Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Audio / Video
  3. News

Amazon’s Fire TV Cube gets even more hands-off with enhanced voice control

By
Amazon Fire TV Cube
Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

If there’s one thing voice-powered artificial assistants like Amazon Alexa have proved, it’s that everything is better when you can control it using just your voice. That’s why using an old-fashioned method of navigation like a plain old remote control to navigate through Netflix feels like you might as well be living in a cave. Thankfully, if you’re an Amazon Fire TV Cube owner, you don’t have to as the device now supports voice navigation in third-party apps.

This functionality has actually been in the wild for a while, as it was first spotted by AFTVnews last week. In the meantime, the functionality has slowly been rolling out to Fire TV Cube devices everywhere. The new commands essentially replicated the buttons on your remote control, letting you navigate through complex menus by using phrases like “Alexa, go up” or “Alexa, move left” to move, and then “Alexa, select this” or simply “Alexa, select” to press a virtual Select button.

Recommended Videos

As you might imagine, this can be somewhat cumbersome if you’re trying to move any sort of distance. To help solve this problem, the “scroll” command lets you move several menu items at a time, so you don’t need to repeat “Alexa, go left” over and over. Despite how it sounds, this can actually be faster than using the remote, so it’s not simply something to help you out in a pinch if you don’t feel like pressing buttons on a remote.

Related

There are a total of 17 apps supported, including mainstays like Netflix and Hulu, with the rest of the list filled out by ABC, Boomerang, Cartoon Network, The CW, CW Seed, DramaFever, ESPN, FilmStruck, Fox Now, FXNow, Hallmark Movies Now, HBO Go, HBO Now, Red Bull TV, and Tubi TV. This appears to be just the beginning as Amazon says it will add support for even more third-party apps and services in the future. Unfortunately, how this functionality is handled differs slightly from app to app, so you may find the behavior to be unpredictable in some apps.

Since this has been rolling out for some time, your Fire TV Cube should already have the functionality.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Kris Wouk
Kris Wouk
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Kris Wouk is a tech writer, gadget reviewer, blogger, and whatever it's called when someone makes videos for the web. In his…
Amazon celebrates 200 million Fire TV devices by launching more
Amazon Fire TV Omni QLED Series TV.

Amazon today announced that it's bolstering the high end of its Fire TV Omni Series line of televisions with new sizes and entry into new international markets, while also bringing new sets to the more affordable side of the equation. And the news comes as the company also announced that it's sold more than 200 million Fire TV devices worldwide. For context, that number was around 150 million in January 2022.

First up: The — heretofore available in 65- and 75-inch sizes — gains options at 43, 50 and 55 inches. They're up for preorder at Amazon starting today (at $449, $529, and $599, respectively), and will be available at Best Buy on May 11. These are fundamentally the same as what we reviewed previously, Amazon says, only with fewer local dimming zones because of the smaller size.

Read more
Amazon Fire TVs can stream directly to hearing implants
A man with a cochlear hearing implant listens to TV audio.

A select number of Amazon Fire TV devices now support audio streaming to hearing implants, thanks to a partnership between Amazon and Cochlear, the world's largest provider of hearing implants. It lets hearing implant users hear a variety of audio content. Depending on the Fire TV device, that includes streaming movies and shows from Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, podcasts, audiobooks, Alexa voice feedback, system sounds, and audio from local TV networks.

The new feature uses a Bluetooth protocol known as Audio Streaming for Hearing Aids (ASHA), along with special modifications for the specific needs of those who use implants. At the moment, hearing implant streaming is available on Fire TV Omni QLED Series, Fire TV Omni Series, Fire TV 4-Series, Fire TV Cube (3rd Gen), and Fire TV Cube (2nd Gen) devices. It will work with Cochlear Nucleus 8, Nucleus 7, Nucleus Kanso 2, and Baha 6 Max sound processors.

Read more
Amazon Echo Show 15 is getting the full Fire TV update today
Amazon Fire TV on Echo Show 15.

The line between the Amazon Echo Show 15 and a Fire TV is blurring, with the former getting the experience of the latter starting today with a software update.

It won't quite turn your Echo Show 15 into a Fire TV 15, per se. But it'll give it full access to the Amazon Appstore, and that means you should have all the apps available to essentially turn it into a wall-mounted streaming powerhouse (provided that everything's square when it comes to APIs and app updates, but we have a feeling Amazon and the developers will have that figured out in short order, if things aren't already working as expected).

Read more