A year in, Alexa Plus is the best smart home assistant I’ve tested: It’s easy to talk to, handles routines and multistep commands, and helps in the kitchen. But Amazon’s attempts to stretch it into a personal assistant are underbaked and frustrating, and the ads on the Echo Show smart displays are out of control.

The Amazon Echo Show 8 is arguably the most reliable and convenient smart display available for the Alexa smart home, and it’s on sale at $125 for October Prime Day. This is a $75 discount from its regular price of $200, making this a great deal and the best price we’ve ever seen for this device.

Routines let you tie multiple plugs together with other smart devices and triggers. For example, saying “Alexa, goodnight” simultaneously turns off your lamp, locks a compatible smart door lock, and lowers the temperature setting on your smart thermostat. That way, you only need to say one phrase instead of several.

Amazon Alexa has long been one of the most popular smart home platforms, as it offers a robust suite of hub devices (like the Echo Show 8) and supports hundreds of third-party products. Hubspace, by comparison, is much more niche. The platform was only ...

Amazon Alexa and Google Home are great control centers to navigate your new smart home, but they aren't absolute necessities. Here are other ways to make your home smarter. But the killer feature is the vast ecosystem of compatible devices that easily work ...

A more conversational, capable Alexa is on the way, along with a better smart display interface. A more conversational, capable Alexa is on the way, along with a better smart display interface. Oh, Alexa, how you’ve changed. The long-awaited new Alexa ...

I’ve got Amazon Echo devices in a few of my rooms at home as the gateway to my smart home system. I started with one Echo Dot in the living room, but added a new Dot with a clock to the bedroom and the bathroom. Once I learned what I could do with some ...