Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I was so excited to see this product I leapt before I looked. It replaces a Echo Dot we configured for our kids, which is a great product that my daughters love. "Alexa, time for bed" is an integral part of our bedtime routine. With this we were looking for greater interactivity as well as well-controlled video communication with family members and friends using "Drop-In." Had I researched before letting my enthusiasm get the better of me, I would've learned that Drop-In is only available to devices within my household. And given that giving them the opportunity to use drop-in without tying up the Echo Show in the kitchen, limiting this feature to only our household Echos makes this product, in many ways, the exact opposite of what I was hoping to get. I'm not quite sure what Amazon was/is thinking here. It's easy enough to imagine the risks associated with Drop-In on a device designed for kids, but just as easy to conceive of and design the proper mitigation of those risks. Obviously, each potential contact/device would have to be explicitly approved by the parent (that's kind of how drop-in works for everyone, anyway). The available hours and maximum duration of calls could be controlled through the Amazon Kids dashboard. I would think Amazon could've also enable controls ensure only outbound drop-ins to authorized contacts are possible. And given the maturity of the platform, I wouldn't have been surprised to find a feature that allows parents to be notified when a drop-in was being initiated from the kids' Echo Show, maybe even with an option for the parent to listen to and/or view the drop-in themselves. The fact of the matter is I bought this thinking my kids could drop-in on their grandparents, cousins, best friends, etc., from the comfort and convenience of their own rooms, rather than having to drag chairs around the kitchen to stand up high enough to see our main Echo Show. Unfortunately, Amazon released another quirky, half-baked product that I may or may not keep.