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Do You Need a Smart Display?
The Pros and Cons
Best Overall
Google Nest Hub Max
If You Prefer Alexa
Amazon Echo Show 8 (2nd Gen)
Best Upgrade
Google Pixel Tablet
A smart display might be for you if you want the convenience of a smart assistant with the added bonus of having something to look at. When you put Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa into a smart speaker with a tablet-sized screen, you get a fun way to see the weather or album art, watch TV shows, follow video recipes, and even make video calls. We’ve tested most of the major displays on the market and listed our favorites below.
Be sure to check out our many other buying guides, including the Best Smart Speakers, Best Google Assistant Speakers, and Best Alexa Speakers.
Updated October 2023: We’ve added details on the upcoming new Echo Show 8 models, the third-gen and photo-focused versions.
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Photograph: Google
Do You Need a Smart Display?
The Pros and Cons
Smart displays are helpful, acting as hubs for your smart home devices, walking you through recipes while you chop away in the kitchen, and in some cases allowing you to video chat hands-free too. But we’re not sure how long they’ll be worth it, or even exist, in their current form. Meta’s Portals that we liked are also no longer available. Google recently stopped issuing software updates for some third-party displays (more on that below), and it seems to have shifted focus to its new Pixel Tablet, which is a tablet that moonlights as a smart display (you can also read about it below).
Amazon seems to be continuing with new smart displays, but a recent report claimed the company lost $10 billion last year thanks to failures around the Alexa voice assistant. The company also laid off 18,000 people in 2022 and another 9,000 this year, and the Alexa team was purportedly hit hard.
The future of these smart home devices isn’t clear right now, but if you’re going to get one, we suggest sticking with devices directly from the brand whose voice assistant you prefer. Otherwise, consider one of our favorite tablets instead.
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Photograph: Best Buy
Best Overall
Google Nest Hub Max
The Google Nest Hub Max is a great all-around smart display. It has an unobtrusive design, a 10-inch touchscreen display, some pretty good speakers, and a camera for video calls over Google Duo or non-Google services like Zoom. The camera can also identify individual members of the house and shows personal information only pertaining to each person. Just know you’ll need the right amount of space for it, and while you can turn the camera off, you may want to pick up a privacy cover to block it when it’s not in use.
Google now has a guest mode that allows you to enjoy all the voice assistant’s features without saving anything to your account or showing personalized results—just say, “Hey Google, turn on Guest Mode.” If you use multiple Google speakers, be aware that you’ll no longer be able to adjust the volume for all of them at once, at least for now, thanks to a lawsuit from Sonos.
★ A camera-free alternative: Google’s second-gen Nest Hub ($100) (7/10, WIRED Recommends) is a great option if you don’t need a camera and don’t mind a smaller 7-inch screen. It has a wake-up alarm that emulates the rising sun for gentler mornings, and it has sleep-sensing tech to track your sleep quality, though that only works for the person sleeping closest to the Hub. It also supports gestures—like playing or pausing a video with a hand movement—by using the unique radar tech.
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Photograph: Amazon
If You Prefer Alexa
Amazon Echo Show 8 (2nd Gen)
The second-generation Echo Show 8 is the middle child in the Show family, smaller than the 10 and bigger than the 5, but we think it’s the best choice for most people. Generally, 8 inches is a great size for a smart display. It won’t be hard to read recipes in the kitchen or watch movies on this screen, and it won’t take up the entire counter in small kitchens. It has the same pixel density as the larger Echo Show 10, so it’s a sharp screen.
WIRED reviewer Parker Hall says it’s a solid speaker and does all the expected smart display tasks like controlling smart home products and video chatting (yes, there’s a camera). He particularly loves the timer setting, where you can see it count down. It doesn’t swivel to follow you around the room like the Echo Show 10, but the camera does have auto-pan and zoom features to keep you centered in the frame during video calls (as long as you don’t wander too far out of view). The camera has a shutter for when you aren’t using it.
★ New versions coming: There are two new versions of the Echo Show 8 coming out. The third-gen Show 8 ($150) is due in late October and will have a centered camera, smart home hub, and spatial audio. The Show 8 Photos Edition ($160) will be, you guessed it, focused on photos and acting as a digital photo frame. We’ll update this guide once we’ve tested these.
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Photograph: Google
Best Upgrade
Google Pixel Tablet
You might be wondering—what’s a tablet doing in a smart displays guide? Well, with the help of the included speaker hub, the Google Pixel Tablet (7/10, WIRED Recommends) can double as a smart display when it’s docked. When placed on the hub, it activates Hub Mode, and you can display photos from your Google Photos library or choose a few different snazzy clocks designs. You can easily control smart home devices by tapping on the Google Home icon on the lock screen, which will pull up an overlay of your favorite smart home devices and controls—even check camera feeds on doorbells and Wi-Fi cameras without having to go to the home screen. (This feature is only available while docked so your camera feeds are safe from strangers if you take the tablet out and about with you.) The dock’s built-in speakers have robust sound with surprisingly decent bass too.
The Pixel Tablet obviously costs much more than our other picks in this guide. But you get both a handy smart display and a tablet to binge movies on when someone else in the household is hogging the TV. The multi-user support lets you add up to eight accounts, each of which can have custom apps, layouts, and wallpapers all protected by fingerprint. It’s a tablet for the whole family.
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Photograph: Amazon
Other Good Echo Show Smart Displays
Amazon Echo Show Family
Amazon’s tech is not as good as Google Assistant—although Echo’s recipe feature, which shows step-by-step instructions, rivals the similar feature Google cooked up for its displays. Still, Amazon invented this category, and all the Echo Shows are a promising evolution of the smart-screen concept. If the Echo Show 8 doesn’t seem right for you, there are others you might prefer.
Echo Show 5 (3rd Gen, 2023) for $90: The smaller, and cheaper, third-gen Echo Show 5 has a 5.5-inch screen that works best on a desk or a bedside table. We think it’s a bit too small for the kitchen or living room, but that depends on how you plan to use it.
Echo Show 10 (3rd Gen, 2021) for $250: This smart display is situated on top of a large cylindrical speaker, which makes it sound great. Plus the screen physically swivels to follow you around the room as you use it, keeping you in frame while you video chat, or keeping your streamed workout video in your line of sight as you move about. Because the screen moves around so much, you may have trouble positioning it in tighter spaces—especially in corners.
Echo Show 15 for $280: This is the largest of them all, with a 15.6-inch display with customizable widgets, so you can have smart-home device controls and calendar reminders available at all times. It’s made to be mounted on your wall like a TV (you can get a stand, but it’s sold separately), and the Show 15 also pairs with a Fire TV remote (or you can use the app) to use the streaming features. Voice commands for streaming don’t work well, so it feels like a weird in-between of a smart display and a TV that doesn’t excel in either department.
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Photograph: Sonos
Forget the Screen
Sonos One (Gen 2)
We don’t believe you need a smart display by any stretch. If you don’t feel the need for a screen (we already have enough of those!), a smart speaker offers the power of a voice assistant with often much better sound. We like the Sonos One Gen 2 (8/10, WIRED Recommends) because it will give you the best sound you can get from a compact smart speaker, and it works with either Alexa or Google Assistant. Sonos speakers also connect really easily with each other and can be directly controlled from your Spotify app, or from any app with AirPlay support.
Be sure to read our Best Smart Speakers guide for other recommendations, including first-party options from Google and Amazon.
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Photograph: Lenovo
What About Third-Party Google Displays?
Lenovo and JBL Smart Displays