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Echo Show 15 vs DAKBoard: Two Ways to Put Your Life on a Wall

2024 · From the Tech with Asher channel · Watch below or read on

I have seen plenty of smart display comparisons, but never this one, and it is the comparison that actually matters if you want your family's life on a wall: the polished all-in-one (Echo Show 15) against the customization king (DAKBoard). Some would say the DAKBoard is not a true smart display at all. That objection is exactly the point.

Two philosophies

The Echo Show 15 is a complete package: a full HD 15 inch screen, speakers, camera, Alexa, and Fire TV in one picture-frame body, with an app-guided setup a non-technical person finishes without help. The DAKBoard is a small CPU (or just a website, you can run it from any computer) that drives whatever display you plug into it: a 27 inch panel, a 2K screen like mine, a 4K set, your 70 inch TV. The hardware is your choice; the layout is entirely yours.

Customization: a landslide

On the DAKBoard, everything bends: any font at any size, multiple calendars side by side (mine and my wife's, both live), weather with precipitation and air quality, backgrounds, indoor temperature from my Nest account with a label I placed myself. On the Echo Show 15 you take Amazon's templates: good widgets, growing gallery, but the fonts and text sizes are fixed, and for a household where someone squints at small print, that ceiling is real.

Ads, the quiet dealbreaker

The Echo Show cycles promotions through its idle screens; it is simply part of the platform. The DAKBoard shows exactly what you configured, 24/7, and never anything else. You pay its subscription partly to not be advertised at in your own kitchen. For some households that alone decides this comparison.

What the Echo Show holds over it

Interaction. Ask Alexa to add milk to the calendar and it happens instantly, on the device, no phone. The DAKBoard has no assistant of its own; you can route voice through an Alexa or Google speaker, but there is a beat of delay, and the board itself never talks back. The Show also self-orients when rotated, has the camera, and needs zero technical confidence to set up, where the DAKBoard rewards a tinkerer (Ethernet port included).

How to choose

Want to look at a wall of perfectly arranged family information, sized for your eyes, ad-free? DAKBoard. Want to talk to the wall, pull up videos, and have it answer? Echo Show 15. In my house the real answer turned out to be both, in different rooms, which might be the most honest review of all.