Amazon will shut down its PhotosPlus service on September 23. As a result, the Echo Show 8 Photos Edition — a $160 smart display that can scroll through customer-selected photos without ads — will soon include ads.
All Echo Show devices can enter a photo slideshow mode. The problem, of course, is Amazon’s obsession with ads. If you enter photo frame mode without a PhotosPlus subscription, you’ll be thrown back to Amazon’s standard, ad-filled home screen after just three hours.
The Echo Show 8 Photos Edition and its accompanying PhotosPlus subscription are designed to appeal to customers who love photos and hate ads. If you pay extra for the Photos Edition hardware, you get a six-month subscription to PhotosPlus, which lets you play an ad-free slideshow based on your Amazon Photos collection 24/7.
These photo-centric products naturally drew criticism, particularly from Google Nest Hub owners who enjoy a relatively seamless photo experience. However, some customers were happy to pay extra for PhotosPlus. And to be fair, the 25GB of photo storage that comes with PhotosPlus could well justify the $2 monthly subscription fee.
Now Amazon is killing PhotosPlus. Anyone who bought an Echo Show 8 Photos Edition is effectively stuck with a standard Echo Show 8. If they want to continue using their smart display as a digital photo frame, they’ll have to put up with Amazon’s advertising. There’s just one concession: PhotosPlus subscribers can keep their 25GB of Amazon Photos storage at no additional cost.
Echo Show 8 Photos Edition customers may not have purchased an Echo Show if it weren’t for the extensive PhotoPlus subscription. However, Amazon doesn’t seem to be offering refunds after PhotosPlus ends.
You can enable the three-hour slideshow mode on any Echo Show display by going to Settings and navigating to “Clock & Photo Display.” The slideshow can also be activated by asking Alexa to “start photo frame.” Echo Show 8 Photos Edition owners willing to experiment with Amazon’s advertising should go into their “Home Content” settings and turn off anything that sounds like an ad. Setting your language to “English (Canada)” or “English (UK)” will also help you limit the amount of ads.
Source: Amazon via The Verge
