Amazon's latest Alexa device feels like the missing piece in making a home fully smart and acts as a hub for controlling lights, doors, cameras, timers and heating. The Echo Hub arrives ready to be the touchscreen controller for your smart home, and is a cut-price option for a device that usually has to be either professionally installed, costing thousands, or a DIY job that requires more than a little expertise. Able to be wall-mounted or placed on a stand, the Echo Hub costs 170 ( 200/ 180) and acts as a clock and digital photo frame when idle, displaying a range of stock shots or pulling snaps from your prerequisite Amazon account or Facebook on its 8in LCD screen. When woken up, it is filled with buttons and widgets for controlling things around the home. A list of rooms on the left lets you see every device connected to Alexa, while a row of buttons at the bottom gives you quick access to categories of things, such as security devices, cameras, thermostats and lights. Routines can be programmed and turned on, such as dimming the lights in the evening or opening the curtains in the morning.

I've been testing and writing about smart displays since they first launched, a screen slapped onto the ever-growing world of smart speakers. Since the introduction of the massive Echo Show in 2017, Amazon's displays have consistently felt a little bulky and overstuffed, trying to be too many things at once, with design taking more of a backseat. Instead of a classic smart display with a large speaker, it's a wall-mounted display designed for controlling your smart home. The design is reminiscent of a home security system panel or a control panel for a custom smart-home system like Control4--but also looks unsurprisingly similar to an Echo Show, just without the speaker backing. The speaker isn't the only feature chopped off from the Echo Hub.