Amazon’s new Fire TV can control your smart home, just like the Echo

By Jenny McGrath Published November 30, 2015

Amazon wants to bring Alexa into another room in your home — the living room. the 4K Fire TV’s voice-activated remote can now help control your smart home.

Lots of people use their Amazon Echo speakers in the kitchen as a hands-free assistant who can convert ounces to cups (or give advice on boiling eggs) just by asking Alexa. But the Bluetooth speaker can do lots more than that, and Amazon has incorporated some of those features into the Fire TV (currently on sale for $75), which is the retailer’s first device besides Echo to get Alexa. You press the voice button on your remote, and Alexa answers through the Fire TV.

Recommended Videos

In addition to playing music from your library or audiobooks from Audible, you can use the Fire TV’s remote to ask the time in Denver, the score of a hockey game, what the weather will be like tomorrow, or to reorder something you’ve previously purchased from Amazon. These features have come to the Echo over the past several months, including smart-home control in April. But while the Echo has had smart-home capability for months, it’s brand new for Fire TV.

Just like the speaker, the Fire TV can now control Philips Hue lights, Wink products, SmartThings devices, and more based on your voice commands. To add more functionality to your smart home, both the Echo and Fire TV also integrate with IFTTT, which lets you make “recipes,” like turning on the lights when the SmartThings hub detects you’ve arrived home or putting a reminder about an upcoming game in your calendar when you ask for a team’s schedule.

“At this time, Alexa is only available on Amazon Fire TV devices running Fire OS software version 5 or higher and Fire TV Stick devices running Fire OS 5.0.3 or higher,” according to Amazon. But that’s likely just the beginning, given that the company opened up an SDK to developers, so they can incorporate Alexa into other connected devices and apps. If you’re imagining a future where you ask your alarm clock the weather while in your bedroom, the Fire TV for last night’s sports scores in the living room, and your Echo for a healthy smoothie recipe in the kitchen, Amazon is likely right there with you.

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Jenny McGrath is a senior writer at Digital Trends covering the intersection of tech and the arts and the environment. Before…

Audio / Video

Amazon Fire TV Omni gets mini-LED backlighting and interactive ambient experiences

Amazon Fire TV Omni Mini-LED Series.

The Amazon-developed Fire TV Omni is now available with mini-LED backlighting, with up to 1,400 nits of peak brightness and up to 960 dimming zones, depending on the screen size. Known as the Fire TV Omni Mini-LED Series, the models also offer Dolby Vision IQ, HDR10+ Adaptive and, for the first time, built-in Dolby Atmos. Amazon is also promising that a future software update will enable a new version of its Ambient Experience that uses onboard sensors to react in real time to movement in the room.

The Fire TV Omni Mini-LED Series are available starting November 14 in four screen sizes: 55-inch ($820), 65-inch ($1,090), 75-inch ($1,500), and 85-inch ($2,100).

Smart Home

This tiny smart puck can control your smart home without the need for mobile apps

The Linxura with four buttons on the screen.

My home is overrun with smart gadgets, and the main way I interact with them is through my smartphone. This is usually a robust way to control my gadgets, as my phone is never far from my side -- whether I need to toggle my smart lights, adjust my air purifier, or change the thermostat, my smartphone lets me tackle most of these tasks in a matter of seconds. However, having a physical button to perform these actions would certainly be preferred. Instead of diving into apps and wading through menus and automations, a physical controller would perform actions at the press of a button, much like a remote works for a TV.

That’s the idea behind the Linxura Smart Controller -- a disc-shaped object that lets you perform a long list of actions at the press of a button. After syncing it with your smart devices, you’ll no longer need your companion mobile apps. Just tap or double-tap its outer ring, and you can toggle hundreds of different products. I’ve been testing it out in my home, and while I think it’s a fun device, it falls short in a few areas. But if you’re craving a physical remote for your smart home, there’s good reason to take a closer look at the innovative gadget.
Simple, but tedious setup

Smart Home

Your Google TV can now control smart home devices

The Home Panel on Google TV Streamer.

In late September, Google announced a new feature for Google TV called the Home Panel that would make it easier to control all of your (compatible) smart home devices from a single location. The feature first appeared on the Google TV Streamer and then later on Chromecast, but it has now rolled out to Google TVs from other companies including Hisense, TCL, and others.

The Home Panel offers a lot of utility. It shows your lights' current brightness level, the volume level of speakers, and even live streams from security cameras. The demo video Google has on its blog shows that the user can even adjust the thermostat. All of this is done through the remote, so you don't even have to get up off the couch.