Amazon
When I got the Echo Show a few months ago, I was prepared to like it, but I wasn't prepared to love it.
My trusty, screen-less Echo Plus does just fine: I like turning the lights on and off from bed, asking for the weather while I choose my outfit, and getting time checks and news podcasts while I get ready. So why would Amazon need to slap a screen on there? The concept seemed excessive.
Still, I ended up moving my Echo Plus into the bedroom, meaning I needed a new voice assistant for the kitchen. I had heard that the Echo Show was great for that purpose, and at $150 it's retailing for the same price as the Echo Plus, so I decided to try it out to see if there was the slightest draw to having an Echo with a screen.
For the first few days, I admittedly mocked it. ("Instead of asking it to tell you what the weather is, you ask it to show you the weather. How superfluous is that?") But as the weeks went by, and I experimented with some of its features, I realized it does fill some holes in my smart home experience.
Here's how the Echo Show helped me organize my home life in ways I wasn't ready for: