it has failed to respond to voice commands 19 times, so far. That includes simple ones, like "Alexa, Stop" & "Alexa, Continue." The unit is sitting 18 inches from me, so it's not like it's unable to pick up my voice, & when I switch back to my Alexa Echo, that unit works perfectly, as usual. Not only does the Show fail to respond, it also responds incorrectly, although fewer times. I find myself getting angry at an inanimate - but supposedly intelligent - object, which is not a good thing at all!
I found that I cannot run both my Echo & Echo Show at the same time, at least not while they're sitting a few feet from each other, so I keep two Firefox tabs open so I can switch back & forth...usually because the Show has stopped responding.
The video screen is a very nice feature, but there's no obvious way to return to a Home screen, except by just waiting. The touch-screen just...isn't touchable. In fact, the touch feature works so UNreliably, that I quit using it within an hour of setting up the Show, & I consider it useless. The pull-down menu gets you to commands, but there isn't any way to back up one level, & I found myself having to use the pull-down multiple times to get anything done, a very-inefficient way to accomplish anything.
I contacted Amazon Technical Support to ask some questions, & it was painfully obvious that their technicians have no idea how to provide service advice for the Show; one tech disappeared for almost 20 minutes before I got fed up, & closed the Chat session. I have sent several e-mails asking how to identify non-Amazon smartphones so that I can use the Alexa app to communicate, but have received nothing that makes any sense, almost as if they're answering a totally different question.
One good thing is that setting up the Show was utterly painless, & has been the most-useful feature I've found so far. It took me less than 10 minutes, including the multiple software updates & reboots the device went through. The Show's speakers are marginally better than the Echo's, but not as "room-filling" as their advertising led me to believe.
In short, perhaps the software updates will make the Show into a device that I can rely upon, but it's not at all ready for prime time right now! So, instead of sending the second Show as a gift to my sister (who has no experience with Amazon's voice-operated devices), I will hold onto it for now, just in case I have to return both units. I have 28 more days to make that decision, &, regretfully, I think it's a toss-up. I'll come back & revisit these comments over the next few weeks, just in case I'm pleasantly surprised.
UPDATES: I just took away a star! I've had the Show for not quite a week, & I am pretty sure that I'm going to return both of them to Amazon. I've been keeping a list of problems & observations, as follows:
Need to be able change music lyrics font size
Loss of music station multiple times (Echo plays okay)
Multiple instances of "Something has gone wrong"
Multiple instances of "What do you want to play?" after "Alexa, Stop"
After turning on Smart Home, Alexa says it's not on, so no camera available
At 10:03 PM on 7/11/17, despite me almost screaming at the Show five or six times, it would NOT stop, & I had to use the application on my computer to make the extremely loud commercial pause! This is totally unacceptable! Then, when I tried to restart the music, the Show told me that the station was unavailable, when I could get it to play on the Echo, right beside it, & the Windows app could no longer connect to the Show.
The Show responds only randomly to the app on the computer, sometimes ignoring it completely, other times responding after seconds, or even minutes
Why have a touch-screen, when 99% of the gestures don't work?
The Show should be able to show the name of the song that's playing
The Show continues to stop arbitrarily for no reason at all, & will not restart on the same music station; this isn't happening with the Echo
NOTE: I did get a phone call from an Amazon tech support person after I wrote my first negative review, which means that they are very interested in user feedback, & he agreed with all of the problems I mentioned, telling me that they are "working to resolve them." That is, frankly, the ONLY reason that I haven't packaged these up & sent them back! My computer company has been doing beta-testing for more than 30 years, & I feel it only fair to give Amazon the full 30 days to get these problems resolved, but I'm sure not seeing any sign of things getting better!
Having music & other features stopping arbitrarily, having blaring commercials that CANNOT be shut down, & having a device that ignores its own app are all problems that MUST be fixed!! It's not bad enough that computers can drive me crazy - I don't have to put up with a voice-activated device that refuses to listen, too!
