Our pick of the digital assistant speakers with touchscreen displays
Smart speakers may have kicked off the voice-controlled revolution, but don’t be fooled: the screen is far from dead. Smart speakers with displays are just as powerful, and they’re only getting better.
Coming in all shapes and sizes, with the likes of Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant built-in, the best smart displays range from the glorified docked tablet to miniature retro television sets. The display-based smart speakers are the ideal gadget to place in your kitchen, hallway or bedside table.
Why? Well, while they’re equally competent as their screen-less counterparts in handling voice commands, you’ll also be able to view a feed from your security camera, watch instructional cooking videos or make video calls to friends. Plus, there are those times (like getting movie showtimes or the week’s weather forecast) when visual information is just… better.
This is all well and good, obviously, but every smart display offers slightly different specialties – and some are naturally better than others. That’s why we’re here to give you a snapshot view of the very best on offer.
Best Alexa smart display: Amazon Echo Show 10
$249 / £249 | Amazon
Amazon’s latest flagship 10-incher has been given a serious upgrade over the original generation (and the subsequent various-sized sequels)… and now Alexa has got the moves.
With a brushless motor packed into the base of the Show 10, powered by Amazon’s AZ1 neural processor, the Show 10 can pan, tilt and zoom. It is super useful for some things and, well, a bit weird at times, too.
Essentially, Alexa follows you around a room while it’s active. If you ask it something or give it a smart home command, it will turn to face you when it answers. It then stays alert to the point where it will follow you as you walk around a room for a little while after that initial interaction.
You can turn off the motion tracking, using your voice, the device itself, or the Alexa app if it bothers you. But it is really useful for one of the Echo Show 10’s other key USPs: being a smart security camera.
In the Alexa app, you can switch on the camera and view crisp footage from the Show’s 13MP camera. You can also move the camera around to see what’s going on in your house.
People won’t be tracked without them knowing – the Echo Show 10 presents a warning that someone is watching the feed from an app.
Like the Echo Plus and 4th-gen Echo, the Show 10 is able to act as a smart home controller, with the built-in Zigbee chip letting it connect to other connected smart home gadgets (such as lights, plugs and cameras) aligned with the wireless protocol – all without the need to plug in yet another hub.
The experience still isn’t totally fluid, and trying to figure out which skills are designed to work with the Show is still a hassle, but this is a great device to make the ‘main’ hub of your smart home. Sound is respectable, the 10.1-inch, 1280 x 800 screen is good enough for most things and, at the end of the day, this is still Alexa running the show.
The speakers also make it a strong music player in larger rooms and the screen is great for TV shows or and there’s a camera for video calling.
- Read our full Amazon Echo Show 10 review
Other Alexa smart displays to consider
The Show now comes in all shapes and sizes. So – depending on where you’re going to put it – you might want to consider either the latest-gen Echo Show 8 or the Echo Show 5. The clue is in the name for the display size on these Show alternatives.
Also, and a bit different from the rest of the Echo Show range, the wall-mountable Echo Show 15 (pictured above) adds a bunch of new features and a revamped UI from the regular Show experience.
The new Alexa widgets, for things like smart home controls, shared calendars, sticky notes and the like, make the Show 15 a lot more of a central hub than the previous Show models ever were / are (although some of these features may well land on the current Show line-up.)
Best Google Assistant smart display: Google Nest Hub (2nd-gen)
$59 / £50 | Google Store
Going live in March 2021, Google’s 2nd-gen Nest Hub features the same camera-less, 7-inch form factor as the original but sports a few design refinements, plus new colors.
Packing a revamped chip for a faster Google Assistant Assistant (the same silicone found in the latest Google Nest Mini), a third mic for better listening, and 50% more bass for music listening, the 2021 Nest Hub also has a temperature sensor, and Google’s Soli gesture technology inside its diminutive design.
Soli is a radar-based gesture recognition system that, on the Nest Hub, allows you to tap the air to pause and resume media on the device.
It also enables the device’s sleep sensing capabilities, able to monitor chest rise and fall unobtrusively.
The Nest Hub lets you control your smart home from its touchscreen, activate Google Assistant, play music, watch videos, or use it as a digital photo frame, too.
It’s also capable of being a Thread border router in your smart home setup – the same capability as Apple’s HomePod mini.
- Read our full Nest Hub 2nd-gen review
Also consider: Explore the Nest Home Max, the bigger sibling of Nest Hub that also features a camera and packs in a much meatier audio punch.
Best smart display alarm clock: Lenovo Smart Clock 2
$59 / £59, lenovo.com
While the Echo Show 5 and the Nest Hub 2nd-gen (with its sleep tracking features) are both fantastic bedside companions, Lenovo’s Smart Clock sequel is a dedicated device for your bedside table – and it’s also fairly cheap.
The Google Assistant packing Lenovo Smart Clock 2 looks pretty similar to the original Lenovo Clock, but with a fabric ‘chin’ area underneath the 4-inch LCD IPS display.
Available in a trio of color options – Abyss Blue, Heather Grey and Shadow Black – the main selling point is the optional dock for the Clock 2, which has pins on the left side to slot the smart display speaker onto and space for Qi wireless charging on the right.
Already a great bedside option, the addition of a wireless charging dock gives you a pretty comprehensive sleep-time solution.
The dock is also capable of acting as an ambient night light as it has an invisible LED trim around its base.
The display’s brightness will dim and illuminate based on its surroundings, thanks to the ambient light sensor, and you can even tap the top of the device to snooze or stop the alarm in the morning. They’re little touches that actually make a big difference to this feeling like a standard alarm clock, and not just a smart display in smaller clothing.
Also consider: The obvious rival here is the new Nest Hub, for those who want Google Assistant. If you’re firmly in the Alexa camp, the Echo Show 5 is a great choice, and there’s also the Lenovo Smart Clock Essential.
Best smart display for video calling: Facebook Portal Go
$129.99 / £129.99 | Amazon | facebook.com
In late 2021, Facebook announced two new video-calling smart speakers, the Portal Go and Portal Plus.
The Portal Plus is an update to an existing video caller, with some interesting changes, but it’s the Portal Go that is much more likely to grab your interest. This smart speaker with a screen is made for video chats, but it also has a battery; something not usually seen in smart displays.
Battery life is rated at five hours for video, and 14 for streamed audio, with the Portal Go sitting on a charging plate when not running off its own battery. There’s no need to unplug it in the normal way to “go portable”.
Other Portal Go features are largely familiar. It has a 125-degree 12-megapixel camera with the usual Portal ability to crop into and follow the people on a call, so it looks as though a cinematographer is working on your video chats.
The Portal Go has a 4-mic array, a 10-inch, 1280 x 800 pixel, screen touchscreen and sliders to block the camera and disable the microphones.
There are two 5W drivers for audio and a separate 20W subwoofer, so you can expect the sound to offer a healthy amount of bass.
- Read our full Facebook Portal Go review
Also consider: There is no real rival to the specific USPs of the Portal Go; but you may want to check out the older Portal models, the pricier Portal Plus, or the TV-accessory Portal TV.
The best Echo Show and Google Assistant Smart Display alternatives
The smart display speakers listed above are our current favorites, but there are also a bunch of other devices you might want to consider.
Lenovo is by far the most prolific player in Google’s Smart Display family. Not only is there the Smart Clock we already covered, but there are also 7-inch, 8-inch and 10-inch Smart Display models, as well as the 10.2-inch Yoga Smart Tab; an Android tablet that comes with a kickstand and the Assistant built-in to answer commands and offer hands-free control.
Lenovo also has the Alexa-flavored Lenovo Smart Tab on offer too; a 2-in-1 Android tablet that also doubles up as an Echo Show Mode smart speaker (pictured above).
Actually, there are two models the P10 and the M10 – with the latter being slightly better thanks to increased storage capacity (64GB as opposed to 32GB), an extra GB of RAM, a dual-glass design, a fingerprint sensor and a couple of extra Dolby Atmos speakers.
LG’s effort – the Xboom AI ThinQ WK9 – can probably be ignored unless you manage to find it at a bargain price. It was announced an age ago and has since been well and truly trumped.
Archos’ Hello range is also one to probably steer clear of, as well, although it is a cheaper option. It comes in three shapes and sizes although the big caveat here is that they are all, essentially, Android tablets baked into smart speaker form factors.
Amazon Echo Show: What do they actually do?
When the original Amazon Echo Show launched a few years back, it became the first Alexa speaker to feature a screen – but it wasn’t the best looking, nor did it offer the friendliest integrations.
As part of a 2018 refresh, Amazon announced a second-generation Show, brining an all-new design and the ability to act as a Zigbee smart home hub. Since then, we’ve seen a multitude of Echo Show devices go live – of varying shapes and sizes – but they all do essentially the same thing.
We’ll dive into all the details below, but the basic advantages of the Show over standard speakers are obvious. With a screen, the Amazon Echo Show can do things the other Echo devices can’t. You don’t have to just listen to Alexa’s responses, you can see them.
And the ecosystem of visual Amazon Echo Show Skills is growing all the time.
Amazon Echo Show: Smart home control
The Echo Show, as we say, is essentially an Echo with a touchscreen display.
You also don’t exactly need an Echo Show to have an Echo Show. Amazon’s Fire Tablets are now updated with something called Show Mode, which essentially turns your Fire Tablet into an Echo Show. There’s even a Show Mode Charging Dock that’ll hold your tablet up for you while you scroll across its UI and shout commands.
The Echo Show has both a display and a front-facing camera, which means that it can be used to video call people. Specifically, it allows you to video call people with either an Echo Show or the Alexa app on their phone. You can either initiate a call by asking Alexa to call someone (“Alexa, call dad”), or you can ask it to answer or decline an incoming video call.
Speaking of incoming calls, the Echo Show has another feature called Drop In, which is intended for you to use with your closest family and friends – the kind of people you’d give a copy of your house keys to, y’know? That’s because Drop In is essentially a digital version of that.
When you ask Alexa to Drop In on someone, it’ll let you immediately start chatting with them. However, there are 10 seconds of translucent fog before the video pops in, so you won’t catch them completely off guard.
Drop In is disabled by default, and you have to choose who – if anyone – you want to be able to drop in on you. If you have multiple Echo Show devices, you can also choose which ones are allowed to be dropped in on and which aren’t.
With an Echo Show, you can get a more visual look at the likes of timers, weather reports, kitchen recipes, your calendar and your music. There’s also now live TV available, with Prime Video, Netflix and Hulu integration, and even the ability to play back TV recordings when you pair it with a Fire TV Recast.
This Recast is basically a mix between a Slingbox and TiVo. It acts as an antenna to pick up over-the-air TV programming and allows you to record it like a DVR. When paired with a Fire TV device, it’ll add a DVR menu. It also will play your TV shows and movies on practically any device – including the Show.
The device also, crucially, comes with Amazon’s Silk Browser, which means that you’ll be able to watch both YouTube and YouTube TV via the browser – something which wasn’t an option through the first generation, since the app was cut.
If you’ve only used the standard Alexa speakers before, you’ll have to learn some of the assistant’s Show-centric capabilities. All kinds of companies have been updating their skills with Echo Show support over the past few years in order to advantage of that big display and camera, so make sure to head over to our dedicated Skills brief to get the most out of your Show.
The most immediately useful application of visual skills is in the kitchen. Food Network and Allrecipes have both updated their skills to take advantage of the display. Food Network will play cooking tutorials, so you can follow along while you cook in the kitchen.
Similarly, the Allrecipes app will either play a video or list out the recipe so you can quickly reference it as you cook. And this has been improved through the new interface, letting you go step-by-step and even skip forward or back at different stages.
Google Smart Displays: What do they actually do?
As well as having the voice-activated Google Assistant built in, each Smart Display has a touchscreen that can be used for all sorts of interactions.
When idle, the smart display will usually display the time or some of your favorite photos. But these displays are also listening like any other smart display, so ask it a question and it will be able to not only respond with the Google Assistant voice, but it will be able to display information pertinent to your query.
It’s a more contextually rich experience, and perhaps the foremost reason any smart display can be more useful than a speaker alone: some queries just work better when you have a screen. For example, if you ask Google Assistant for movie showtimes near you a smart speaker will need to read out the times and movies one by one, but a display can deliver all that information to your eyes in a second.
But the displays can also be used for things like pulling up Google Maps, making video calls (if there’s a camera), watching YouTube videos, and checking in on the news.
You can also use Smart Displays to control your smart home as you would any other Assistant speaker, getting weather and traffic info and playing music via the usual “Hey, Google” and “OK, Google” wake words. Google Cast is built into these speakers, allowing you to do things like add the speaker to a multi-room Chromecast audio set up.
Google’s updating its Smart Displays all the time, but note that third-party options are sometimes slower to receive updates. For example, Google’s Home View feature was exclusive to its first-party displays for a short while before rolling out on others.
The good news is that Google is continually updated this fledgling platform, for example a digital sticky note feature for keeping reminders was added last year.
Google Smart Displays: Smart home control
Home View – available across all Smart Displays – gives you an overview of all your connected devices. It’s a great way of seeing all your gadgets at a glance, accessed by simply swiping down from the top of its display.
It’s one of our favorite things about Google’s displays, and much easier than asking the Assistant for a status update of individual devices. To make life even easier, you’ll see a status at the top of the screen, which will say something like “3 lights are on, the front door is locked, and the temp is set to 75.”
Below that are icons for your various device categories – lights, thermostats, locks etc – which can be tapped to open more information on each.
Smart Displays can also use Google’s Broadcast feature to, well, broadcast messages to other Google Assistant speakers around your home (here’s how).
And if your Smart Display has a camera then you can make video calls with Google Duo. You can still make audio calls with Google Duo without a camera, but the person on the other end obviously won’t be able to see you.
With an easily glanceable screen of the time, date, reminders and calendars, Smart Displays start to look like a real home hub. You can, of course, treat it like a screen-less Assistant speaker, and in many cases you’ll have the option to respond to it with either voice or a touch on the screen, depending on how developers build for it.
Some Smart Displays also have toggles for switching off the microphone, should you want to avoid accidentally waking Assistant but still want to have the screen displayed. Not all of them actually cover the camera physically, however, so be mindful of that if you’re extra concerned about privacy.
Smart displays vs. smart speakers
So far, we’ve been quite won over by the features of these devices as smart home controllers, and we can see the benefit – especially for families. But it would also be a shame to return to our reliance on screens so early in this cycle of voice-powered innovation – right?
Well, the very existence of smart displays is an admission that voice isn’t the best interface for everything. We’ve touched on examples like cinema showtimes were being able to glance at a lot of information at once is much more sensible; weather forecasts are another example.
And having the camera is obviously key to video calling, something that is never going to die out.
It’s very likely that both of these categories will live side by side for years to come, rather than one eating the other entirely. Perhaps smart displays will become the primary smart home drivers, taking over from larger smart speakers, while we’ll continue to scatter inconspicuous speakers like the Echo Dot around our houses. That is, until we have total smart home ambiance, of course.
And even right now, it’s not an either-or situation, but more a case of thinking about which room would benefit from voice-only and which could do with a touchscreen or a camera.