With a sharper, smarter camera for making video calls, the Amazon Echo Show 15 (2nd Gen) helps busy households get organised and stay in touch.
Most smart screens are small, which makes them convenient to sit on the kitchen bench but difficult to see from the other side of the room. If you’re looking for a smart screen to help organise a busy household then you’d perhaps benefit from something with a little more screen real estate, so everyone can glance at it. That’s when a hefty wall-mountable smart screen starts to look attractive.
The original 15-inch Amazon Echo Show 15 arrived in Australia back in 2022 to fill this role, accompanied by a kit for wall-mounting it in portrait or landscape mode. It dwarfs the 10-inch Google Nest Hub Max, with Show 15’s nearest rival perhaps being the 15-inch Skylight Calendar also designed to keep you organised.
This year the new Amazon Echo Show 15 (2nd Gen) doesn’t get any larger, and we miss out on the Echo Show 21 jumbotron recently launched in the US. Instead, the “all-new” Echo Show 15 sports an improved camera and speakers. You’re entitled to question where that justifies a $150 price increase in Australia from the original Echo Show 15, considering the price only went up by US$20 (AU$32) in the United States.
Amazon Echo Show 15 (2nd Gen) review
First impressions
Like its predecessor, the Amazon Echo Show 15 (2nd Gen) doesn’t come with a stand, on the assumption that you’ll use the supplied mount to hang it on the wall.
As a central screen for organising and entertaining your household, it probably makes the most sense to install the Echo Show 15 in a common area like the kitchen, where people will see it each morning to get a rundown of their day.
Amazon sells an optional $169.95 Echo Show 15 Premium Adjustable Stand, for those who’d rather sit the screen on a benchtop than hang it on the wall. Once again, that’s a hefty increase on the $49.95 Amazon charged for the basic kickstand to go with the original Echo Show 15.
The fundamental design of Amazon’s 2nd-gen Echo Show 15 hasn’t changed and it still looks like a reasonably elegant black picture frame, with a white matte around the glass. It won’t look out of place on the wall, especially when displaying photos.
As with most Amazon smart devices, the screen features volume and microphone mute buttons along the top edge, along with a physical slider for disabling the camera.
Thankfully there’s no writing on the front to spoil the look, just a camera hole that has moved from the top left to the top centre when it’s mounted in landscape mode.
The supplied square-shaped wall mount doesn’t let you rotate the screen while attached, but its shape means you can easily detach the screen, rotate it and then reattach it without needing to adjust the mount itself.
Alternatively, the optional monitor-style stand lets you tilt the screen and pivot it side-to-side, but you can’t rotate the screen to view it in landscape mode. You can’t even choose to mount the screen in landscape mode, because the stand isn’t tall enough.
Keep in mind that, wherever you mount the Echo Show 15, the screen still needs to plug in a power socket using the provided 1.5-metre cable. If required, Amazon sells 1.8 and 3-metre extension cords separately.
Amazon Echo Show 15 (2nd Gen) specs and price
| Screen | 15.6 inches, 1920×1080 resolution |
| Dimensions | 257.3 mm W x 407.9 mm H x 35.8 mm D |
| Weight | 2.25 kg |
| Front camera | 13 MP + Shutter |
| Speakers | Two 2-inch woofers and two 0.6-inch tweeters |
| Wi-Fi | Wi-Fi 6E (802.1ax) Tri-band, dual-antenna Wi-Fi (MIMO). Supports 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi networks. |
| Connectivity | Bluetooth with A2DP, AVRCP Matter Thread Zigbee |
| Power cable | 1.5 metres |
| Price | $549 RRP |
| Warranty | 1 year |
| Official website | Amazon Australia |
Out of the box
Power up the Amazon Echo Show 15 (2nd Gen) and, by default, the Home screen displays four widgets on the right-hand side. The top right is a new Fire TV widget that scrolls between My Watchlist, Recently Watched and Recent Apps, while the other three default widgets are Calendar, Recommended Amazon Music and Smart Home Favourites.
It’s easy to change and rearrange the widgets using the Widget Gallery, accessed by dragging your finger down from the top of the screen to call up the menus.
Calendar, to-do list, shopping list and sticky notes widgets are particularly handy for keeping your household organised and you can select larger versions of them so they’re easier to interact with.
The left-hand side of the Home screen displays the time and weather, plus it rotates through a configurable range of content by default such as your photos, news, weather, recipes and Alexa tips.
As usual, Amazon crams this section with a lot of rubbish like Fun with Alexa, Shopping Recommendations and Trending Topics that you’ll likely want to kill. You can also stop it rotating if you want to stay on one option.
The large, sharp and bright display ensures that it’s easy to read the screen from across the room. It automatically adjusts the brightness according to the ambient light, dimming in a dark room so you can only see the time.
When setting up the photo frame app, you can choose from your own images stored in Amazon Photos or from a range of pre-configured collections like Nature, Travel and Art. You’ve thankfully got a lot of control over the slideshow settings and what it does at night.
While you can manually start the full-screen photo frame app, there’s no way to get it to automatically launch when the Show 15 is idle, presumably because Amazon wants you looking at all of its widgets and interacting with the device. That might be frustrating if a photo frame is one of your primary use cases for the screen.
Features
The Amazon Echo Show 15 (2nd Gen) offers the same features as Amazon’s other smart screens that include a built-in camera. You can see the view from smart cameras and doorbells, as well as make voice and video calls to other Alexa devices and the Alexa smartphone app.
There’s a “Drop-In” mode that automatically answers incoming video calls from select family and friends, which sounds handy but could also go very badly – which is why it’s disabled by default.
Like the original Show 15, the new model supports both Visual ID and Voice ID. You can create profiles for each member of your household and, when Alexa recognises their voice and face, she can serve up personalised content and information like calendar appointments.
All of the new Show 15’s improvements revolve around multimedia, with a sharper camera, beefier speakers and a Fire TV remote control.
The headline is the significant camera upgrade, leaping up from 5 MP to 13 MP whilst incorporating 3x zoom and a wider field of vision. This upgrade doesn’t just offer a sharper picture for those on the other end of video calls, it also enables auto-framing so the camera can remain focused on you as you move around the room.
This significant camera upgrade is inherited from the Amazon Echo Show 10 (3rd Gen) and arguably should have been included with the original Show 15. Of course, the 15-inch model lacks the 10-inch version’s slightly creepy ability to physically turn to follow you around the room.
Put to the test, the Show 15’s new camera view does a smooth and natural job of digitally panning and zooming to follow you around the room. The view doesn’t jerk suddenly, so it’s unlikely to make the person on the other end seasick.
One drawback of the built-in camera is that you probably don’t want to stand around in front of the Echo Show 15 for a long time while you chat with people. It perhaps makes the most sense in common areas like the kitchen, so you can talk to someone while doing other things such as preparing a meal. Even then, the best location for video calls might not be the best location for watching video, or the best location for ensuring everyone can easily glance at their schedule.
Remote and apps
It’s interesting that Amazon now includes a Fire TV-style remote control in the box, in recognition that some homes will want to use the Echo Show 15 like a small smart TV in the living area. You can navigate the Fire TV interface and control media playback with the remote, but not interact with other interface elements like widgets.
To accompany the remote you also get that new, larger rotating Fire TV widget on the home screen by default, which offers personalised video recommendations in addition to quick access to your favourite apps.
Amazon now supports a much wider range of content apps than it did with the original Show 15 launched back in 2022. Australians now have access to Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, Netflix, Stan, Paramount+, Disney+, Kayo, Binge, Plex and YouTube without relying on the Silk browser as a workaround. There are also Australia’s free-to-air catch-up apps.
Keep in mind that the screen lacks the anti-glare coating that you often find on televisions, so you’ll need to place it strategically to avoid glare from lights and windows.
While not everyone wants to make video calls, the speaker upgrade is perhaps of more all-round benefit. It’s a big step up, from two 1.6-inch full-range drivers to the new combination of two 2-inch woofers and two 0.6-inch tweeters.
The result is a more full-bodied sound with greater low-end than the original Show 15. Speakers in the sides of the frame throw the sound backwards, meaning it sounds slightly better mounted on the wall than when on the stand in the middle of the room.
When it comes to audio apps, you’ll find Amazon Music, Apple Music, Spotify, iHeartRadio and TuneIn – but you won’t find them in the app library. Instead, you need to connect them using the Alexa smartphone app.
While the audio certainly isn’t competition for a decent smart speaker or television, it’s good enough for casually listening to music and watching movies without cringing at the sound quality. You can also use Bluetooth to connect headphones or an external speaker.
Who is the Amazon Echo Show 15 (2nd Gen) for?
When the Amazon Echo Show 15 (2nd Gen) is so more expensive than its predecessor, it’s hard to recommend upgrading unless you’d really make the most of that sharper, smarter front camera.
If you don’t care about the camera then keep in mind you can still buy the original model, although the remote is an optional extra, the stand isn’t as good and you miss out on the improved speakers.
Keep in mind, even with the upgraded speaker, the sound quality barely makes the grade if you’re looking for a makeshift smart TV.
High price aside, the Amazon Echo Show 15 (2nd Gen) has a lot going for it as a smart kitchen assistant and/or family organiser. Convincing everyone in your household to make the most of it might be a challenge but, if you can get them all onboard, then the Echo Show 15 could be the key to household harmony and organisational bliss.
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