Fire TV Cube (1st Gen), hands-free with Alexa and 4K Ultra HD and 1st Gen Alexa Voice - Previous Generation

Top reviews from the United States

• 

  Vantage

  5 out of 5 stars

  Extremely well thought out and will only improve with time

  Reviewed in the United States on June 25, 2018

  Verified Purchase

  Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

  Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

  I just got the Amazon fire TV cube this last Friday and spent some time with it this weekend. Here are my thoughts:

  ** Installation and Set-up:

  Set-up was a breeze, simply plug in an HDMI cable (not included) and power cable and you are good to go. Set your TV to the correct input and follow the on-screen instructions. As long as the device was purchased with your Amazon account the device will be pre-loaded with your account email and password which hurries installation along. I also connected a Sonos sound bar in just a few clicks. Device can easily be set-up by anyone that is unfamiliar with technology.

  My only gripe about the installation was there was not a clear way to pull through apps, games, and logins from my previous fire TV. This means you must re-download all your streaming apps and re-sync them which is a time consuming. Maybe there is an easier option but I could not find one.

  ** Pro’s

  - Ask “Alexa, what’s the weather” and a 7 day and your TV will turn on and show you the 7 day forecast. Alexa will answer audibly as normal as well.

  - Ask “Alexa, play must by [Adele]” and your TV will turn on and show the album artwork, song, artist, and scroll through the lyrics karaoke style.

  - Ask “Alexa, when is Jurassic Park Fallen Kingdom playing” and you guess it, your TV will turn on and visually show you movie times at local theaters.

  - Basically, most things you are used to asking Alexa will likely turn your TV on to show you a visual component as well.

  - I had my Fire TV cube about 1 ft. or less away from my Sonos play base speaker and Alexa did not have any trouble hearing the wake word.

  - You can set your flash news briefing to sites that support video news which is a cool feature.

  - If you are trying to purchase something Alexa will show you the options, prices, etc. on screen which is nice to double check and know what you are ordering.

  - Play music through your TV/stereo system instead of a little Alexa Speaker for better audio. Since I hooked up a Sonos play base speaker all audio comes out of the playbase instead of the fire TV cube.

  - Have you ever play jeopardy and could not understand the question? Most games have a visual component now where questions and information will appear on screen which is a big plus.

  - You can also control cable TV. If you say, “Alexa, tune to EPSN” the Fire Tv will switch inputs and bring up your cable box which you can still control via voice commands. This does not work with programs/movies/shows only channel numbers and names. Say, “Alexa, go home” and you will be back to your fire TV.

  - If you have a compatible smart camera, you can says things like, “Alexa, show me the front door” and your security camera will pop-up on the TV.

  ** Con’s

  - Not sure if this is an option but Alexa will turn the TV on quite a bit to show you something. It does not appear that Alexa will turn the TV off afterwards as I constantly noticed my TV was on this weekend. I would imagine there is an option or this will change in an update, alternatively I could set my TV on a sleep timer as Alexa is not displaying content to turn off.

  - After saying the wake word it takes an extra half second or so before there is a visual display to begin talking. I noticed, I can usually start talking before the visual indicator and Alexa will still hear the whole thing but it makes you pause before saying Alexa which does not happen on the normal Alexa devices. Again, likely a software update coming soon I would guess.

  - If you do not know what you are looking for the process is a bit intense. For example, “show action movies”, there will be numbers next to each movie so you could say, “play movie 4” for example or, “swipe right”, “select movie 15”, etc. If you are unsure what you want to watch the remote is much more graceful for searching through the Amazon library.

  - HDMI cable not included. Sure everyone has a million of them but for people that do not have a spare I am sure it is frustrating to learn one is not included as you are trying to set up.

  ** General list of commands I found myself using most. I will post a link at the bottom to a more exhaustive list of commands but here are some examples of how you would use and navigate with the product:

  * Searching for a movie/series:

  “Alexa, Search for [Action Movies] with [Bruce Willis]” or “Alexa, Search for [title / actor / genre]”

  Up to ten results will display on screen with corresponding numbers next to each result

  “Alexa, Show more” or “Alexa, Scroll right”

  “Alexa, Play #5” or “Alexa, Play [Die Hard]”

  * Know what you want to play? Say things like:

  “Alexa, Play [Game of Thrones] on [HBO Go]”

  “Alexa, *Tune to [ESPN]” (*Tune indicates a switch to your cable box, you can say a channel number or channel name only at this time.)

  “Alexa, Launch [Showtime Anytime]” to launch an app.

  * Turn on or off:

  “Alexa, Play [Game of Thrones] on [HBO Go]” will automatically turn on your TV and launch the show on specified app.

  “Alexa, turn on TV” will bring you to the Amazon home screen.

  “Alexa, turn on cable” will turn on your TV and cable box.

  * Common commands while viewing:

  Alexa, Turn up the volume

  Alexa, Mute

  Alexa, rewind 5 minutes

  Alexa, Jump to 25 minutes

  Alexa, fast-forward 25 seconds

  Alexa, Next Episode

  * Non movie/series related commands or questions:

  “Alexa, play music by [Adele]” or “Alexa, play my [Adele] station on [Pandora]”

  “Alexa, What’s the weather” or “Alexa, what’s traffic like now?” or “Alexa, Will it rain tomorrow?”

  “Alexa, show me [Garage] camera” to display your security camera with Alexa enabled cameras.

  “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”

  “Alexa, order/re-order toilet paper”

  You can find more comprehensive list here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=GK5A3XSKT5RWB39U

  ** Conclusion:

  Overall, I really like the Fire TV Cube. My main gripes is it seems to be a bit laggy with commands compared to the standard Echo. I am hoping this will improve with future software updates. Second, it can be cumbersome to use the voice commands if you do not know what you want to watch. In this scenario, I will continue to use the included remote. However, if you have misplaced your remote, or are too lazy, tired, the voice commands work great in all aspects.

  I replaced a Fire TV Gen 2 and Echo Dot with the Fire TV cube in my bedroom and am overall quite pleased. The Fire TV cube hardware seems fantastic and the few operational / software issues I have will likely get better with time. It will be exciting as well to see how app developers begin to use the new features and system to build out new and exciting games and content.

  This device will 100% replace both your Echo and Fire TV and if you are looking for a new streaming device for any room in the house there is no reason not to get this. Even if you do not play on using Alexa it is great functionality to have. For an extra, $40 it is an easy decision for me. Now, if you have an Echo and a Fire TV in the same room already this likely will not be a worthwhile upgrade for a lot of people. For me, having Alexa work through my Sonos Sound bar to improve audio quality for music, and automatic input switching alone is worth the upgrade but you will have to decide for yourself if it is worth replacing existing equipment.

  Read moreRead less

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  Vantage

  5 out of 5 stars

  Extremely well thought out and will only improve with time

  Reviewed in the United States on June 25, 2018

  Verified Purchase

  I just got the Amazon fire TV cube this last Friday and spent some time with it this weekend. Here are my thoughts:

  ** Installation and Set-up:

  Set-up was a breeze, simply plug in an HDMI cable (not included) and power cable and you are good to go. Set your TV to the correct input and follow the on-screen instructions. As long as the device was purchased with your Amazon account the device will be pre-loaded with your account email and password which hurries installation along. I also connected a Sonos sound bar in just a few clicks. Device can easily be set-up by anyone that is unfamiliar with technology.

  My only gripe about the installation was there was not a clear way to pull through apps, games, and logins from my previous fire TV. This means you must re-download all your streaming apps and re-sync them which is a time consuming. Maybe there is an easier option but I could not find one.

  ** Pro’s

  - Ask “Alexa, what’s the weather” and a 7 day and your TV will turn on and show you the 7 day forecast. Alexa will answer audibly as normal as well.

  - Ask “Alexa, play must by [Adele]” and your TV will turn on and show the album artwork, song, artist, and scroll through the lyrics karaoke style.

  - Ask “Alexa, when is Jurassic Park Fallen Kingdom playing” and you guess it, your TV will turn on and visually show you movie times at local theaters.

  - Basically, most things you are used to asking Alexa will likely turn your TV on to show you a visual component as well.

  - I had my Fire TV cube about 1 ft. or less away from my Sonos play base speaker and Alexa did not have any trouble hearing the wake word.

  - You can set your flash news briefing to sites that support video news which is a cool feature.

  - If you are trying to purchase something Alexa will show you the options, prices, etc. on screen which is nice to double check and know what you are ordering.

  - Play music through your TV/stereo system instead of a little Alexa Speaker for better audio. Since I hooked up a Sonos play base speaker all audio comes out of the playbase instead of the fire TV cube.

  - Have you ever play jeopardy and could not understand the question? Most games have a visual component now where questions and information will appear on screen which is a big plus.

  - You can also control cable TV. If you say, “Alexa, tune to EPSN” the Fire Tv will switch inputs and bring up your cable box which you can still control via voice commands. This does not work with programs/movies/shows only channel numbers and names. Say, “Alexa, go home” and you will be back to your fire TV.

  - If you have a compatible smart camera, you can says things like, “Alexa, show me the front door” and your security camera will pop-up on the TV.

  ** Con’s

  - Not sure if this is an option but Alexa will turn the TV on quite a bit to show you something. It does not appear that Alexa will turn the TV off afterwards as I constantly noticed my TV was on this weekend. I would imagine there is an option or this will change in an update, alternatively I could set my TV on a sleep timer as Alexa is not displaying content to turn off.

  - After saying the wake word it takes an extra half second or so before there is a visual display to begin talking. I noticed, I can usually start talking before the visual indicator and Alexa will still hear the whole thing but it makes you pause before saying Alexa which does not happen on the normal Alexa devices. Again, likely a software update coming soon I would guess.

  - If you do not know what you are looking for the process is a bit intense. For example, “show action movies”, there will be numbers next to each movie so you could say, “play movie 4” for example or, “swipe right”, “select movie 15”, etc. If you are unsure what you want to watch the remote is much more graceful for searching through the Amazon library.

  - HDMI cable not included. Sure everyone has a million of them but for people that do not have a spare I am sure it is frustrating to learn one is not included as you are trying to set up.

  ** General list of commands I found myself using most. I will post a link at the bottom to a more exhaustive list of commands but here are some examples of how you would use and navigate with the product:

  * Searching for a movie/series:

  “Alexa, Search for [Action Movies] with [Bruce Willis]” or “Alexa, Search for [title / actor / genre]”

  Up to ten results will display on screen with corresponding numbers next to each result

  “Alexa, Show more” or “Alexa, Scroll right”

  “Alexa, Play #5” or “Alexa, Play [Die Hard]”

  * Know what you want to play? Say things like:

  “Alexa, Play [Game of Thrones] on [HBO Go]”

  “Alexa, *Tune to [ESPN]” (*Tune indicates a switch to your cable box, you can say a channel number or channel name only at this time.)

  “Alexa, Launch [Showtime Anytime]” to launch an app.

  * Turn on or off:

  “Alexa, Play [Game of Thrones] on [HBO Go]” will automatically turn on your TV and launch the show on specified app.

  “Alexa, turn on TV” will bring you to the Amazon home screen.

  “Alexa, turn on cable” will turn on your TV and cable box.

  * Common commands while viewing:

  Alexa, Turn up the volume

  Alexa, Mute

  Alexa, rewind 5 minutes

  Alexa, Jump to 25 minutes

  Alexa, fast-forward 25 seconds

  Alexa, Next Episode

  * Non movie/series related commands or questions:

  “Alexa, play music by [Adele]” or “Alexa, play my [Adele] station on [Pandora]”

  “Alexa, What’s the weather” or “Alexa, what’s traffic like now?” or “Alexa, Will it rain tomorrow?”

  “Alexa, show me [Garage] camera” to display your security camera with Alexa enabled cameras.

  “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”

  “Alexa, order/re-order toilet paper”

  You can find more comprehensive list here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=GK5A3XSKT5RWB39U

  ** Conclusion:

  Overall, I really like the Fire TV Cube. My main gripes is it seems to be a bit laggy with commands compared to the standard Echo. I am hoping this will improve with future software updates. Second, it can be cumbersome to use the voice commands if you do not know what you want to watch. In this scenario, I will continue to use the included remote. However, if you have misplaced your remote, or are too lazy, tired, the voice commands work great in all aspects.

  I replaced a Fire TV Gen 2 and Echo Dot with the Fire TV cube in my bedroom and am overall quite pleased. The Fire TV cube hardware seems fantastic and the few operational / software issues I have will likely get better with time. It will be exciting as well to see how app developers begin to use the new features and system to build out new and exciting games and content.

  This device will 100% replace both your Echo and Fire TV and if you are looking for a new streaming device for any room in the house there is no reason not to get this. Even if you do not play on using Alexa it is great functionality to have. For an extra, $40 it is an easy decision for me. Now, if you have an Echo and a Fire TV in the same room already this likely will not be a worthwhile upgrade for a lot of people. For me, having Alexa work through my Sonos Sound bar to improve audio quality for music, and automatic input switching alone is worth the upgrade but you will have to decide for yourself if it is worth replacing existing equipment.

  • 
  • 
  • 
  • 
  • 
  • 
  • 
  • 

  78 people found this helpful

  Helpful

  Sending feedback...

  Thank you for your feedback.

  Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again

  Report

  Sending feedback...

  Thanks, we'll investigate in the next few days.

  Sorry, We failed to report this review. Please try again
• 

  smilingTolerantly

  4 out of 5 stars

  A much better Echo Show, even if that isn't really what it was meant to be.

  Reviewed in the United States on June 26, 2018

  Verified Purchase

  Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

  Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

  As an Amazon Echo that is also a streaming box, it works mostly well, but there's definitely some room for improvement in the way it juggles all the balls.

  Installation was very easy, and I was pleasantly surprised at how comprehensive it was. The only other device I've ever used that had attempted to marry IR blasters with voice control was the Xbox One Kinect, and the Fire TV Cube is a much better experience when it comes to set up. I was especially impressed that it took the time to learn which HDMI input it was in, to program itself to turn to the correct one.

  Voice control navigation works well if you know what you want to watch and you're using one of the major streaming services, otherwise a remote is much simpler.

  The real power of the Cube is being able to get visual feedback to your Alexa requests. I own several Echos which were mostly purchased for Smart Home control (I live alone, so talking out loud to control things-while a bit self conscious at first-has become second nature by now; I imagine voice controlling lights/appliances/etc becomes a bit of an annoyance if you live with multiple people in a home), and while I had dabbled in other aspects of asking Alexa questions, voice responses were always a bit of a gimmick vs just looking things up myself. The Cube, as an Echo device, is great, because it provides visual feedback when it can, and all of a sudden, using Alexa for more than dimming my lights or setting timers/alarms has started to make sense. If you don't care about video calling people, this is basically a potentially much better Echo Show (potential being based on size of your tv, etc).

  The visual component of Alexa on my large tv is just really, really cool. The issue, however, is that it needs a lot (and probably endless) work in integrations with skills and content. This is understandable, considering the first Echos were voice only. What's less understandable are its existing integrations with third party skills being a bit rough around the edges.

  For instance, if I'm watching a tv show, and ask Alexa who Blahblah is, the Cube will seamlessly answer and show a bio/pic, while what I was watching seamlessly pauses and then picks up on its own. I don't have to tell it to go back to my tv show, resume playing, etc.

  Now, if I'm watching a tv show, and ask Alexa to show me beef stew recipes via Allrecipes, the Cube will seamlessly answer and show visuals, etc, etc, but when I tell it I'm done, that's it. It just stays in the Allrecipes skill, and doesn't go back to where I was or what I was doing prior. I have to manually say, "Alexa, go back." and then my tv show resumes. It's a seemingly small thing, but it is REALLY annoying. Maybe it's the Skill maker's fault, and they didn't write something properly to allow for automatic resumption of prior user activity when they finish with the Skill? Maybe, but even so, Amazon should not write an API that even allows for that type of mistake. There's no good reason for having an API that allows a Skill to continue remaining open when you've literally told it you're done. To be fair, some of Amazon's stuff also exhibits this behavior, but this just hammers home the inconsistency in how things operate.

  So, that's just an example of the types of things Amazon needs to clean up to make the experience more seamless outside of their own first party integrations.

  As far as "lag" goes...the first thing I had to do was wait on an update it downloaded before the install process began. I don't know if that update helped, but my Cube isn't anything resembling the slow responses in video reviews on a lot of the large review sites (ie: Cnet, etc), where the Cube appeared to think for a few seconds before responding. There's no "lag" to speak of. As an example, things like, "Alexa, fast forward 30 seconds." on the supported apps (ie: Amazon Video) are INSTANT (ie: it literally just moves 30s forward instantly). Opening apps and moving between them is also very quick (sometimes instant; clearly the Cube is keeping some things open in memory in the background when the transition is instant).

  Lastly, if you do have multiple Echo devices, you'll want to move your others as far away from the Cube as possible. While Amazon has always claimed their Echos can figure out which is the closest to you and respond accordingly, as someone who has them scattered throughout my home, I can say that they've never been great at it, which didn't really matter when all my Echos were...Echos. If the one in front of me or the one 30 feet behind me decided I was the closest, the lights would still go off if I said "Alexa, lights off." This...quirk, however, becomes meaningful when you have Echo devices that have different capabilities. Saying, "Alexa, watch Chuck" or any other visual/Fire TV specific command, and if one of your voice only Echos decides it's closest (again, even when it's 30 ft away), then that other Echo will be very confused as to what it is you're asking. I would think, if I was Amazon, I'd make the Echos a little more intelligent and if a command can't be answered by one, to check the other devices in the user's library, and the correct Echo (ie: the Cube) would take over, but that is not the case.

  I'm still getting used to this, because my living/dining/kitchen is an open, 1000 sqft space, and I had 3 Echos in this space for some redundancy in picking up my Smart Home commands, but I've had to become a lot more strategic in their placement now that I have the Cube.

  Read moreRead less

  17 people found this helpful

  Helpful

  Sending feedback...

  Thank you for your feedback.

  Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again

  Report

  Sending feedback...

  Thanks, we'll investigate in the next few days.

  Sorry, We failed to report this review. Please try again
• 

  iwantgizm0s

  5 out of 5 stars

  Fire TV Cube: Voice Commands are Too Much Fun

  Reviewed in the United States on June 26, 2018

  Verified Purchase

  Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

  Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

  pre-ordered the Fire TV Cube for a discounted introductory price of almost ninety bucks (minus one penny) from here on amazon in early June 2018. and then waited anxiously to receive the Fire TV Cube on the official release date of June 21, 2018. what you get is the fire tv cube, an alexa voice remote control with two AAA batteries, a power adapter, an IR (blaster) extender, and an ethernet adapter. if you do not want to use an ethernet connection, you can use the WIFI 2.4GHz or the WIFI 5GHz connection.

  for my usage, the highlights of the fire tv cube are threefold: (1) the alexa voice commands; (2) the IR (blaster) extender to control the actual TV connected to the fire tv cube; and (3) the included ethernet adapter to directly connect the fire tv cube to the modem/router.

  additional highlights are: (1) WIFI 5GHz (it works!) in addition to the regular WIFI 2.4GHz; (2) 4K Ultra HD if you have a TV that supports that.

  my TV only does 1040p and so the 4K does not matter to me. but instead my focus was on having the included ethernet adapter for the direct wired connection and having the IR extender to enable the fire tv to actually turn on/off the TV and to also increase/decrease the volume on the TV using voice commands! woohoo! those make the fire tv cube a must-have device for my TV watching.

  prior to getting this fire tv cube, myself used a roku express which worked great and has now been given to my dad to replace his crashy old apple tv 2nd generation. (oh, tried a clumsy third-party voice-commands setup with the roku involving the echo and my android phone -- but that roku-voice setup, although doable, was really kludgy.) prior to the roku, myself was blissfully using an apple tv 3rd generation which is a very good introductory apple tv device if you can get one. the apple tv 3rd generation is now being happily used by my sister's family. compared to the roku and the apple tv, the fire tv cube is an improvement. yes, it takes some getting used to, having migrated from roku and apple tv, but myself very pleased with the fire tv cube.

  okay, these are some of my must-have tv channels/services/apps that are installed on my fire tv cube:

  amazon prime video (of course)

  hulu

  hbo now

  netflix

  cbs all access

  cbs news

  pluto tv

  espn -- particularly for espn+

  youtube,com - via firefox or silk browser

  etc etc etc

  all are easy to set up and to activate.

  oh, youtube via firefox (and silk) is okay and very good. there is an "app" for youtube,com that you click and then you have one more click to select either the silk or firefox browser. and then you are in youtube -- just like it's a tv app that you can navigate with the remote. easy peasy. do not be scared away by the nonsense fake news that youtube is not accessible on fire tv. it is accessible and it works because it's via the web in a browser. but the way it is set up is tv friendly and therefore really no difference. imho, there is no need to sideload any youtube app that would need to be separately downloaded.

  okay, let me discuss the IR extender (aka IR blaster). you have to use this to enable the fire tv cube to control your TV. plug the IR extender into the back of the fire tv cube. then place the small IR extender box in front of the TV's built-in IR sensor. then go into the fire tv settings and into equipment control. fire tv should find your TV as it it tests turning off/on the TV and also tests the mute control. oh, it is a joy to tell FireTV/Alexa to turn on/off the TV and to increase/decrease the volume directly on the TV. you can also try to set up controlling the inputs (changing from HDMI to TV) but that did not work for me. so, it's just: "Alexa, turn off (or on) the TV" and "Alexa, increase (or decrease, or mute) the volume" for directly controlling my TV itself. this is great couch potato joy to use voice commands to turn on/off the TV.

  needless to say, when talking to the fire tv cube, you can call up your apps (hulu, netflix, hbo now, etc) as well as telling alexa to watch your shows/movies on amazon prime video.

  oh, and if you also have an Echo nearby or elsewhere in your home, you can give the voice command to that Echo to have the fire tv cube then turn on/off your TV. but giving other fire tv commands to your Echo may result in getting the Echo audio equivalent "skill" or the Echo may give an error message. so just address your fire tv commands to the fire tv cube. for purposes of differentiating my two devices, my fire tv cube's wake-up word is actually "computer" and my echo's wake word is "echo". but the fire tv cube is by default set up to be the favored device if both devices use the same wake word (such as if both have the same default "alexa" wake word).

  still have to use the included remote control for when the voice commands don't quite work for me because me still learning how to speak firetv-alexa commands. like for a while could not figure out the one nitpicky voice command for telling firetv/alexa to go to ESPN where you cannot just say "ESPN" but you have to specify "ESPN app". that does not match the simplicity of just saying "NETFLIX" or "HULU" without also specifying the word "app". oh well, my guess is this may eventually get tweaked by the amazon firetv folks.

  otherwise, my first initial five days of using the fire tv cube have been a very enjoyable experience. very much worth the purchase. the fire tv cube is just too much fun to use to watch my tv shows and movies. thank you to amazon for the fire tv cube.

  Read moreRead less

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  iwantgizm0s

  5 out of 5 stars

  Fire TV Cube: Voice Commands are Too Much Fun

  Reviewed in the United States on June 26, 2018

  Verified Purchase

  pre-ordered the Fire TV Cube for a discounted introductory price of almost ninety bucks (minus one penny) from here on amazon in early June 2018. and then waited anxiously to receive the Fire TV Cube on the official release date of June 21, 2018. what you get is the fire tv cube, an alexa voice remote control with two AAA batteries, a power adapter, an IR (blaster) extender, and an ethernet adapter. if you do not want to use an ethernet connection, you can use the WIFI 2.4GHz or the WIFI 5GHz connection.

  for my usage, the highlights of the fire tv cube are threefold: (1) the alexa voice commands; (2) the IR (blaster) extender to control the actual TV connected to the fire tv cube; and (3) the included ethernet adapter to directly connect the fire tv cube to the modem/router.

  additional highlights are: (1) WIFI 5GHz (it works!) in addition to the regular WIFI 2.4GHz; (2) 4K Ultra HD if you have a TV that supports that.

  my TV only does 1040p and so the 4K does not matter to me. but instead my focus was on having the included ethernet adapter for the direct wired connection and having the IR extender to enable the fire tv to actually turn on/off the TV and to also increase/decrease the volume on the TV using voice commands! woohoo! those make the fire tv cube a must-have device for my TV watching.

  prior to getting this fire tv cube, myself used a roku express which worked great and has now been given to my dad to replace his crashy old apple tv 2nd generation. (oh, tried a clumsy third-party voice-commands setup with the roku involving the echo and my android phone -- but that roku-voice setup, although doable, was really kludgy.) prior to the roku, myself was blissfully using an apple tv 3rd generation which is a very good introductory apple tv device if you can get one. the apple tv 3rd generation is now being happily used by my sister's family. compared to the roku and the apple tv, the fire tv cube is an improvement. yes, it takes some getting used to, having migrated from roku and apple tv, but myself very pleased with the fire tv cube.

  okay, these are some of my must-have tv channels/services/apps that are installed on my fire tv cube:

  amazon prime video (of course)

  hulu

  hbo now

  netflix

  cbs all access

  cbs news

  pluto tv

  espn -- particularly for espn+

  youtube,com - via firefox or silk browser

  etc etc etc

  all are easy to set up and to activate.

  oh, youtube via firefox (and silk) is okay and very good. there is an "app" for youtube,com that you click and then you have one more click to select either the silk or firefox browser. and then you are in youtube -- just like it's a tv app that you can navigate with the remote. easy peasy. do not be scared away by the nonsense fake news that youtube is not accessible on fire tv. it is accessible and it works because it's via the web in a browser. but the way it is set up is tv friendly and therefore really no difference. imho, there is no need to sideload any youtube app that would need to be separately downloaded.

  okay, let me discuss the IR extender (aka IR blaster). you have to use this to enable the fire tv cube to control your TV. plug the IR extender into the back of the fire tv cube. then place the small IR extender box in front of the TV's built-in IR sensor. then go into the fire tv settings and into equipment control. fire tv should find your TV as it it tests turning off/on the TV and also tests the mute control. oh, it is a joy to tell FireTV/Alexa to turn on/off the TV and to increase/decrease the volume directly on the TV. you can also try to set up controlling the inputs (changing from HDMI to TV) but that did not work for me. so, it's just: "Alexa, turn off (or on) the TV" and "Alexa, increase (or decrease, or mute) the volume" for directly controlling my TV itself. this is great couch potato joy to use voice commands to turn on/off the TV.

  needless to say, when talking to the fire tv cube, you can call up your apps (hulu, netflix, hbo now, etc) as well as telling alexa to watch your shows/movies on amazon prime video.

  oh, and if you also have an Echo nearby or elsewhere in your home, you can give the voice command to that Echo to have the fire tv cube then turn on/off your TV. but giving other fire tv commands to your Echo may result in getting the Echo audio equivalent "skill" or the Echo may give an error message. so just address your fire tv commands to the fire tv cube. for purposes of differentiating my two devices, my fire tv cube's wake-up word is actually "computer" and my echo's wake word is "echo". but the fire tv cube is by default set up to be the favored device if both devices use the same wake word (such as if both have the same default "alexa" wake word).

  still have to use the included remote control for when the voice commands don't quite work for me because me still learning how to speak firetv-alexa commands. like for a while could not figure out the one nitpicky voice command for telling firetv/alexa to go to ESPN where you cannot just say "ESPN" but you have to specify "ESPN app". that does not match the simplicity of just saying "NETFLIX" or "HULU" without also specifying the word "app". oh well, my guess is this may eventually get tweaked by the amazon firetv folks.

  otherwise, my first initial five days of using the fire tv cube have been a very enjoyable experience. very much worth the purchase. the fire tv cube is just too much fun to use to watch my tv shows and movies. thank you to amazon for the fire tv cube.

  • 
  • 
  • 

  11 people found this helpful

  Helpful

  Sending feedback...

  Thank you for your feedback.

  Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again

  Report

  Sending feedback...

  Thanks, we'll investigate in the next few days.

  Sorry, We failed to report this review. Please try again
• 

  cleverusername

  3 out of 5 stars

  Good, not amazing. You will probably be happier if you buy the regular 4k Fire TV and save some money

  Reviewed in the United States on July 24, 2018

  Verified Purchase

  Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

  Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

  The Fire TV Cube is good, just not mind-blowingly great, but it could be great with some fixes. I bought this Cube for hands free voice control. Getting rid of the remote(s) is the only reason to get a Cube over the cheaper Fire TV- the regular Fire TV also has 4k, HDR10, games, all the same apps, and even voice control- but you have to push a button on the remote to use it. The Cube has microphones built-in like an Echo, so you can tell the TV to turn on and it will automatically do so. It does it's job well, but there are a few things that hold it back and keep me from being able to ditch the remotes completely. Not being able to ditch the remote completely means that I'm not sure it's worth the extra money compared to the regular Fire TV. Here are my issues:

  1. Not automatically turning on the soundbar sometimes. My TV has its sound muted and all the sound goes through a digital optical cable to my soundbar. When I say "Alexa, turn on the TV" the Cube knows what to do and turns on both the TV and soundbar like it was configured. Then I can play a TV show (like Parks and Recreation) just fine and everything works. But that takes two voice commands. The Cube *supposedly* has the ability to just jump into a show even when the TV is off, by saying "Alexa, play Parks and Recreation." The only issue is that when you start a show that way the Cube will not turn on the soundbar, so I need to then say "Alexa, turn on the soundbar." So it's still two voice commands, when it could be just one voice command if the Cube would remember to turn the soundbar on consistently. This is something that could definitely be fixed in software and would fix my number one complaint.

  2. Not hearing voice commands when a show is playing. I don't listen to my shows very loud, and I understand that the Cube is two feet away from the soundbar and I'm ten feet away from the Cube. But even with moderate volume I have to yell my command or use the remote to pause the show or push the voice command button. So the Cube isn't really doing what I bought it for if I have to resort to using the remote to give it commands. This might be unfixable, but I bet the DSP gurus could figure out how to give more priority to things coming from in front of the Cube so it doesn't miss so many of my voice commands.

  3. Tedious/weird voice navigation (sometimes). If you know what you want to watch, the Cube is great. Just say, "Alexa, play Parks and Recreation" and it starts playing (although it might forget to turn on the soundbar). Even if a show isn't offered on Amazon Video it can find things in a few other apps (like Netflix). But if you want to browse for shows, the voice navigation is tedious. You have to say something like, "Alexa, show me science fiction shows" and then having six options show up on the screen. If you don't like any of those options you say, "Alexa, next." You then continue saying, "Alexa, next" until you see something you like and can pick it with, "Alexa, play option 4." It's just way faster to use the remote, and you feel like a dork saying "Alexa, next" all the time. I'm not sure how voice navigation will look in the future, but it's not going to be what we have with the Cube today. It's weird and tedious and needs to be improved.

  4. It can't turn on my Xbox One. It can switch inputs just fine, but it doesn't turn the Xbox on. I know I have to be holding a controller to play Xbox and the controller can turn the Xbox on. But I'd like to be able to say "Alexa, switch to Xbox" and I can grab a controller while the TV input is switching and the Xbox is turning on by itself. Just a little hassle that breaks the experience. This may not be fixable because I don't think the TV can send CEC commands from one HDMI device to another. It would be nice though. I know that the Xbox itself can do HDMI passthrough, but setting up the Cube so that it goes Cube -> Xbox -> TV is a pain and breaks a lot of other features, and I never could get it to work right (automatically powering both Xbox and TV on when saying "Alexa, turn on the TV"). Doing both devices as independent inputs works much better except for this hassle.

  I probably sound like a Debbie Downer by now, but let me finish by saying this: The Fire TV Cube is generally pretty good, just as good as the regular Fire TV at all the non-voice controlled stuff, and voice control has promise. I am going to keep it and not return it. However, if I was able to know what I do now I probably would have just bought the regular Fire TV now and waited until the second gen Cube happens in a few years. I don't think it's worth the extra money over a regular Fire TV with the current state state of voice control and all the things surrounding it. I'll make sure to update this review if any firmware/software fixes happen to address my concerns.

  Read moreRead less

  9 people found this helpful

  Helpful

  Sending feedback...

  Thank you for your feedback.

  Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again

  Report

  Sending feedback...

  Thanks, we'll investigate in the next few days.

  Sorry, We failed to report this review. Please try again
• 

  alternative Travel Press

  1 out of 5 stars

  Has some Features that I love, but huge problems with the device make it unusable.

  Reviewed in the United States on July 22, 2018

  Verified Purchase

  Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

  Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

  I love the idea of this product - having an echo combined with a Fire TV, and there are some things I like about this product, but there are some very serious problems with this product that make it virtually unusable for me:

  1) Terrible Wi-Fi connectivity – I mean, it’s really really bad. I’ve never had a media player with such a lousy connection to my router over Wi-Fi. I have many other fire TV devices including the fire TV stick 1st gen, the new fire TV stick with voice remote, the older 4K fire TV box, and the newer little 4K fire TV Square, and I’ve used them all on this same TV in this exact same spot in my house, and all of them have great connectivity to my Wi-Fi, i’ve never had an issue with any of them. But with my new fire TV cube in the same spot in my house, I get a terrible connection to my Wi-Fi. The signal cuts in and out, videos constantly pause and buffer, sometimes every few minutes for several minutes at a time. It’s so terrible that I can’t even stand to watch a video on the Cube, because it will pause every minute or two. This happens both on videos streamed over the Internet such as prime video and Netflix, and my own videos served locally from my own home computer, which tells me that this is not an Internet problem, it’s a Wi-Fi connection problem. I also have a Roku, AppleTV, and android TV box connected to the same TV in the same location, and none of them have any Wi-Fi connectivity issues either. I strongly suspect that Amazon knows that the cube has lousy Wi-Fi connectivity compared to its other fire TV products - which is why they bundled the normally very expensive Ethernet connection adapter in with the cube for free. No other fire TV device gets that ethernet connection adapter included in its’ package for free, and though I am really happy that the Cube does come with the ethernet connection adapter for free, it’s a very suspicious thing to do, isn’t it?

  2) The device pauses any video you’re playing when ever you issue a voice command. So if I, say, just want the tv volume lowered a bit, the whole video I’m watching will pause, then the Cube will think about the vocal command I issued for a while (A lot longer than other echo devices), then a bunch of lights flicker on the cube, then eventually the TV volume is lowered, and then the video starts playing again. It’s ridiculously annoying. Using Any other echo device to Control my video doesn’t do this Pausing nonsense, I can use my dot, spot, and echo to pause and resume videos I’m playing without any issues, or issue any other commands to them without the video I’m watching pausing, so it’s kind of ridiculous to have to deal with this pausing nonsense on the cube.

  Not only that, but though this pausing feature works the way it’s supposed to (ie pauses the video, listens to commands, then resumes the video) on some popular video streaming apps such as Netflix and prime video, in other (less supported?) video apps the feature doesn’t work right at all, so when you issue a vocal command to the cube while playing a video in one of these other apps, instead of pausing the video it completely stops playing the video and dumps you out of the video you’re playing, sometimes even dumping you out of the app entirely. This means that if you’re playing a video in one of these less – supported apps and issue a simple vocal command to the cube such as volume up, it will completely crash the video playback, and dump you out of the video app and back into the home screen. Then I have to find the app icon on the home screen again, wait for the app to start up again, find the video I was watching, play the video again, in some cases find my place in the video again, and then press play to start watching again, all just because I wanted the damn volume up a notch. This ‘pausing (and/or crashing) videos while issuing voice commands’ is ridiculous, and I can’t seem to find a way to turn that pausing behavior off. I have to be sure not to say anything that will wake up the cube to listen to voice commands while I watch a video, or I risk being dumped out of it and having to start the video all over.

  3) I can’t find a way to adjust the volume of Alexis’ voice (thru the TV) independently of the TV volume or the cube’s own built-in speaker volume. I’ll explain what I mean - You can say volume up or volume down to the cube and it will adjust the volume of your television set, (or your sound bar, or whatever you’re listening to your videos through;) AND You can adjust the volume of the speaker built inside the cube by pressing the volume up and down buttons on top of the cube, (so when the cube wants to tell you something when it’s not connected to the television or otherwise needs to give you a sound, that volume can easily be adjusted, including Alexis’ voice through that speaker.) But, when I’m watching something on the television, and I issue a vocal command to the cube, when Alexa responds to my command, her voice is super super loud through the television. It’s so loud in fact that it makes my television speakers vibrate and hiss so much that I’m afraid it’s damaging them. But if I lower the TV volume to a level where Alexis’ voice is at a normal volume, I can’t hear my television program because the overall television volume is way too low. To put it another way - Alexa’s voice is so loud when coming through my television compared to anything else I’m listening to through my television that her booming voice sounds like it’s damaging my speakers, and the only way to lower her incredibly loud voice seems to be to lower the overall television volume, which makes any other programming I’m listening to on my television way too low to listen to. I’ve looked and looked, and I can’t find a way to lower the volume of Alex’s voice as it goes through the television independently of the main television volume, and she is just way too loud. If there is a way to lower just her voice as it comes through to the television without lowering the television volume overall, I would love to know what it is.

  4) some of the main features that I use with my echo devices are not available on the cube for some reason, including voice calling, multi room music, and some other key features. These may become available in the future, but for now they are not available, and it’s very disappointing. It means that I have to have another echo in the room with the cube, which defeats the whole purpose of having both of the echo and fire TV functionality combined into a single unit and using the cube in that room. Since I have to have both an echo and the cube in the room in order to use all the echo features I use, Having the cube in here at all is pretty much useless. I’m really hoping that these features are added to the cube in a software update in the near future, because right now having a cube that cant perform these simple echo functions is very disappointing.

  - -

  Now, what I like about the cube. I would’ve easily given the cube five stars based on the features that I list below, had the issues with the cube that I listed above not been such a huge problem. It’s too bad, because these features listed below are really nice, and I would love to continue to use them with my fire TV cube, but as it stands now the problems with this device are so huge that I will probably have to disconnect it from my TV and stop using it entirely. Anyway, here are the features that I really liked about the Fire TV cube:

  1) The ability to get things like the weather, information on local restaurants and services, news briefings, and other information played back as video on my television. It’s really nice to see my news briefing as video on the TV rather than just audio being read through an echo speaker, I love this feature.

  2) Expanded device control through the cube. By mimicking your television, receiver, sound bar, and other electronic devices’ infrared remote signals, the cube is able to control far more devices in far more complex ways than any other echo device. The Lengthy IR blaster Cable that it comes with is really nice too, It lets you extend that IR remote mimicking to far more devices, including those hidden away in cabinets.

  3) The cube still appears to be running the fire TV version of the Android operating system, which is a very powerful OS, and there’s a lot you can do with it. I really appreciate that even though this is a hybrid device that includes the Echo’s complex functionality, it’s still running on android as it’s backbone. Very very nice.

  4) You could still go into the settings and allow the installation of apps from other sources (meaning sources other than the official Amazon App Store), which is a great android feature that really allows you to tinker with your fire TV cube and add a lot of functionality to it if you know what you’re doing. (FYI don’t use this to add apps to your Fire TV cube if you DON’T know what you’re doing or don’t know the source of your apps, that can be dangerous for your device. But if you have a lot of experience with this and know what you’re doing, this is a great feature!)

  5) Though Amazon and Google are still having a stupid bitter childish battle which is negatively affecting both companies’ customers, and because of this Amazon was forced to remove the official YouTube app from their devices, you can still get the official google YouTube app from reliable sources and side-load it onto the new fire TV cube, just like you could with all the older fire TV devices. (Yes fire TV offers an alternative web browser based YouTube work-around, but it’s terrible. It’s really really bad. I don’t even bother with it.) It’s just really nice that Amazon hasn’t taken steps to somehow block this app from being installed, if you know what you’re doing you can still Side-load it onto your Fire TV Cube. (Ironically, you can find out how to do this by “googling” it. Ha!)

  5) A USB port with OTG USB support is back!!! One of the major drawbacks of the fire TV sticks and the new 4K fire TV square is that they have no USB ports, and it looked like ‘no USB ports’ was going to be the direction that Amazon was going in for all of its fire TV products. But the fire TV cube has a USB port, yay!!!!! And you can connect a whole variety of USB stuff to it, just like you can to just about any other android device. This includes USB keyboards, mice, game controllers, flash drives, hard drives (that have their own independent power source), and a whole bunch of other stuff. Now that USB port IS a micro-USB port, and most of the stuff that you want to connect to the Cube will have a big old clunky full-sized USB connector, but this problem can easily be solved by getting a cheap little “OTG USB to micro-USB” adapter, and Amazon even sells them, (I bought mine on Amazon for about $3 including shipping for a pack of five). They are well worth the money, I recommend anyone who has a cube gets them. The cube even has separate MicroUSB and power ports, meaning you don’t have to use the USB port to power your cube, it has a separate little power port for that, so you’re free to use that micro USB port for anything else you want (The fire TV sticks and newer fire TV 4K use that micro USB port for their power connector, so you can’t use it for anything else unless you get a little “OTG micro-USB splitter” cable, but that’s another story for another day. For most customers, this means that on those devices the micro USB port is being used for power so I can’t be used for anything else.) but on the fire TV cube with that separate power and micro USB ports, you can load up photos, music, and videos onto a flash drive, put that little micro USB adapter in, and then plug it into your fire TV cube. The Cube even automatically mounts the flash drive, and treats it like another memory area that is supposed to be there, giving you access to the flash drive through your many fire TV apps.

  6) The cube still appears to be able to control my smart devices such as my Wemo light switches and plugs. Somewhere in the cube description on the Amazon website it says something about it not being able to control smart devices without a hub, but that appears not to be the case for me, it still works fine with my Wemo devices.

  Like I said earlier, I love these features in the new Fire TV cube, and if the darn thing didn’t have such a lousy Wi-Fi connection and didn’t pause/crash my videos every time a vocal command is issued to Alexa, I would’ve easily given this device five stars. It’s just that the problems that the cube has are so huge that they render the device unusable to me, and they are issues that I can’t seem to find a solution to. It’s too bad, because I really want to love this device, and I really want to use this device, but it looks like because of the problems listed above it’s going to get unplugged and put away in my closet. But If solutions to these problems are found through software updates or other means, I will be very very happy with my Fire TV cube.

  Read moreRead less

  

  

  

  

  

  alternative Travel Press

  1 out of 5 stars

  Has some Features that I love, but huge problems with the device make it unusable.

  Reviewed in the United States on July 22, 2018

  Verified Purchase

  I love the idea of this product - having an echo combined with a Fire TV, and there are some things I like about this product, but there are some very serious problems with this product that make it virtually unusable for me:

  1) Terrible Wi-Fi connectivity – I mean, it’s really really bad. I’ve never had a media player with such a lousy connection to my router over Wi-Fi. I have many other fire TV devices including the fire TV stick 1st gen, the new fire TV stick with voice remote, the older 4K fire TV box, and the newer little 4K fire TV Square, and I’ve used them all on this same TV in this exact same spot in my house, and all of them have great connectivity to my Wi-Fi, i’ve never had an issue with any of them. But with my new fire TV cube in the same spot in my house, I get a terrible connection to my Wi-Fi. The signal cuts in and out, videos constantly pause and buffer, sometimes every few minutes for several minutes at a time. It’s so terrible that I can’t even stand to watch a video on the Cube, because it will pause every minute or two. This happens both on videos streamed over the Internet such as prime video and Netflix, and my own videos served locally from my own home computer, which tells me that this is not an Internet problem, it’s a Wi-Fi connection problem. I also have a Roku, AppleTV, and android TV box connected to the same TV in the same location, and none of them have any Wi-Fi connectivity issues either. I strongly suspect that Amazon knows that the cube has lousy Wi-Fi connectivity compared to its other fire TV products - which is why they bundled the normally very expensive Ethernet connection adapter in with the cube for free. No other fire TV device gets that ethernet connection adapter included in its’ package for free, and though I am really happy that the Cube does come with the ethernet connection adapter for free, it’s a very suspicious thing to do, isn’t it?

  2) The device pauses any video you’re playing when ever you issue a voice command. So if I, say, just want the tv volume lowered a bit, the whole video I’m watching will pause, then the Cube will think about the vocal command I issued for a while (A lot longer than other echo devices), then a bunch of lights flicker on the cube, then eventually the TV volume is lowered, and then the video starts playing again. It’s ridiculously annoying. Using Any other echo device to Control my video doesn’t do this Pausing nonsense, I can use my dot, spot, and echo to pause and resume videos I’m playing without any issues, or issue any other commands to them without the video I’m watching pausing, so it’s kind of ridiculous to have to deal with this pausing nonsense on the cube.

  Not only that, but though this pausing feature works the way it’s supposed to (ie pauses the video, listens to commands, then resumes the video) on some popular video streaming apps such as Netflix and prime video, in other (less supported?) video apps the feature doesn’t work right at all, so when you issue a vocal command to the cube while playing a video in one of these other apps, instead of pausing the video it completely stops playing the video and dumps you out of the video you’re playing, sometimes even dumping you out of the app entirely. This means that if you’re playing a video in one of these less – supported apps and issue a simple vocal command to the cube such as volume up, it will completely crash the video playback, and dump you out of the video app and back into the home screen. Then I have to find the app icon on the home screen again, wait for the app to start up again, find the video I was watching, play the video again, in some cases find my place in the video again, and then press play to start watching again, all just because I wanted the damn volume up a notch. This ‘pausing (and/or crashing) videos while issuing voice commands’ is ridiculous, and I can’t seem to find a way to turn that pausing behavior off. I have to be sure not to say anything that will wake up the cube to listen to voice commands while I watch a video, or I risk being dumped out of it and having to start the video all over.

  3) I can’t find a way to adjust the volume of Alexis’ voice (thru the TV) independently of the TV volume or the cube’s own built-in speaker volume. I’ll explain what I mean - You can say volume up or volume down to the cube and it will adjust the volume of your television set, (or your sound bar, or whatever you’re listening to your videos through;) AND You can adjust the volume of the speaker built inside the cube by pressing the volume up and down buttons on top of the cube, (so when the cube wants to tell you something when it’s not connected to the television or otherwise needs to give you a sound, that volume can easily be adjusted, including Alexis’ voice through that speaker.) But, when I’m watching something on the television, and I issue a vocal command to the cube, when Alexa responds to my command, her voice is super super loud through the television. It’s so loud in fact that it makes my television speakers vibrate and hiss so much that I’m afraid it’s damaging them. But if I lower the TV volume to a level where Alexis’ voice is at a normal volume, I can’t hear my television program because the overall television volume is way too low. To put it another way - Alexa’s voice is so loud when coming through my television compared to anything else I’m listening to through my television that her booming voice sounds like it’s damaging my speakers, and the only way to lower her incredibly loud voice seems to be to lower the overall television volume, which makes any other programming I’m listening to on my television way too low to listen to. I’ve looked and looked, and I can’t find a way to lower the volume of Alex’s voice as it goes through the television independently of the main television volume, and she is just way too loud. If there is a way to lower just her voice as it comes through to the television without lowering the television volume overall, I would love to know what it is.

  4) some of the main features that I use with my echo devices are not available on the cube for some reason, including voice calling, multi room music, and some other key features. These may become available in the future, but for now they are not available, and it’s very disappointing. It means that I have to have another echo in the room with the cube, which defeats the whole purpose of having both of the echo and fire TV functionality combined into a single unit and using the cube in that room. Since I have to have both an echo and the cube in the room in order to use all the echo features I use, Having the cube in here at all is pretty much useless. I’m really hoping that these features are added to the cube in a software update in the near future, because right now having a cube that cant perform these simple echo functions is very disappointing.

  - -

  Now, what I like about the cube. I would’ve easily given the cube five stars based on the features that I list below, had the issues with the cube that I listed above not been such a huge problem. It’s too bad, because these features listed below are really nice, and I would love to continue to use them with my fire TV cube, but as it stands now the problems with this device are so huge that I will probably have to disconnect it from my TV and stop using it entirely. Anyway, here are the features that I really liked about the Fire TV cube:

  1) The ability to get things like the weather, information on local restaurants and services, news briefings, and other information played back as video on my television. It’s really nice to see my news briefing as video on the TV rather than just audio being read through an echo speaker, I love this feature.

  2) Expanded device control through the cube. By mimicking your television, receiver, sound bar, and other electronic devices’ infrared remote signals, the cube is able to control far more devices in far more complex ways than any other echo device. The Lengthy IR blaster Cable that it comes with is really nice too, It lets you extend that IR remote mimicking to far more devices, including those hidden away in cabinets.

  3) The cube still appears to be running the fire TV version of the Android operating system, which is a very powerful OS, and there’s a lot you can do with it. I really appreciate that even though this is a hybrid device that includes the Echo’s complex functionality, it’s still running on android as it’s backbone. Very very nice.

  4) You could still go into the settings and allow the installation of apps from other sources (meaning sources other than the official Amazon App Store), which is a great android feature that really allows you to tinker with your fire TV cube and add a lot of functionality to it if you know what you’re doing. (FYI don’t use this to add apps to your Fire TV cube if you DON’T know what you’re doing or don’t know the source of your apps, that can be dangerous for your device. But if you have a lot of experience with this and know what you’re doing, this is a great feature!)

  5) Though Amazon and Google are still having a stupid bitter childish battle which is negatively affecting both companies’ customers, and because of this Amazon was forced to remove the official YouTube app from their devices, you can still get the official google YouTube app from reliable sources and side-load it onto the new fire TV cube, just like you could with all the older fire TV devices. (Yes fire TV offers an alternative web browser based YouTube work-around, but it’s terrible. It’s really really bad. I don’t even bother with it.) It’s just really nice that Amazon hasn’t taken steps to somehow block this app from being installed, if you know what you’re doing you can still Side-load it onto your Fire TV Cube. (Ironically, you can find out how to do this by “googling” it. Ha!)

  5) A USB port with OTG USB support is back!!! One of the major drawbacks of the fire TV sticks and the new 4K fire TV square is that they have no USB ports, and it looked like ‘no USB ports’ was going to be the direction that Amazon was going in for all of its fire TV products. But the fire TV cube has a USB port, yay!!!!! And you can connect a whole variety of USB stuff to it, just like you can to just about any other android device. This includes USB keyboards, mice, game controllers, flash drives, hard drives (that have their own independent power source), and a whole bunch of other stuff. Now that USB port IS a micro-USB port, and most of the stuff that you want to connect to the Cube will have a big old clunky full-sized USB connector, but this problem can easily be solved by getting a cheap little “OTG USB to micro-USB” adapter, and Amazon even sells them, (I bought mine on Amazon for about $3 including shipping for a pack of five). They are well worth the money, I recommend anyone who has a cube gets them. The cube even has separate MicroUSB and power ports, meaning you don’t have to use the USB port to power your cube, it has a separate little power port for that, so you’re free to use that micro USB port for anything else you want (The fire TV sticks and newer fire TV 4K use that micro USB port for their power connector, so you can’t use it for anything else unless you get a little “OTG micro-USB splitter” cable, but that’s another story for another day. For most customers, this means that on those devices the micro USB port is being used for power so I can’t be used for anything else.) but on the fire TV cube with that separate power and micro USB ports, you can load up photos, music, and videos onto a flash drive, put that little micro USB adapter in, and then plug it into your fire TV cube. The Cube even automatically mounts the flash drive, and treats it like another memory area that is supposed to be there, giving you access to the flash drive through your many fire TV apps.

  6) The cube still appears to be able to control my smart devices such as my Wemo light switches and plugs. Somewhere in the cube description on the Amazon website it says something about it not being able to control smart devices without a hub, but that appears not to be the case for me, it still works fine with my Wemo devices.

  Like I said earlier, I love these features in the new Fire TV cube, and if the darn thing didn’t have such a lousy Wi-Fi connection and didn’t pause/crash my videos every time a vocal command is issued to Alexa, I would’ve easily given this device five stars. It’s just that the problems that the cube has are so huge that they render the device unusable to me, and they are issues that I can’t seem to find a solution to. It’s too bad, because I really want to love this device, and I really want to use this device, but it looks like because of the problems listed above it’s going to get unplugged and put away in my closet. But If solutions to these problems are found through software updates or other means, I will be very very happy with my Fire TV cube.

  • 

  8 people found this helpful

  Helpful

  Sending feedback...

  Thank you for your feedback.

  Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again

  Report

  Sending feedback...

  Thanks, we'll investigate in the next few days.

  Sorry, We failed to report this review. Please try again
• 

  RTEX

  5 out of 5 stars

  Excellent Picture Quality, and working GREAT! Is what I was Hoping For.

  Reviewed in the United States on June 25, 2018

  Verified Purchase

  Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

  Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

  Set up was very easy. No problems opening any of my Apps, and with several apps it will even go to the show and play the episode that I requested.

  The first thing my wife and I noticed was how Great the picture was when watching shows on Directv Now. It seems to show better quality with any of the apps I have installed- vs the same apps I have installed that came on my 4k HDR Sony TV. Not only is the 4K Great, but everything is looking like 4K. with Great Sound.

  No problems hearing what I ask it from 12 feet away when watching a show with my soundbar and subwoofer working good. It is working much better than my Fire TV 2nd Gen or my Fire Stick.

  I found out how to Turn on the TV without it coming on and going to the Fire TV interface. When the TV is off, Instead of saying "Alex turn on the TV", I say "Alex switch input to Antenna" and it will turn on the TV to the OTA Station I was watching, and stay there without going to the Fire TV interface.

  So if you have cable you might try saying "Alex switch input to Cable" or etc. Depending on your setup. Sometimes figuring out how to word something seems to be a little tricky.

  The only cons I have is that I wish all the cords would have been at least 3ft. longer. Specialy the Power Cord. Everything seems to come with cords that are too short. Making you put things where you don't want to, or forcing you to use an extention cord. The other one being that it only mutes to hear you when on the Fire TV interface, I wish it would also do that when I am watching a OTA Station with my Antenna.

  Looking forward for updates to apps and etc. I can use my Echo for changing my OTA Channels on my Bravia TV, so maybe that will be coming soon for the Cube, along with being able to call up a channel on Directv NOW. Would also like to be able to make a call, like I can with my Echos.

  For a new product with so many features, it is working much better that I expected it to. Almost remote free.

  I can also use my TV Remote if I want to for Fire TV interface functions, or the Fire TV Remote when needing to manage some features, such as needing to use the button with the 3 lines on it, for moving apps around, removing from recent and etc.

  Using Voice, I have no problems with changing inputs, volume, pausing, muting, turning on or off, opening apps, searching, asking for information on weather, skills, etc. I am connected thru ethernet, so I don't know if there are any problems with wifi or not. I would not think so, if you have good wifi.

  It will do some things that are not put into the instructions anywhere. So it takes a little trial and error to figure it out. I'm confident that with updates, things will only get better. To me, it does seem to be more forgiving on how you word instructions to it than the Echos are, and it understands what I say much better than the Echos, even at sitting much farther away with a lot of sound going on.

  Read moreRead less

  3 people found this helpful

  Helpful

  Sending feedback...

  Thank you for your feedback.

  Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again

  Report

  Sending feedback...

  Thanks, we'll investigate in the next few days.

  Sorry, We failed to report this review. Please try again
• 

  Kindle Customer

  2 out of 5 stars

  Won't replace Logitech Harmony and missing a good remote

  Reviewed in the United States on June 26, 2018

  Verified Purchase

  Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

  Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

  ***11/2/2018 update****

  So, I pretty much put this aside until they sent out a replacement remote. The new remote required an update for the firetv, but it operated like it should after that. Looks like Amazon realized this was a mistake and corrected it. That caused them to re-release the product under a different title and reset the reviews on it.

  There is still a lot of work to be done, but the fact that they realized and corrected the remote issue makes me hopeful that this won't just be an abandoned product with no updates. It's amazing how just that minimal change made the product substantially more useful. We don't use a cable box or anything with channels, so this has a high chance to replace the logitech harmony in the bedroom.

  *** 9/1/2018 update ***

  “Alexa play Jack Ryan”

  Seems straight forward, but, without a remote, nothing will start playing.

  **** 7/29/2018 - Update ****

  After using the product for several weeks, I am going to have to lower from 3 stars to 2. The mics on this are not great. Standing next to this fire tv and speaking will have a 20% chance of working with an 80% chance another device >10' away will be the one that responds. It seems to have a slower processor or just more rudimentary code, because it takes a lot longer to start listening again after a command is spoken.

  Beyond that, the recognition is poor. If you are like me and others in the house don't like tech that takes constant babysitting, then you will want to steer clear. My wife tried to turn the tv off for about 15 minutes before just getting up and turning it off. This is normal operations with this TV. This is also annoying because they didn't include a fire tv remote with tv power and volume buttons present. So, when this does fail miserably, you don't have local buttons to perform the work that the voice can't. If you read my full review, you would see that this is something that I believe to be a major failure.

  If you are used to things like being able to look at the Alexa app and selecting that it didn't understand or perform as intended, then you will be disappointed in this product. I have found that it's about 5% of the time where it pops up in the app to allow you the ability to provide feedback. I am assuming this is the rudimentary code that could get better over time, but it's frustrating that it doesn't allow you to help or even let them know there is an issue.

  I would suggest the Logitech Harmony remote, paired with a fire tv, over this device. It will be more expensive, but it will work 99% of the time instead of 20% of the time. There is always a chance that Amazon is going to stick with this device and continue to tweak the code and make it work more efficiently, but I am nervous that they will just discontinue the line and leave it as a partial product.

  **** Original Review - ****

  Long time owner of FireTV's and looking forward to the new FireTV Cube that would let me replace my older FireTV that didn't support DirectTV Now, plus let me move the Echo into another room. Bonus that it would control all the devices like the Logitech Harmony that I have that was controlled by Alexa. Bought one on day 1 that it was pre-released and received it a day before it said released, so cool! It only took me so long to post because Amazon didn't have it marked as released.

  Pro's

  Replaces Echo or Dot, can reply when the TV is off.

  Allows you to turn the TV on or off, change volume, and even change TV inputs with your voice.

  FireTV that can handle 4K.

  Future capability, they are already talking about sleep timer.

  App availability - lots of great show and game options.

  Con's

  The remote - it should have been the remote that comes with the TV & FireTV combos, because the only way you can change the volume or turn off the TV is with your voice or your other remotes.

  App Functionality - There is some sort of hardware change that is causing certain apps to not function. Fox Sports Go will pause every 15 minutes. It works fine on previous versions, so maybe there are 2 versions of the app or maybe they didn't fully test the apps.

  12GB of space - I'm guessing you can add more, but don't have a microUSB - USB hub cable. It may sound like a lot, unless you enjoy You Don't Know Jack games with the Jackbox Party Apps. Those eat space quick!

  Youtube is still glaringly missing - I wish they would kiss and make up with Google.

  No optical audio out.

  Not as smooth as FireTV and Dot separate.

  Review

  Out of the box, super simple installation. Plug it in to power and HDMI and it's up. I plugged in the network adapter that is the same one you can use to add network to the FireTV stick/pendant family. I was using it and had no issues at all. Simple plug and play. ***I have since moved it to a different TV and connected via WiFi, just as easy.*** It went through the welcome script and even let you install some basic apps. It didn't bring up my previously owned apps or let me mirror an existing FireTV, which would have been awesome. It just had a list of apps they want you to have.

  After that, it's just a FireTV. If you have a 4K TV and the app supports it, then the show can be 4K/UltraHD. Otherwise, it appears to upscale it because I don't see my TV adjusting to a new resolution. I haven't done any tests on this, just going with my gut. I haven't played around a ton, but it appears to be about identical to the previous version in terms of how it feels using it.

  I set it up to manage my equipment. I have a Vizio S4251w Soundbar that operates as a low-scale receiver in that it can change between a couple sound inputs. The FireTV doesn't support that, but it can turn the Soundbar on/off and change the volume. I didn't realize it, at first, but the volume change amount can be tweaked. It was changing it from too soft to too loud, but there was an option for just right. You just have to dig around a little bit. I wish it had the ability to change inputs, but that is not how it works. I would have loved to have the FireTV turn the soundbar to bluetooth and connect via bluetooth when the TV is off. That way I could listen to music without the TV on. Who knows, maybe that will be a future enhancement.

  When I started using it I noticed the big issue immediately, it helped that I didn't know about changing the volume up/down amount. It either defaults to 4 or mine just did, but that means saying volume up was equivalent to pressing volume up 4 times. That's a huge change on my soundbar and it almost woke my pregnant wife! Luckily, I caught it in time, but I had to say volume down instead of just hitting the volume button. That's because this fancy beast didn't come with a remote that included TV power, volume, source, or any of those buttons. It was a regular FireTV remote...well, regular and with the microphone. Not sure why the remote needs that since the FireTV is a mic. :)

  The remote is a glaring issue that I hope future purchasers won't have to deal with and they will start to put a good one with this. I was hoping it would replace my Logitech Harmony, but the remote just didn't cut it. I ended up moving it back to the bedroom where there is nothing complicated at all and it handles it quite well so far. Except that I can't turn it off without the TV remote or talking. If you just have TV and a soundbar, then this can cover it. If you have a more elaborate setup, then I'd probably suggest a different FireTV and the Logitech Harmony remote that works with Alexa.

  If you have a dot or echo and you have a FireTV, then you have probably hooked them up together through the app. This allows you to open certain apps/shows, go to the home screen, pause, play, and fast forward/rewind. If you have a FireTV Cube, then you can do these same things, but every time it hears Alexa, the screen pauses, turns darkish, and adds a little wave at the top to show it's listening. This means turning the volume up and down, which you can't do from the Amazon provided remote, causes the show to pause. It doesn't seem like much, but every time a commercial or whatever says Alexa, get ready for your show to pause. The functional aspect is substantially better when the devices are separated.

  It's not the worst, though. I like things to work together and be easy. I love tech and my wife hates it. So, the little things like that...well, I understand the why they decided that was the way to go even if I don't agree with it. But, she just finds it annoying and distracting. Given the options that exist, I wouldn't think anyone was crazy for going with the pendant. The pendant doesn't come with that network adapter, though. So, if you want hard wired Ethernet, then it will be a tougher choice if you are going based on cost.

  Read moreRead less

  2 people found this helpful

  Helpful

  Sending feedback...

  Thank you for your feedback.

  Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again

  Report

  Sending feedback...

  Thanks, we'll investigate in the next few days.

  Sorry, We failed to report this review. Please try again
• 

  Gerard

  5 out of 5 stars

  Excellent voice controlled media player

  Reviewed in the United States on June 25, 2018

  Verified Purchase

  Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

  Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

  What Is the Amazon Fire Cube? It is basically a voice-enabled Roku-type streaming device tightly integrated with the Amazon Echo ecosphere. It does not have as many subscriptions/apps as the Roku, but it does include the mainstreaming apps of Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hulu, HBO Go and Now in some kind of YouTube app. Its ability to go from all devices off to playing, for example, the Amazon prime series “Bosch” where you left off in less than 5 seconds is pretty amazing. I installed it and signed it up to my Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hulu, and HBO Go in about 30 minutes. Make sure you have all your passwords and devices for your remotes ready at hand. The Fire Cube will walk you through the entire set up. I found that part to be pretty slick. The Fire Cube identified both my AVR and my LG HDTV. It also identified my DirecTV.

  What Has Been My Experience I connected it to my Denon AVR, LG OLED TV, and DirecTV Genie set top box. When I say connect I mean just identify those devices in the setup process it the only wise you have to connect our power to the Fire Cube, HDMI out from the Fire Cube and into your AVR or available HDTV HDMI input, included power supply, and included many USB 2 ethernet dongle. Having to use this dongle is very janky. I assume that the next version of the Fire Cube will have ethernet built in. I don’t like using wireless for 4K HDR video, which the Fire Cube can handle. Even though the only one awake word for the Fire Cube is “Alexa” and my Alexa Dot were 12 inches from each other, there is a setting that the Fire Cube defaults to to give preference to the Fire Cube. My Dot never made a peep during the setup process. Doing set up there is an option to “Show Tips” which I left on. These tips will basically guide you through how to use the voice command features of the Fire Cube. Generally, the default mode is to search the streaming services for a show that matches what you say. Navigation through the pages, seasons and episodes and movie offerings of your streaming services is very straightforward. Netflix and Amazon Prime have been implemented very smoothly. Hulu, not so much. I am going to assume updates will smooth out some of the rough edges. As someone who bought this solely for its ability to completely voice operate my HDTV experience, so far I am extremely satisfied. It is much better than my Logitech Hub/Alexa skill combination I had previously been using.

  Additional Features. Almost anything you can say with ordinary Medical devices is supported by the Fire Cube. Except, nearly everything will have some on-screen equipment. So, e.g., when you asked the weather it will give you the ordinary audio output and put up a 7 day forecast on the screen. When you listen to sporophyte report album art and names of the artist and title on the screen. When you say “what can I say?” You will hear audio as well as a scrolling list of things that you can say. I have only had the Fire Cube for less than a day so this list is by no means exhaustive. You will basically find out by trial and error.

  Cons. One feature I wish that Amazon would implement on the Fire Cube is a way to navigate just like you would do with the included remote for left, right, up, down, and select. Now, none of these commands are implemented. So, for example, the HPO Go page is accessible by voice and then you must use the physical remote to navigate around the page and choose anything. Also, the DirecTV implementation is fairly primitive allowing you to adjust the volume and channels by name and maybe pause and resume. I hope this gets better.

  The Fire Cube gets a solid 5 out of 5 and is highly recommended for those of you who want a comprehensive voice-enabled TV watching solution. The Fire Cube seems to be technically advanced with 16 GB of memory with about 4 GB taken up by the OS. Everything seems to work quickly and smoothly. With all the devices off I can say something like “Start Bosch” and all the devices will come on, the correct inputs and outputs will be selected, and Bosch will resume where you left off in between 5 and 10 seconds. Definitely less than 10 seconds. It will do this for basically any Amazon Prime and Netflix show. I’ve spent a fair amount of time digging into the advanced settings and set up procedure. If you have any questions, make them in the comments.

  CONS

  NO DOLBY VISION — somehow it turns it into HDR for the one Netflix show I checked, "The OA." (The LG native Netflix app versus the Fire Cube Netflix app. Moreover, when I "searched" for "The OA" the Fire Cube clearly showed that it recognized my my request correctly, but returned something like "This Title Cannot Be Found Anywhere." Weird, because it showed up in my "now watching" list in the Fire Cube Netflix app.

  My homepage has two great big Netflix boxes. I don't know what that duplication is for.

  It hangs and just shows a black screen occasionally.

  Read moreRead less

  2 people found this helpful

  Helpful

  Sending feedback...

  Thank you for your feedback.

  Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again

  Report

  Sending feedback...

  Thanks, we'll investigate in the next few days.

  Sorry, We failed to report this review. Please try again