Amazon Fire TV Cube review: a smarter streaming box

For the past couple many years, Amazon has had two of the most preferred living space goods: the Echo clever speaker and the Fireplace Tv set media streamer. It is been an open key that finally the business would merge them, and now it has, in the type of the new Fire Television Dice. It blends Amazon’s Echo intelligent speaker skills and Alexa voice assistant with a media streaming box able of managing your residing room’s entire amusement stack.

The $119.99 Fireplace Television set Cube is ideal considered of as the offspring of an Echo and a Fireplace Tv set 4K. It has all of the very same information possibilities as a Hearth Tv set 4K — Netflix, Hulu, PS Vue, Amazon Prime Online video, and so on — but it provides the Echo’s extensive much-field voice manage abilities to your Television. The Fire Tv Dice lets you bark commands from throughout the room to look for for motion pictures or Tv set displays, start movie streaming applications, and play, pause, and management volume with your voice.

But you can currently do most of that with a Fireplace Tv 4K and a paired Amazon Echo. What the Fireplace Television set dice adds to the combine is its potential to manage other equipment you have plugged into your Television set, these as a soundbar, cable box, or Blu-ray participant with your voice. If it all operates, the Fireplace Television dice need to permit you control your overall leisure stack without the need of at any time having to choose up a remote.

At least, which is how it is advertised on the box. And in my experience of tests the Hearth Television set Cube more than the previous couple of times, its Alexa-dependent voice handle program is effective a lot more generally than it does not. But I’m not throwing my remote controls in the garbage just yet.

8
Verge Score

Fantastic Things

• Adds Alexa to your dwelling place enjoyment system
• Controls more than just your Television set
• Supports 4K HDR content
• Picks up voice commands even when online video or new music is actively playing

Poor Stuff

• Stumbles when managing particular products and established-top rated bins
• Integrated distant is also straightforward
• Doesn’t occur with required HDMI cable
• However does not give any Dolby Atmos written content or a YouTube app

Searching at the Fire Television set Cube, it’s apparent Amazon didn’t have to get to for the name: it’s a roughly 3.5-inch black plastic cube with an LED light on the front and ports for an HDMI cable (not incorporated, shame on you Amazon), energy, IR extender, and wired networking (through an incorporated Ethernet adapter), on the back. On leading is an array of 8 much-industry microphones and at the base of the product is a downward-firing speaker for hearing Alexa communicate.

The speaker is not as strong as a conventional Echo, but it’s not created for participating in audio — the Cube will route any tunes requests to your TV’s speakers or your soundbar. Most of the time, Alexa’s responses will also route through the TV’s speakers, but it will use the Cube’s speaker if the Television set is off or set to yet another enter. For these uses, the Cube speaker is perfectly ample and easy to listen to even throughout the home. Alexa is intelligent enough to mute audio on other gadgets when it hears the wake phrase, so you can still hear responses even when seeing a Blu-ray movie.

In the same way, the eight much-industry microphones are adept at buying up voice commands even from 15 or 20 feet absent, and when tunes or online video is actively playing on the Tv set. There have been a handful of situations the place I had to repeat a command (as anyone that owns an Echo is intimately common with), but for the most section, I could casually check with Alexa to do points and the Cube would comply.

Individuals points consist of many of the steps Alexa can perform on other products. You can question Alexa for a climate report, spots close by, or calendar information and facts, or use it to manage smart residence gadgets like lightbulbs or thermostats. The Cube treats your Television like the created-in display screen on Echo Demonstrate or Echo Location units, so you can pull up a video clip feed from supported property protection cameras, and sure responses, like temperature or nearby lookups, are accompanied by visible shows on the Television set with more data. Tunes played from Amazon’s Key Music provider will be accompanied by lyrics exhibited on your Tv display, turning the complete matter into an impromptu karaoke social gathering. Alexa’s familiar news summary purpose even integrates online video articles from providers such as CNN, Reuters, and other people, just like it does on the Echo Show and Echo Place. When you’re finished observing Alexa’s responses, the Dice delivers you back again to the Fire TV’s familiar residence display screen. Astonishingly, this all works relatively seamlessly — it doesn’t truly feel like two distinctive interface tips were just mashed alongside one another, even even though which is mainly what it is.

The Fire Television set Cube provides to Alexa’s repertoire by enabling specific content lookups, these kinds of as “comedies” or “action movies”. Inquire Alexa to “show motion motion pictures starring Tom Cruise” and you will get a grid of options that can be picked with your voice to observe, rent, or purchase, depending on which support the picked motion picture is accessible. (Amazon tells me that the program will usually default to the “free” option, so if a motion picture is available on Netflix or Amazon Primary Movie, Alexa will enjoy that model, which was borne out in my assessments.) You can even scroll by the lookup effects with your voice by asking Alexa to “show much more.”

Voice instructions are readily available in numerous applications, these kinds of as Hulu, PS Vue, or Netflix

Amazon has labored with various about-the-leading services to integrate voice commands into the applications on their own. If you’re looking at something on Hulu, PS Vue, Netflix, and other people, you can use Alexa to pause, rapid-ahead, perform a specific exhibit, and so on. You can tune to distinct channels in just companies that have dwell Television information utilizing Alexa, as well.

In terms of information options, the Hearth Tv Cube is particularly the same as the Fire Television 4K, which means it has access to most OTT providers, but still lacks a YouTube application. (You can obtain YouTube through the Firefox or Silk browser on the Cube, but it doesn’t supply any voice look for features.) The Cube also doesn’t have any information that supports Dolby Atmos audio offered, despite the fact that Amazon advertises its Atmos abilities.

But the most impressive section of the Cube is its ability to management other devices with Alexa, this kind of as your cable box or Blu-ray player. It does this in a equivalent way to Logitech’s Harmony common remote method, by infrared blasters on all four sides of the Dice that shoot out invisible commands to mimic the habits of a handheld remote. (Ironically, Amazon claims that Harmony controllers are not suitable with the Dice.) So when you say “Alexa, flip on ESPN”, the Dice operates by means of a sequence of steps: it turns on the Tv set, improvements to the input for to your cable box, and then blasts the IR codes for ESPN’s channel selection — it’s in essence punching in the range and hitting enter. Just after a few seconds, the Tv is participating in ESPN from your cable services, and you didn’t have to contact a distant.

Managing other units related to your Television is the most amazing detail Alexa can do

Alexa can then be applied to change channels, by either asking it to tune to a certain number or channel identify, mute the audio, or alter the quantity. But Alexa’s capabilities are confined here: I was not able to pause or quick-forward a film on my Sony Blu-ray participant or a present on my cable box, for example.

When all the things works as it should really, it feels like a sci-fi film, asking a computer to conduct steps directly devoid of acquiring to use a distant, keyboard, mouse, or even a touchscreen. I can wander into my residing space and request Alexa to change on whichever it is I particularly want to view or listen to, then talk to Alexa to flip it all off when I’m performed. It is the very same variety of working experience that people have been having with voice-managed clever gadgets due to the fact Alexa debuted a number of yrs back, but now prolonged to your Television and entertainment stack.

But mainly because of the inherent limitations of the systems Amazon is pressured to use (HDMI CEC on your Television, IR blasters for everything else) to make all of these disparate units and products and services enjoy nice with each and every other, there are stumbles now and then that tarnish the working experience. For instance, my Verizon FiOS cable box will go into a minimal-electric power manner if it is not remaining utilized for a particular sum of time, and it won’t tune to a particular channel till I decide up its distant and push the menu button to wake it up. This triggers Alexa’s “watch a channel” command to fall short except if I intervene and wake the FiOS box up from the distant 1st. In addition, whilst Amazon claims the Dice can control “more than 90 percent” of the cable and satellite established-leading containers in use, it can’t regulate the built-in tuners on TVs. That signifies if you’re a cord-cutter with an antenna, Alexa cannot tune your Tv set to a certain channel.

IR blasters are a legendarily dumb know-how with a host of troubles — instructions can get interrupted by sunlight shining in from a window, instructions often misfire, and the IR blasters on the Cube want to have some form of line of sight to the equipment you want to manage. If your cable box and Blu-ray participant are in a shut cupboard, you’ll have to use the integrated IR extender for the Cube’s commands to be noticed. The Dice itself demands to be put on an open shelf so it can hear voice commands and command the Tv and soundbar.

The Cube’s a variety of restrictions signify you nevertheless have to use remote controls, and use them generally

All of individuals restrictions indicate you have to nonetheless use remote controls, and use them generally. Quantity controls via Alexa aren’t especially granular and can be laborous to use, so I frequently picked up my soundbar’s distant to wonderful tune. To in fact perform a film on my Blu-ray player, I experienced to use its remote to navigate via the menus and commence the motion picture.

Amazon does incorporate a remote with the Cube. Regretably, it’s the specific exact same distant you get with a Hearth Television set 4K or Hearth Tv Adhere: a uncomplicated 8-button and directional pad affair that allows you go around the Hearth Television interface and decide on factors, or converse commands straight into the distant in its place of relying on the Cube’s considerably-field mics. But the distant does not have buttons to regulate quantity, mute, or power on the Television set, which looks like a gross oversight by Amazon and forces you to preserve numerous other fobs available to accomplish these actions without working with your voice.

The inclusion of a distant is also an admission by Amazon that voice commands are not often the most handy or intuitive way to handle a thing. Lots of times it is just more quickly to grab the distant and skip a track, select an merchandise, or pause a online video than wait for an Alexa voice command to be listened to and processed. It’s also considerably less difficult for readers or those not very well-versed in Alexa’s voice command library to just decide up a remote and select what they want — fobs have been all-around for a long time and are a acquainted thing, just after all.

That explained, it’s outstanding what Amazon has been equipped to carry out below, even with the limitations I outlined above. My Tv set, soundbar, cable box, and Blu-ray player are all designed by various businesses and have their individual thoughts and interfaces for how to use them. But the Fireplace Tv set Cube can act as a go-involving to increase voice management to all the things, and it manages the different input switching hops and interface disparities shockingly very well. It is not way too distinctive from what the startup Caavo tries to do, but for a much reduced cost.

The Fireplace Tv Cube can do extra with hands-absolutely free voice instructions than both Apple or Google’s options

Combining the smart speaker with a established-top rated box is a reasonable evolution of the two solutions for living home enjoyment, and it’s not too much off from what Apple and Google presently do with their voice-controlled assistants on the Apple Tv set and Android Tv. Amazon takes it a little bit even further by introducing palms-no cost voice controls and extending Alexa exterior of the box it is contained in, which is both equally intelligent and helpful, since cable packing containers and Blu-ray players are not likely to disappear at any time before long. The Fireplace Tv Dice can do far more with arms-no cost voice instructions than possibly of Google or Apple’s choices.

If you have a Fireplace Television and an Echo in your dwelling home by now, the price of the Hearth Television set Cube isn’t so significant that swapping them out for a blended device that works better for enjoyment wants is prohibitive. And if you still have not acquired into any media box (and you never have unique, large-end video and audio demands or rely seriously on YouTube’s companies), the Fireplace Television Cube is an easy-to-use product that offers most all of the material you could want (other than YouTube), whilst supplying you accessibility to Alexa and all of its useful capabilities.

But when I’m a enthusiast of Alexa and the Fire Tv set, and the Cube brings together both of those of all those points effectively, the pile of my remotes in my dwelling area is not going any where.

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