Amazon - Echo Show 5 Kids (3rd Generation) 5.5 inch Smart Display with Alexa - Galaxy

This echo show was a piece of junk. It kept malfunctioning.

The Amazon Kids Echo 5 is just like the regular Echo 5 but has customized settings for kids. It comes with a 1-year Amazon Kids+ subscription for free. After the year is up, the cost is $4.99 monthly for Prime members or $7.99 for everyone else. We had this subscription before. It came free with another device. At that time, our kids were 8 and 12. We thought it was something we could use as it had parent controls and content for their age group. The content was okay at first, but the kids just hop on YouTube for their content, both educational and entertainment. They do love being able to get the weather before going to school and setting their alarms. They sometimes ask questions, and they mostly get the information they are looking for. One thing we did not like is that we had to keep switching profiles between our kids. The device cannot just handle more than one at the same time. What is annoying is the speed of the transition. It is not slow, but it does not feel seamless either. Set up easy just like any other Echo device. There are additional voices options to select from. The device itself is cool looking. I wish it did not come with a power brick but just a “normal” plug. It takes up a lot of space if you are using a power strip. You may lose an extra socket as it covers it up. This is the only complaint we have. Hopefully in the future it can use smaller plugs.

The Amazon Echo Show 5 is designed for kids and is another solid entry into the Amazon smart video speaker family, with the usual drawbacks. The design itself is cool, with a space theme and variety of colors that should offer universal appeal and fit with decor in most kids' rooms. The box comes with the 'instructions' pamphlet, the speaker and a plug. As any "Amazon Parent" already knows, most of the set up and permissions for kids are actually done through Amazon. It's easy enough, though the password for parental permissions gets ridiculously tricky (I've had devices lock before due to not remembering the password and having a really hard time trying to reset it). The screen is bright and clear, though it's on the small side so it can be hard to see from farther away. The games designed for kids by Amazon are pretty fun, though can be a little repetitive (which kids don't seem to mind, but can drive parents a little crazy haha). There are cool learning games available and my daughter has had a fun time interacting with many of them. The usual caveats with Amazon's 'smart' video speakers continue to be a slight issue with this device, unfortunately. The screen isn't always responsive to touch, and can be very frustrating when trying to navigate, especially for a child with very little patience. My daughter also has a slight lisp so the speaker doesn't always understand her--and at times it doesn't understand me, either. I will say it has understood some complicated things with no issues, then gets confused on things that seem easy. These issues don't come up that often, though, so a little patience goes a long way. Amazon's web search for answers to questions is hit-or-miss, but that's always been true. The sound is good, though not quite as good as the dedicated speakers Amazon makes (which is to be expected). Video playback is typically excellent from what I've seen so far, but of course there are a lot of outside factors that affect this so your mileage may vary. It's a very effective alarm clock and timer, and comes in handy for homework, too! Overall my daughter is very excited about using it and can sometimes get very wrapped up in games or just listening to music. For kids it's excellent, and offers a wide variety of parental controls through Amazon that should keep you feeling secure that your child is safe while using it.

This is the 2nd smart display I have experience with, but the first made by Amazon. It is made specifically for children so I turned this into some father/son bonding time as we set it up together and figured out how to best operate it. Here were my thoughts after spending a few days helping and observing my son use the device. Pros: - There are some nice and unique features on the Echo Show 5 Kids. First, during set-up, it allowed us to choose the voice that my son would interact with. So instead of the default Alexa voice, he gets to speak with an AI dragon (that sounds like a kid his age). It's almost like having an imaginary friend come to life. - The variety of clock themes was nice. My son chose a green one with foliage (pictured) that was his favorite. You can see the current weather and date as well. He doesn't have a great concept of weather and time/date tracking so this is going to help him learn more about that. - The video calling feature is awesome. The audio and video quality is excellent. My son can call me from this clock (not needing a phone or tablet) no matter where I am. I can be home or out shopping and through the Alexa app, he'll ring through to me. He's too young to have his own phone, so it's nice that he has a way to call his parents if needed. - The camera/mic has a nice shutter feature to turn them off for privacy purposes. - The Amazon Kids apps were mostly useful. They can read bedtime stories, play music, and engage your kids with interactive learning experiences. The music choices were solid, with the Trolls soundtrack being a big hit with my son. All of these features come free for one year with the purchase of this device. Cons: - Touch screen controls seemed to be wonky at times. When trying to run Amazon kids apps, touching the icons sometimes would not work but I could get them to start with voice commands. Hopefully a future software update will fix this. - Some of the Amazon Kids apps aren't well suited for a clock with a small screen. Watching an episode of "Bubble Guppies" just isn't an ideal thing to do on a clock. This was one of my favorite Amazon products that I've used in a long time. You can tell they put a lot of effort into making it a kid friendly smart device and I'm sure my son will enjoy it for years to come!

My little one always loved talking to Alexa so decided to try out this Echo for kids. I was very impressed with the ease of setup and packaging. The plug fits snugly and "snaps" inside the Echo which gives it a good snug connection especially if the cord is pulled on for whatever reason. "Never know with Kids" My issue is the cord is so short. I really wished they had a longer cord so I can place the echo in a better place. Upon start up, it was easy to connect to the wifi and log into my amazon account. It requires you to accept the "Amazon Kids+" subscription before continuing as there is no way to back out of it. I understand its a year free subscription however I do wish there was a back-out option to be there. I love the manual shutter close of the camera, I keep that closed at all times and disabled that within the settings. I do wish there was a way to snap or lock the shutter so the kid cant open it or mess with it. However as long as its disabled I guess that is ok. The responsiveness of voice commands is great and pulls up all the available kids apps. I enjoyed each of the kids apps, "Stories", "Skills" , "Videos" and "Music". The screen display is small however displays at high quality which was great at watching videos. The only surprising issue was how slow the responsiveness was when navigating through touchscreen to the different apps. As mentioned before, if you ask Alexa to do it, it loads fast and easy. However if your kid tries to use the touch menu to navigate and launch an app its painfully slow. Half the time my kid gave up on trying to get to where they wanted lol. I checked settings, verified latest software update was there and restarted. Nothing works at the moment, so hopefully the OS touchscreen can be improved over time. The best part about the Echo is the sound system and Alexa mic picking us up no mater the volume of our voices. My little ones voice is picked up easily along with mine anywhere in the room. As for the sound system, that in my opinion is the best part! Sing-a-longs are a blast, the music sounds great, nice deep bass and high trebles. Plus there is an EQ to customize the sound levels. Speaking of the settings, there are a ton of customization that you can set on the device. I strongly recommend going through all the settings, especially the "Privacy" Settings. During setup you are limited what you can sign out of. So its especially important to go in there and realize what you just signed up / agreed to. I would say its sneaky however almost every company does that now unfortunately. Overall this is a great little product that can withstand littles ones manhandling, has great sounds and great kids apps. Hopefully they can improve the touch response through software to bump this up to 5 stars.