You can now wave at an Echo Show to get it to shut up

Amazon’s Echo Show smart displays are finally getting a feature that Google’s Nest Hubs have had for several years — gesture controls. Starting today, December 13th, you can now stop a timer by holding up your hand with your palm facing the camera on an Echo Show 8 (second gen) or Echo Show 10 (third gen).

It’s a small addition, useful if you don’t want to shout or your hands are covered in food so you don't want to tap the screen to stop the timer.

Hopefully, it’s a precursor to some more gesture controls, such as to play or pause a song or video or to snooze an alarm. All of those gestures are available on the Nest Hub Max and second-gen Nest Hub. The latter doesn’t even use a camera, relying instead on its Soli radar sensor to “see”...

Continue reading…