Einleitung

Amazon Echo Show Teardown!

Is there an echo in here? Seems like Alexa's talking to us from a lot of devices now. The new Echo Show adds a screen to bring even more Alexa, and now she watches you while she listens. Creepy? Maybe. A little endearing? Okay yeah, a little. Hey Alexa, let's Drop In on another teardown!

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  1. bwfOwE1wXCAMLVon
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    • Let's see if Amazon's newest Echo can Show us somethin' good. Here are the tech specs:

    • 7-inch touchscreen display with 1024 × 600 resolution

    • Dual 2-inch stereo speakers

    • Intel Atom x5-Z8350 (2M cache, up to 1.92 GHz) processor

    • 5 MP front-facing camera

    • 8-microphone array

  2. The star of the Show is its 7-inch, 1024 × 600 touchscreen display.
    • The star of the Show is its 7-inch, 1024 × 600 touchscreen display.

    • That 170 PPI pixel density seems a little low by today's standards, but it's not so bad considering Amazon expects you to use this device from half a room away.

    • Or maybe they just needed to get rid of some Fire Tablet displays...

    • The back and top of the Show share some similarities with the old Echo devices: physical volume and microphone/camera on/off buttons.

    • In a wild departure from the cylindrical Echo shapes of yore, the Show looks closer to something out of Star Trek.

    • And a little like the Chumby. You all remember the Chumby, right?

    Lets say true, Chumbi is predecessor of Sony HIDC10 Dash Personal Internet Viewer (and old model HIDB7 without backup battery, oldest Wi-Fi connectivity, slowest CPU, buggy firmware).

    The big advantage of Sony Dash vas Dash app Store (like Apple App Store, closed in Jun 2017, new registration not able from 2014.), where You may find weather apps, and apps for YouTube, ESPN, Pandora, Slacker, online music radio, and other well-known news web resources, Google Gmail, etc. Not bad for 2000 yeah?

    But the are also a lot of problems: buggy software (even a new version), hardware overheating and device freezing problem, troubles with app installing due bad server-side software response, too much losing Wi-Fi connectivity, and overall device quality was vary from good to buggy.

    The Dash sound was 50/50 because device positioning like "personal alarm clock" extendable by third-party apps. The screen has lack of sensitivity. And software response time was really awful, especially if compare to Your first iPhone.

    Sergei_Shablovsky -

    I miss my Chumby, Sony Dash, and Insignia devices. I gave away my two powerful Sony Dash devices because Sony designed them with an encrypted bootloader that made these otherwise excellent devices refuse to update. This meant that the Sony Dash could not connect to the new Chumby infrastructure that was set up after the old Chumby shut down.

    I tried to revive my many Chumbys, Sony Dashes, and Insignias using USB thumb drives. These thumb drives would corrupt themselves within 60 days every time. It was so annoying. I tried USB SDCard adapters which worked much better, but that ship had already sailed.

    Despite my enthusiasm for Chumby, I ended up buying a few Echo Show and repurposing old Barnes and Noble Nook devices.

    Kriston -

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    • After bringing the Show around town, we look right through it to find—big ol' speakers and a circuit board.

    • But no hints for opening, unfortunately ...

    • The rubber foot holds FCC info, and seems like a likely point of entry.

    • It also bears the model number MW46WB.

    No hints? It shows you that it's fastened together with screws, and shows where all the screws are. You just needed to figure out how to access them all.

    CityZ -

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    • So, like most Echo devices, we start from the bottom. After peeling up the taped-in rubber foot, we spy a handful of T5 Torx screws...

    • But with all screws dispatched, there are no seams—we seem to be ... screwed ... for now.

    • We immediately hunt for new ingress points.

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    • Lacking any action on the foot, we start to pry around the display.

    • And then we keep prying.

    • ... and prying ...

    • It turns out the multitude of screws at the bottom was a red green herring—the speaker grille is the real ingress point.

    • Tucked under the grille, we find some sound-dampening fabric (just like the stuff rolled around the original Echo) and some more screws.

    • But still no dice removing that front panel—time to get to work on what looks like the digitizer. iOpener, engage!

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    • We lift the digitizer to reveal ... more screws under the bezel! Unsurprisingly, the digitizer cable disappears into the frame, holding the digitizer captive for now.

    • Fortunately we can free the front frame, under which Amazon hid some hefty speakers.

    • Our hard work and early screw removal pay off! Finally, we get to see what this Echo has to Show for itself.

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    • Alexa's new form is powerful. How powerful? Well, the wall adapter outputs 15.0 VDC at 1.4 A, meaning there is 21 W driving Alexa ...

    • Someone needs to pull Alexa back down to earth, and luckily we spot a burly braided cable grounding the Show.

    • 1.4 A is not a small amount of current, and a braided ground cable is a flexible solution to get Alexa's feet back on ground. It also has a large surface area, which can pick up and ground stray EMI.

    • That juice is going somewhere, and it looks like those upgraded speakers are thirsty.

    • And check out those magnets.

    That braided cable looks like a grounding strap from a bug.

    George A. -

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    • Out comes the main board, hiding its chips under an inscrutable jigsaw puzzle of EMI shields. After we pop the lids, it's time for Show and tell:

    • Intel SR2KT Atom x5-Z8350 Processor (2M Cache, up to 1.92 GHz)

    • SK Hynix H9CCNNNBKTMLBR-NTD 2 GB RAM

    • Sandisk SDIN9DS2-8G 8 GB NAND embedded flash drive

    • Cypress Semiconductor (formerly Broadcom) BCM43570KFFBG 5G Wi-Fi IEEE 802.11ac 2×2 MAC/baseband/radio with integrated Bluetooth 4.1 and EDR

    • Winbond W25Q16FW 1.8V 16 Mb serial flash memory

    • Goodix GT9271 10-point capacitive touch controller

    • Texas Instruments SND9039A2 power management, Monolithic Power Systems MP8762 10 A step-down converter, and Novatek NT50167 display power management

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    • Next we get to pop out the power supply board. We deal with so many mobile devices, it's almost novel to see this tiny li'l guy.

    • Looks like a party with some cans and some chips:

    • Texas Instruments TPA3118 30-W stereo (BTL) class-D audio amplifier

    • Wolfson WM8904G ultra-low-power codec for portable audio applications

    • Rohm BU4831F 3.1 V voltage detector

    • Rohm BU4813F 1.3 V voltage detector

    • There's also an array of contacts (accessible via the Show's rubber foot), likely for testing purposes.

    Did you find a part number for the complete board? The power jack on mine is broken, center (POS) pin broke off!!
    I figure I'll have to hardwire the power plug on directly. Hope it goes back together well, assuming nothing breaks in the teardown.

    Cory Callender -

    I also spy an RFID tag! Probably for discrete hardware identification from the outside..

    Catherine Tran -

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    • We pull the final board from the top of the Show, and find the expected hardware—buttons, lots of microphones, and some ADCs to funnel your voice from the microphones to the CPU:

    • Texas Instruments TLV320ADC3101 92 dB SNR Low-Power Stereo ADC (x4) as seen in the Echo and Echo Dot

    • Knowles MEMS Microphone (x8)

    • Switch (x3)

    • Fun fact: all that foam tape minimizes vibration noise so that Alexa still has a chance of hearing you during loud music sessions.

    Are these ST Micro or Knowles mics?

    ajdixon91 -

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    • Turning our attention to the "show" part of the Show, we easily pluck the 5-megapixel spy camera from the display assembly (after bending a bracket out of the way).

    • The display itself is another matter. It's guarded by some impossibly tough foam tape that basically requires you to break the display rather than lift it out. So first we did the former, then the latter.

    • The panel is model TV070WSM-NMO, manufactured by BOE.

    • We half expected this display to be borrowed straight from the similarly-specced Kindle Fire, but it's not one we've seen before.

    • A Richtek LED backlight driver sits on the flex cable.

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    • The Show is now an empty, echoing cave, its components laid bare. We're free!

    • tl;dr: Amazon wants as much data as they can possibly mine. Their solution is to make cheap products that are too convenient not to use, then start soaking up those keywords. Enjoy the convenience, but remember that you're the product. Oh, and don't bump this off the kitchen counter or it's curtains on this Show.

    • Once again, thanks to our superpowered friends at Creative Electron for helping us see the unseen!

  13. uDjUYgXjFPNWAVTW
    • Amazon Echo Show Repairability Score: 4 out of 10 (10 is easiest to repair)

    • The Echo Show only uses standard T5 and T6 Torx screws.

    • While they may not get much wear, the most wear-prone components (buttons and power jack) are soldered to boards, complicating replacement.

    • The digitizer is not fused to the display, but must be pried up from tough adhesive to do any repair.

    • The display is adhered very tightly in the midframe, and is difficult to remove without damage.

    • Any repair is going to require cutting through and replacing lots of tough adhesive.

Adam O'Camb

Mitglied seit: 11/04/15

178849 Reputation

17 Kommentare

Just a tablet without a battery and oversized speakers. Rather overpriced.

George A. -

There seems to be minimal to no heatsinking for the processor, compared to other devices with a similar chip.

Larry Chen -

This is because Intel Atom series processors are meant for budget, ultra-low power setups. In small netbooks where heat matters over performance, such as the Echo Show, cheap processors that cannot do absolutely anything else are ideal.

Ethan Zuo -

i agree, on the surface the Show is overpriced but you aren't just paying for the hardware. You have to employ the people creating the infrastructure behind it. i purchased a Show for my elderly parents. my mom gets frustrated with computers including her tablet. She ends up pressing the wrong button or something. so having an interface and the supporting infrastructure that amazon is assembling makes a big difference.

tobymacbailey -

Would like to know how/where one might add a mini plug to out the audio to a larger external system, like the Dot does.

Mick Snyder -

Did you ever find an answer to this?!

pdholmer -

The intention appears to be that you wouldn’t want to use anything but the internal speakers. They are excellent, by the way. There are Echo devices designed with external speakers in mind (the Dots) and there is now the Echo Input which requires an external audio system.

Kriston -

Could you tape into the video feed to the monitor? Wire in your own HDMI out maybe?

Vince Coe -

Maybe, but I don’t know if the OS will show on the full display, because the OS might size things on the screen by pixels instead of percent. I don’t own one of these, but it’s just an alexa with a screen, I think.

[deleted] -

The sound this thing puts out is nothing short of amazing. The CPU is way overpowered, costly, and energy hungry and there is far more memory than any of the onboard apps could use. No wonder the next generation moved to AArch64.

Kriston -

Can the speaker grille be removed and put back easily? Mine has playdough in it - thanks to my three year old :(

Grayson Williams -

I have the popping problem that a lot folks have complained about when the unit gets hot. I’m willing to try to drill holes on both side on top and bottom to create air flow to reduce the heat and possibly stop the popping. Any one have any thoughts?

Joseph Luciani -

Anyone figure out how to completely reset the device if it’s frozen at the startup screen?

ark frid -

I decided to drill 1/8 inch holes in the back rather than the side. It improved the time for the popping to occur from about 20 minutes to an hour. I put 22 holes on top and another 22 on the lower part of the back. It did effect the sound quality some but it’s better than listening to the popping . I intend to drill more holes, not sure where right now. Will drill one larger hole and look inside to determine where.

Has anyone else tried drilling holes?

Joe Luciani

Joseph Luciani -

What is the model of the video display used, and what is the video interface of that display? I would also like to drive the display independently from the rest of the hardware, but finding information about the video interface is proving difficult.

Jonathan Yankovich -

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Mohammad Faizan -

Interesting that it uses an x86 SoC over ARM.

CrazyblocksTechnologies -