Echo Show 5 - Sandstone

I've got a few Echo devices in the house, a show (2nd gen, big one), an Echo Gen 2, a few gen 2 dots, and a kid's dot. For the longest time, I was considering a spot for the nightstand, use it as an alarm clock. My wife and I went to the 4 star store in Littleton, and she pointed these little suckers out to me. EXACTLY what I wanted in size, shape, color, etc. It replaced my echo in the bedroom. In night mode, the display turned red and dimmed very dark, so it didn't lighten the room at all. I've not had the opportunity to use it for music yet since I've not owned it for 24 hours at the time of writing this, but I imagine it's better than the dot 2nd gen. My ONLY recommendation- if your bed is slightly lower than the night stand, and you're looking UP at the show, get the stand so you can tilt it down a bit and see it better.

This is the best alarm clock I've ever had. There are a lot of reviews for this device, so I'll just list a few things that I'm really impressed by:- The clock face is customizable and very easy to read from anywhere in the room. The screen has no distortion or discoloration from any angle, so it is easy to see from everywhere.- The screen adapts to the surrounding light. At night, when the room is completely dark, the screen decreases to almost black with just red numbers for the clock. Perfect for checking the time in the middle of the night, and more comfortable than my older LED numbered clocks.- The alarm clock has a slow volume increase, so if I can wake up to the softer tones, then I can turn it off before my wife wakes up. If I'm sleeping really deeply, then it will increase until I finally wake up.- You can set a recurring alarm to every day or every weekday, and it's easy to skip a day on the schedule by just saying "Alexa, skip tomorrow's alarm." There is a small notification in the top-right corner that shows the next upcoming alarm.- The music alarm can be sourced from Spotify, Music, or Pandora (probably other sources as well), so I can wake up to a particular song or to a station if I want to wake up to a different song of the same genre.- The touch-screen is very responsive, so when the alarm goes off in the morning, you can speak audibly to turn it off, or you can reach over to swipe "Dismiss" or swipe down to snooze.- Some of the skills that are designed for Echo Show are great. I recommend playing Jeopardy or looking up recipes.- My wife is very grateful for the physical camera shutter as we keep it in our bedroom.Some things that I don't love:- Every once in a while, it will forget the recurring alarm, so you have to reset it. It's a bit of a hassle to explain to Alexa when you want the alarm to go off on what schedule to what music station. Small complaint for how great everything has been.- The screen is small, so I don't recommend trying to watch shows or movies on it. It would be similar to setting your phone on the counter and watching a movie on it.- Others have mentioned the scrolling screen. This is not a big deal to me, but you can limit what scrolls through, so it's pretty much just the weather and a few suggestions for what to try. This has been a deal-breaker for some, but I'm not certain why. This doesn't happen at night (at least as far as I've noticed) when the screen is black with red numbers. I suspect that the Echo does it to avoid burned images in the screen; if that's the case, then I'm grateful for it.Bottom line: I highly recommend it as a very smart and very useful alarm clock and Echo device. It has its limitations, but frankly, for the price, the limitations are minuscule compared with the benefits of it. We did have it in our kitchen previously (I thought it would be nice to be able to look up recipes hands-free), but we didn't find it to be that useful there, so at least for our situation, it has been an excellent bed-side alarm clock/Echo.

Amazing

I have now bought four of these. They are perfect for the bedside table for a clock and does all the amazing things my Echo Spot did with a larger, excellent display.

I have been using Alexa devices for some years now and thought it was time to update. So I sold my Echo Spot and Echo Show 1st Gen on eBay and bought two of these little beauties. I use them to talk to family, stream SirriusXM, manage by home lighting (Phillips Hue) and a host of other things (time, weather, flight departure and arrival details etc). I think these are the perfect size. Better sharp than the Spot for video chat and better size than the Show for placement in the home (not too obvious - digital clock size). They took minutes to setup and I’m very happy with them.