Finding a piece of equipment that you can use in more ways than one provides you with some serious bang for your buck. Sure, there are plenty of devices that will just serve one purpose, which is fine. You want an alarm clock to tell you the time, and you also don’t expect it to be a phone. The thermometer in your window will tell you what the temperature is outside but won’t give you a look at who is walking up your driveway. However, these are all tasks that a smart display could potentially do for you.
Smart displays are a few different smart home devices rolled into one. All of them are smart speakers, while some of them are also smart cameras, Thread border routers, places to watch a movie, or even phones. Smart displays can provide your home with a device that can do so much without costing you an arm and a leg. They can serve as hubs for your other smart devices and be the central part of your home ecosystem.
Choosing the right smart display can be the start of choosing how you set up your smart home. I’ve compiled the best smart displays on the market to give you an idea of the functionalities, the features, and the controls that you can expect when you set up one of these in your home. Here are my picks.
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Best overall smart display
Amazon Echo Show 8 (3rd Gen, 2023)
A great addition to any home
The 3rd generation Echo Show 8 has some of the best functionality, features, and promise all wrapped up in a package that won’t set you back a ton. It has an eight-inch display, can handle AI functions, is a Thread border router, and more.
- Good chipset
- Can be used as a hub
- Strong audio performance
- Touch controls aren’t the best
- Alexa misinterprets things a lot
The Echo Show 8 (3rd Gen) delivers so much in a considerable package. For those that are Amazon Alexa households, or are looking to become a smart home, the Echo Show 8 is a great addition. It has taken all the best features of the previous iterations of the device and made them better. It’s an ideal size for your kitchen or family room, as the eight-inch display can be seen easily, so you can ask Alexa to show you a recipe or have her play a video for your kids. The sound quality is impressive thanks to the spatial audio, as the rich and deep sound can be heard from all over and doesn’t become staticky the louder you crank it up.
It got a boosted chipset as well during the most recent update, as it runs on an Octa-Core SoC with Amazon AZ2 Neural Network Engine. The design is seamless and easy to look at, and you’ll definitely notice the difference if you compare it to an Echo Show 5. You can pair devices with Zigbee, Matter, and Thread, which lets you turn it into a complete central hub. You’re able to stream Prime Video, Netflix, Fire TV Channels, Spotify, Amazon Music, and much more, too. It also allows you to make video calls from, meaning you can hit up anyone in your contacts list that you want.
The Amazon Echo Show 8 (3rd Gen) is so much more than a smart speaker, and it proves its worth anytime you use it.
While Alexa still makes the occasional mistake, this feels like an improved offering from previous years. The touch controls can be finicky at times, but for the most part, it offers a smooth transition between screens. The Amazon Echo Show 8 (3rd Gen) is so much more than a smart speaker, and it proves its worth anytime you use it.
Read our review
Amazon Echo Show 8 review: Fresh new looks, same Alexa experience
Hitting that sweet spot between size and functionality, the Echo Show 8 is a tempting choice for those with an Alexa smart home.
Best for Google Home smart homes
Google Nest Hub (2nd Gen)
Ideal for Google fanatics
$80 $100 Save $20
The Google Nest Hub (2nd Gen) is the perfect smart display for any Google Home user. This features solid audio, can help you track your sleep, and allows you to stream your favorite shows and movies.
- Makes finding connected devices simple
- Tracks sleep
- Decently priced
- Need extra subscriptions for some features
- A bit outdated
The 2nd Gen Google Nest Hub was released back in 2021 and upgraded the original one in a lot of big ways. It’ll show you your Google Assistant history, which is a nice perk over options from Amazon. One of the best features of the Google Nest Hub (2nd Gen) is that it helps you track your sleep using a feature called Sleep Sensing — it tracks motion and breathing to give you sleep data and provide insights into how restful your nights are. A subscription and permission in your settings is required to get this, and you’ll have to calibrate it to your sleeping position.
The Google Nest Hub (2nd Gen) connects to other Nest devices, such as Nest video doorbells and can display the footage from your camera on its display. You can also connect with other Nest speakers to make announcements from room to room, make video calls, book restaurant reservations, use it as an alarm clock, and stream your favorite shows and movies on it. It is Chromecast-enabled and has three microphones and one speaker. It runs on a Quad-core 64-bit 1.9 GHz ARM CPU, so it processes commands rather quickly.
It’s an asset in practically any room you put it in.
It has a seven-inch screen, which is a strong size for a smart display. Despite being over three years old, this smart display still works very well in almost any home. It’s an asset in practically any room you put it in.
Read our review
Google Nest Hub (2021) review: Sweet dreams are made of this
Sleep tracking comes to Google’s smart display, offering an unintrusive way to monitor your rest.
Best smart display for your bedroom
Amazon Echo Show 5 (3rd Gen)
Bring it to bed with you
The Echo Show 5 (3rd Gen) has made improvements on the 2nd Gen and is a great companion in your bedroom. With a subtle size and screen that’s meant for a bedside table, this will boost the smart home functionality in your room.
- Ideal size for a bedside table
- Latest updates compared to previous option
- Amazon Alexa improvements
Many people made their first foray into smart displays with the 1st or 2nd Gen Echo Show 5. It was a small and compact smart display that fit in well wherever you put it. The 3rd Gen that was released in 2023 has improved on the previous iterations and makes for a perfect addition to your bedroom — the size didn’t change much, as it still has a five-inch display. But that’s really all you’ll want next to your bed, as any bigger one will take up too much space.
It’s perfect for the room because it can be used in a variety of ways, including to set timers, control the temperature, and to wake you up.
It provides features like other Echo Shows including the use of Amazon Alexa and a built-in 2MP camera for video calls. The Echo Show 5 (3rd Gen) will show you your photos, making it a digital picture frame as well. While it doesn’t have Zigbee compatibility like some of the newer Echo Shows, it can connect to Amazon devices to send commands back and forth with them. You can use it to stream shows, movies, and music, meaning you can wake up and listen to the radio immediately.
For anyone looking to put a smart speaker in their bedroom, you won’t do better than this.
The touch controls are a bit slow and are more difficult than the Echo Show 8 because of the smaller screen. This is also the reason that you don’t want to use the Echo Show 5 (3rd Gen) in a larger room, as the smaller size will be amplified. But for anyone looking to put a smart speaker in their bedroom, you won’t do better than this.
Read our review
Amazon Echo Show 5 (2023) review: Your bedside Alexa just got even better
The Echo Show 5 is an ideal bedside smart display and the latest update brings some welcome improvements.
Best smart display for watching videos
Google Nest Hub Max
Big improvement for Google Nests
The Google Nest Hub Max is built to give you a great place to watch videos, thanks to its YouTube integration. It can connect to a bevy of other devices to make your smart home more complete.
- YouTube integration
- Sharp Nest camera
- Connects to other smart home devices
The design of the Google Nest Hub Max is similar to that of the Nest Hub 2nd Gen. But bigger is better and the 10-inch screen of this smart display is made for watching videos. Google knew that and — thanks to owning YouTube — it has included an integration into the video platform on the smart display. This makes it a perfect screen to stream YouTube TV on as well as watch countless videos. But that’s not all that’s great about the Nest Hub Max.
It’s a great display to be used specifically as a hub. It can not only control other Google devices, but it also works with Arlo, Hue, Samsung SmartThings, Wink, and more, so you don’t need to stay brand loyal in order to take advantage of its compatibility. The audio is a huge selling point to go along with the big screen, as it features a 30W subwoofer. It has a Nest camera built into it that provides you with the capability and clarity that you know and love from the brand.
It acts intuitively with your needs.
While the price is a bit steep at over $200, the Nest Hub Max can do so much that it can be worth the price if you use it. Some of the top features do require additional subscriptions, which will add to the cost. But it does offer Face Match and gesture support, so it acts intuitively with your needs. The Nest Hub Max can be used for all sorts of tasks, including just plain old fun.
Read our review
Google Nest Hub Max review: Putting the Echo Show on notice
The Max looks like the original Nest Hub, but with larger 10-inch display, built-in Nest camera, better sound and more. Is it a smart home winner?
Best smart display to mount
Amazon Echo Show 15
Big picture for large spaces
The Echo Show 15 is meant to run your home while also providing you with a screen to watch shows and movies on. It offers most of the features you love about an Echo Show with a flat surface like a TV.
- Large display
- Widgets make it easy to use
- Sharp to look at
- Poor sound quality
- Need improvements for software
If you want to keep your smart display in one place and make it easy to be seen by anyone in a room, the Echo Show 15 is a smart investment. This is simple to mount to a wall, as the flat, 15-inch display is meant to be hung. The installation process is simple, so it won’t take you a long time. Because of its large screen, it doesn’t just keep one thing on the display at a time, like other Echo Shows. This allows you to utilize widgets and display multiple offerings at once, including the time, weather, reminders, lists, and more.
It can be hard to customize the widgets and the software seems to be catching up with the idea of having so much space to work with. Some apps and widgets work better than others, while some take up the whole screen and others don’t even register an app being used. On the other hand, you can use this as a Fire TV, as it has the built-in interface, and you can stream other video platforms and apps on it. The 1920 x 1080 resolution is the best of any Echo Show, so the picture quality is on the stronger side.
Amazon definitely invested in the screen rather than the sound.
However, the sound quality is weak, as Amazon definitely invested in the screen rather than the sound. It does have a 5MP camera on the front, which is good for video calling. You can make a call and be on the other side of the room talking to the person and still see the screen clearly. While some software and design flaws are apparent, this could be the future of the smart display genre.
Read our review
Amazon Echo Show 15 review: Untapped potential
Amazon’s biggest Echo Show boosts the screen size and begs to be wall-mounted. But is it actually any good?
The bottom line: What’s the best smart display?
If you’re looking for a smart display for your home, you should start with the Echo Show 8 (3rd Gen). This gives you the most bang for your buck and provides you with a ton of great features in an eight-inch display. You can use it for so many tasks, including calling, syncing with other devices, alarms, reminders, photo displaying, and more. Plus, it can be used to watch videos and play music.
The reason we like Amazon Alexa so much is because of how well it responds to voice commands. That’s why the Echo Show 5 (3rd Gen) and Echo Show 15 are included on this list. They each have their places to be used as well, as the Echo Show 5 is great for a bedroom and the Echo Show 15 is meant to be placed on a wall. Google Nest has great options as well and the ones we selected can be used to control many other devices in your home as well. But for our money, the Echo Show 8 (3rd Gen) is the best bet.
Amazon Echo Show 8 (3rd Gen, 2023)
How did we choose the best smart displays?
Pocket-lint has extensively tested many of the top smart displays. The choices in this list are all smart displays that we have personally tested and written reviews of. Because there are many different smart displays on the market by many companies, I narrowed down a list to my favorite five. The list I selected covered different sizes, different features, and different price points.
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