Fire TV Cube with Alexa Voice Remote Pro

4/1/24 - Amazon Fire TV Cube, Hands-free streaming device with Alexa, Wi-Fi 6E, 4K Ultra HD I've owned several different platforms for digital TV, including the old NVidia boxes. Technically speaking the NVidia boxes were exceptional with great, extensive flexibility, but if you want a box to streamline TV viewing without going through searching multiple data sources, upgrading apps and downloading TV shows & movies, Amazon's Fire TV Cube is a great way to do that. Amazon streamlines all of those processes I mentioned so that all you have to do is select the TV show or movie you want to watch, hit Play and it's playing. I still have my NVidia boxes, if I want to tinker, but, in all honesty, ever since I bought my first Fire TV Cube in 2019, they've been gathering dust. I received a FireStick for Christmas a couple of years ago. I used it in the kitchen. Last summer, I was watching "1883" in the living room when dinnertime rolled around. With the FireStick, I was unable to download the App to watch it. So, I decided to buy a new Fire TV Cube so I could put my old cube in the kitchen. That way, I could avoid the limitations of the FireStick. (I could have added added memory to the FireStick, but I figured it would be beneficial to have a 2nd Cube around, just in case one failed.) Going from one Cube to the other was pretty much seamless. There are very minor differences, that you might notice if you look closely. With the Fire Cube, you can buy subscriptions to other TV Sources through Amazon Prime, like MAX (formerly HBO MAX.) or you can subscribe directly with the sources, download their apps and watch TV shows & movies outside of the the Amazon Prime app. Amazon makes he entire process consistent and intuitive. I'm not particularly fond of the hold that big IT sources have on different entities in the IT world, however, Amazon products have been operationally consistent, technically reliable and their prices are very reasonable. If I have issues, I don't hesitate to call their customer service department. Amazon's Customer Service is still exceptional. For the reasons specified, I highly recommend the Fire Tv Cube. From a critical IT perspective, it's one of the best devices on the market for IT-based digital TV.

I have used one for streaming for around 6 months now and just purchased a second Fire TV Cube for another TV. This has replaced an earlier generation Fire TV unit that I often had to power cycle and could be quite slow to respond. The Fire TV cube has worked flawlessly. I power up TV in the morning and it is right there ready to go. I recently switch from cable TV to all YouTube TV (I have gigabit fibre internet) and the picture is great, no delay or picture quality issues. If you take a little time to arrange the channel icons so you frequently accessed ones are conveniently located the ease of use matches a cable box pretty well. Set up is really simple as well.

A perfect partner for modern tvs and soundbars. Easy to install and high quality. Compatible with every brand I have used (Sony, Vizio, Samsung, etc.). Voice recognition is much improved over the older generation and rarely has to buffer. This new gen is way faster than the first generations.

So.. I managed to get all 5 TV's switched to fire TV cube Gen3. The cube itself seems well made and has some nice heft to it. In my home I have the top of the line orbi 6e wifi mesh and therefore I do not require an ethernet connection. At some point I may connect one of these boxes to ethernet but I suspect that will create problems with my echo studio home theatre configurations. The good: Fast and responsive operation. Quick boot up Good mic that detects commands well. Plays all content with some minor issues that I will get to. The ability to include fire tv command in routines is helpful.. although far too limited. I was able to use routines to overcome some of the limitations and oversights in the software. E.g. not having a sufficient list of equipment names to choose from when setting up equipment as I talk about further down. The dissappointing.. Equipment control has a ways to go (key points) 1. Powering on and off your equipment is not usually a problem.. you can use the remote or your voice and say turn on TV.. Alexa fire tv cube turns on all necessary equipment including tv.. soundbar.. receiver etc, and switches devices to the correct input... that is where the good ends.. 2. Try asking fire tv cube to play a song or watch a show while all of you equipment is off.. she will wake up and turn on maybe one of your necessary devices... but leave everything else off making that functionality useless. I have 5 of these cube.. some of them will only turn on the TV.. some the receiver.. and one of them actually turns on both for some inexplicable reason but does not take you to the app or content requested and instead leaves you stuck at the profile window. At least of 4 of my setups I can confirm that when Alexa is asked to play content she can only power on devices that are directly connected with an HDMI cable. Not a huge issue i guess... stupidly you have to issue 2 commands.. Alexa turn on tv followed by Alexa play music by AC/DC.. surely a simple code fix could address this. 3. Gets out of sync.. it will not power on or off a piece of equipment properly.. and then the power state of your entire home theatre setup is out of sync.. you ask alexa to "turn on tv" because your receiver didn't power on with last command and she will turn on your receiver but then shutoff tv.. 4. You are limited to only a handful of names for your equipment that have been pre selected by Amazon developers.. so if you have a pc connected go your home theatre as I do.. you are out of luck.. you will need to give it a name from the limited options on the list of devices. I chose Game Console. This is just dumb and users should be able to choose names for their devices. A pc is a pretty common device to have on the big screen..come on Amazon!! The frustrating but not terribly bad. 1. I have 2 of my fire TV cubes connected each with an echo studio stereo pair with echo sub.. Amazon calls this configurative a "Home Theatre Group". The sound quality is good. Problem is that sometimes you cannot get the sound to work..I believe it is related to using the Home Theater group as the default speaker group for your room..so when I ask for music the music starts playing on the theater group.. however later on when I turn on the TV.. the music stops..but no TV sound comes through the Home theater group.. I have had to reboot.. unplug and replug alexa to get the sound to start working again. 2. When I play his res audio through amazon music to my echo studio group she can only process 16bit 48khz even though music tracks are 24bit 196khz. Amazon says device capability is limited. This is of course stupid as well since the echo studio is supposed to be able to play the highest quality possible. I have spent hours tweaking everything to run as well as possible.. and have even wasted a few hours on the phone with the customer service.. folks if you have rebooted your device.. unplugged and replugged.. performed a factory reset.. there is no point in calling support. They are friendly and professional but of no use beyond very basic troubleshooting. They cannot help you with improperly performing functions beyond the very simple steps mentioned above.. so if those don't resolve your problems to a satisfactory level.. just return the device and move on or wait and hope for a fix in a future software update.