Amazon Echo Show 8

Hardware Home Automation
1

Hi all,

Does anyone have a Echo Show 8? If so has anyone tried the web browser hack and got habpanel or at least the basic ui visible on it?

Thinking of getting one on the current Black Friday deal and if I could get OH on it, it would really solve a massive issue of getting some kind of family OH control on a screen…

2

Update…

Got the show 8, you can view paper and basic UI on both firefox and silk browsers, ‘alexa open firefox / silk’

However, only silk shows habpanel properly. Firefox shows an empty habpanel but doesn’t let you choose your layout, where as Silk seems fine…

More testing over the Christmas period when I’ve got a little more time.

1 Like
3

Hi there,
Have you had any more luck with Show 8. I’m tempting to get one this week, just would like to know if is gonna be worth for Openhab setup.

4

Hi,

Yes, you can show a habpanel on the silk browser just fine. It does require you to have to open it each time - not found a way to get Alexa to default to it when you touch the screen to wake it - but ‘Alexa open silk’ and I’ve set it as the home page so it’s right there.

5

TLDR;
No, the echo show is not useful for anything.

Long:
No, don’t use the Echo Show 8! Tried to get one to work but it is just not configurable.
You can open a browser if you say “Alexa, open silk” or firefox and then surf to your hab panel. But it quits 5 minutes later.

Everything else failed, i.e. :

  • installing any other browser like fully browser
  • disabling the screen saver or getting any control over it
  • adding a browser shortcut to the main screen
  • using the build-in USB port
  • enabling full screen mode on any browser
  • starting the browser silently without talking to it (at night ?)

I got mine for 60 Euros on prime day but although the price is ok for the hardware it is NOT useful for smart home applications. The pre-installed firmware is just dumb. Try the fire tablet, that one can be rooted afaik.

6

Maybe this is interesting for all readers here.
I use a new Alexa Skill to open silk browser with HABPanel page. There skill can open the browser with a defined web page.
In combination with an Alexa rule, triggered indirect with an OpenHAB switch item, It should be possible to show HABPanel always on an Echo Show.