The new Echo Show 8 adds just enough to be a worthwhile upgrade

[MUSIC] The second gen echo show eight comes with a cool camera that pans and tilts to follow you when you're on a video call. Is that enough to make this a worthwhile upgrade? Let's find out right now. [MUSIC] The new echo show eight is here and it looks. Just like the old echo show eight, if you're a fan of giant bezels you are gonna love this design. After the fancy spinning show 10 and the spiracle echoes, I got my hopes up about new cool designs from Amazon. Not this time. The show eight looks a lot more run of the mill but Amazon packed a lot of new stuff in here under the hood, and it's still a reasonable 130 bucks the same as the old one. We're gonna talk basics then we'll take a close look at the three main new features moving video calls, check in from afar and presence based routines Then we'll give our recommendation and determine if this upgrade feels worth it. This is the $130 second gen echo show eight It's not the eighth echo show, we've entirely lost count. It's the second model with an eight inch HD screen. It works with Amazon's digital assistant that responds to a wide variety of voice commands. It has a touchscreen that displays extra info when you ask about the weather, you can access the Smart Home control panel you can watch videos or making Video calls. There are physical volume controls, a physical mute button and a camera shutter. pretty standard stuff. As far as sound quality is improved, though it sounds a little bit money at higher volumes. Still, it's nice and loud and it blows away the new nest hub. Which is similarly sized with a 7 inch screen and as long as you're at a volume of around 7 it sounds great. Other than improved sound quality the Show 8 has a few new features aside from the big three it has a new octacord processor, so I think that means this smart display is going to try to fight Tom Holland at some point. But Andrew Garfield should be safe regardless, your family and friends can share photos with you that scroll across your home screen, you can do group video calls now, augmented reality effects are coming soon, so you'll be able to add hearts and sparkles to your next digital deposition. Speaking of video calls, remember the Facebook portal? Yeah, but it had one cool trick where it would follow you on a video call. So if you were chatting with grandma, she could follow the movements of her grandkids she was very sweet, terrible device. Other smart displays have adapted the tricks since like the nest hub Max, the echo show 10 can even spin its head around. Rounds to keep up with the action that much more. And now the show eight can do it too. Yes, it's old news but it is more affordable here than on the nest hub max or the show 10. So let's see if it works well>> Calling David crease Alexa devices [MUSIC] Hey Dave? Hey how is going? Pretty good. We're here in the smart home. We're testing the new echo show 8.>> I can see that and and I can see you Right and seeing how it tracks me as I move about Last time we did Simon says, but you made me do too many burpees. So we're just not doing that this time, cancel and cancel and all that. But now you're just sort of creeping around the room instead. Exactly, we're with what we call the creep test to see how it actually tracks The movements and then if I actually creep creep on you there you are so sneaky. There was it was the extra sneaky factor. So it's a little slow in following me here. So it looks better when I'm closer to it though than the nest hub max there isn't as much distortion, which is pretty good on the close up. Yeah, you're more ahead of them like play for five of your time. So no warping there. That's just a personal feature, David. I appreciate if you're not air out my Dirty laundry. So again, in terms of a stationary cam smart display, I think the nest hub Max is a little bit faster to track because again, this one's just moving a little slow. But it does a pretty good job of tracking, even when I'm doing alright How's it look from a distance So it's still on you walk to your left a little bit. It's kind of drifting a little bit. I'm not sure if it's following you. Yeah, it's not. It's just sort of hanging out on that door frame over there. Okay, so it lost me. Now what happens if I come back and frame here when does it pick me up? Okay [MUSIC] Hold back out Well, okay, so now I just started following you again. It was looking at the ceiling for a second.>>Yeah,>> it seems like it's in. Like it's just kind of on a delay and not super tight and how it follows you. But when you're in that middle distance or closer, it's it works decently well.>> Okay. Well, thanks for testing this with me, Dave. I'll let you get back To your many adventures in ordinary life, Yeah, lots of important things going on around. [MUSIC] The quality of the Cam has improved a lot. This model has 13 megapixels, the old show eight only had one. The extra definition goes hand in hand with one of the other new features. You can check on your cam remotely, if I'm up for a walk I can check to see if this Iron Man figure pulls a toy story and comes to life from gone. Maybe you saw the indicator that I'm watching, maybe the toys around the smart home. The onscreen indicator when you're looking in is huge, which I like because then no one can spy on you without you knowing. The picture quality was fine the image was nice and clear and you can pinch to zoom and pan around to follow the action. It didn't follow me automatically like in a video call, but you get a solid view of your home if you want to check in [MUSIC] And the Smart Home side is improving to you. Thanks to the cam on the show eight Amazon can use my presence or my absence to trigger routines. You can add this stuff to whatever smart home device you want, but we're keeping it simple with lights. We couldn't quite get the demo to work on cam. Setting up our cam and all made it so we couldn't convince Amazon we weren't actually there. Ta-da [LAUGH]. Like the old show eight, the second gen version suffers from middle child syndrome. Syndrome. The new show five is debuting to for less. And the show 10 has that many more tricks up its sleeve. Plus the nest hub with a seven inch screen is a great option if you like Google Assistant. Nevertheless, this feels like a fine upgrade. It's reasonably priced. It's helpful. It's a solid body Especially if you want a mid range smart display from Amazon. It's an improvement over its predecessor for the same price. It is more iterative than innovative, but a well it's a new coat of paint without extra bias. Thanks for watching. comment below to let me know if you're going to get one of the new echo shows and which one And let me know if you've seen your action figures come to life. I need to know. Thanks again. Like and subscribe bye