At its finest, Amazon’s Fire TV Cube looks like the longer term.
With this $120 streaming field, which has built-in microphones for Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant, you possibly can launch movies, tune to dwell TV channels, play music, and management your TV’s quantity with out ever touching a distant management. Of course, a daily distant continues to be included, however saying “Alexa, tune to ESPN” is commonly quicker and simpler than thumbing round with on-screen menus.
Even so, the second-generation Fire TV Cube’s futuristic enchantment is marred by some present-day limitations, together with second-rate search capabilities, apps that don’t absolutely help voice instructions, and Alexa’s occasional tendency to get up when she’s not speculated to. Besides, if you happen to’re uneasy about placing an Amazon listening system in your lounge, you most likely gained’t care concerning the magical voice-control moments it permits.
The new Fire TV Cube does have another perks past voice management, together with quicker efficiency than any Fire TV system thus far, nevertheless it’s additionally a lot pricier than the $50 Fire TV 4K, which is sufficiently quick already and helps all the identical 4K HDR and encompass sound codecs. The Fire TV Cube is barely price the additional cash if you happen to’ve purchased into Amazon’s imaginative and prescient of a voice-controlled lounge.
Alexa’s ups and downs
Like the original Fire TV Cube from mid-2018, the brand new model is a plastic streaming TV field that measures about 3.4 cubic inches and has an array of far-field microphones inbuilt. When you say “Alexa,” a lightweight strip on the entrance of the field turns blue, signaling that it’s listening for a voice command.
The Fire TV Cube residence display screen nudges you to attempt some voice instructions.
From there, Alexa can launch apps, pause movies, and management TV features corresponding to quantity and energy by means of the Cube’s built-in IR emitters. You can even use the Cube like an Amazon Echo speaker to play music, hear the climate forecast, verify sports activities scores, lookup TV listings, and so forth. The Fire TV Cube can management good residence units by means of Alexa as nicely, and it could actually present dwell feeds from supported safety cameras.
With sure streaming apps, Alexa goes even additional. You can load particular films and reveals by identify in apps like Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO Now, and Hulu, and you’ll launch dwell TV channels by means of PlayStation Vue, Hulu with Live TV, and Philo. With an Amazon Fire TV Recast DVR, Alexa may even tune to over-the-air channels and play your recordings.
Jared Newman / IDGThe Fire TV Cube places solutions to Alexa questions on the large display screen. (In the case of sports activities scores, it even asks if you wish to watch highlights afterwards.)
Using Alexa with these built-in apps is incredible, particularly for fast live-TV channel adjustments and quantity changes. And in case your TV is attached to a good soundbar or A/V system, the Fire TV Cube turns into a good way to play music. You may even make the Fire TV Cube a part of a multi-room audio group within the Alexa app, so your TV performs music in sync with different Alexa units round the home.
Still, not all apps provide full Alexa integration, so you possibly can’t all the time launch content material straight, or quick ahead and rewind by voice. Amazon doesn’t publish an entire record of apps that absolutely help Alexa both, so that you’ll must carry out some irritating trial-and-error exams to find what works.
Jared Newman / IDGNavigating with Alexa voice management assigns a quantity to every row, so you possibly can say “Alexa, select eight.”
This was an issue with the unique Fire TV Cube as nicely, however Amazon now gives a workaround: By saying issues like “Alexa, go left” or “Alexa, select,” you possibly can simulate the distant management and navigate by means of apps that don’t help voice instructions natively. Aside from being a good fallback for when different voice instructions fail, this may very well be a game-changing function for customers with motor impairments.
A word about privateness
The fundamental caveat with the Fire TV Cube is that it requires you to place always-listening microphones in your lounge. To be clear, Amazon doesn’t gather a report of all the pieces you say—like different Alexa units, the Cube makes use of an offline course of to hear particularly for “Alexa,” and solely sends audio to Amazon’s servers when it hears that wake phrase—however the idea can nonetheless be unnerving.
It doesn’t assist that Alexa’s default settings enable people to evaluation voice recordings for accuracy and retailer these recordings in perpetuity. Amazon places the burden on customers to alter these settings, and gives no choice to auto-delete recordings instantly. And as a result of the Fire TV Cube often mishears “Alexa” amongst background chatter, it could actually typically report audio when it shouldn’t. While you possibly can all the time disable Alexa by urgent a button on high of the Fire TV Cube, doing so on a everlasting foundation undercuts the principle cause for having this system within the first place.
Jared Newman / IDGPress the microphone-off button, and it’ll flip pink to point out that Alexa’s not listening.
Bringing speedy again
Alexa apart, the Fire TV Cube does have the benefit of being a particularly speedy streaming field by Amazon’s requirements. With a six-core processor, it’s the quickest system Amazon has launched for the reason that second-generation Fire TV field, which got here out in 2015.
The fundamental function of that additional oomph is to take sure voice instructions offline, so you possibly can navigate by means of the Fire TV’s menus quicker. But as a aspect profit, it additionally improves app loading instances. In my exams, Playstation Vue loaded in 9 seconds on the Fire TV Cube, versus 16 seconds on the Fire TV Stick 4K. The Cube additionally loaded Sling TV three seconds quicker and Pluto TV six seconds quicker, and it appeared to load Netflix immediately, versus a 15-second load time on the Fire TV Stick 4K.
The Fire TV Cube additionally has 2GB of RAM, up from 1.5GB on the Fire TV Stick. In observe, this implies you possibly can swap between 4 or 5 latest apps with no need to reload them from scratch, versus two or three latest apps on the Fire TV Stick 4K.
Beyond enhancing uncooked efficiency, although, the Fire TV Cube’s additional energy doesn’t translate to further non-Alexa options, which is form of a disgrace. There’s nonetheless no quick app-switching menu such as you get on the Apple TV 4K or Nvidia Shield TV, and I’ve but to come across any apps that provide split-screen viewing, akin to PlayStation Vue’s multi-view mode on Apple TV and PlayStation 4.
On the plus aspect, the Fire TV Cube helps 4K HDR video in HDR10, HDR10+, Dolby Vision, and HLG codecs, similar to the Fire TV Stick 4K. That’s a broader vary of HDR help than some other platform, and it helps Dolby Atmos in apps like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video as nicely.
Still a Fire TV at coronary heart
When you’re not utilizing Alexa to get round, the Fire TV Cube behaves similar to Amazon’s different streamers. The high of the house display screen lists latest apps and content material, adopted by a customizable row to your favourite apps. Beyond that lies a sprawl of content material suggestion rows, largely from Amazon’s Prime Video and IMDb TV companies, however with a sprinkling of different video sources all through.
Jared Newman / IDGRecommendations abound on the Fire TV Cube residence display screen.
As earlier than, I nonetheless consider this structure is just too disorganized and overwhelming. There’s no solution to disguise or rearrange the house screens’ suggestion rows, regardless that some are redundant (as with separate rows for “IMDb TV Free Movies and TV” and “IMDB TV Free Movies and TV – Most Popular”) or irrelevant (as with a row of apps for cable TV networks that I don’t watch or pay for). And as a result of a number of of those rows are sponsored or tied to Amazon’s a la carte rental retailer, the house display screen can usually really feel like one huge upsell. I can also’t determine why Netflix doesn’t present a suggestions row on the Fire TV Cube, regardless that it’s out there on different Fire TV units.
And but, all that residence display screen content material does make discovering issues to look at simpler. Instead of leaping out and in of apps, or defaulting to Netflix, you possibly can scroll across the Fire TV’s menus till one thing strikes your fancy. Amazon additionally gives a useful “Live” menu that reveals you what’s on throughout a number of streaming companies, together with PlayStation Vue, Philo, and Pluto TV. The Fire TV interface is so near greatness. Amazon simply must belief its customers extra and provides them some management.
Jared Newman / IDGThe Fire TV Cube’s “Live” part helps you to rapidly soar into dwell programming in your apps.
Amazon’s search capabilities might nonetheless be higher as nicely. While the Fire TV is nice at monitoring down particular films or reveals and telling you the place to look at them, it continues to be clueless with style searches. Looking for “classic Japanese films,” as an illustration, returned The Final Countdown (with Kirk Douglas and Martin Sheen) and The Godfather amongst its high outcomes, whereas “70s sci-fi movies” yielded exactly zero films from the 70s. Apple TV and Google’s Android TV dont’ have this drawback.
Jared Newman / IDGAh, who might neglect that Japanese basic, The Godfather?
Why do the Cube?
The Fire TV Cube isn’t the one Amazon streamer that helps hands-free voice management. With some other Fire TV system, you possibly can pair an exterior Alexa speaker corresponding to an Amazon Echo, and use lots of the identical voice instructions.
Still, the Fire TV Cube advantages from being optimized for TV management. When you say “Alexa,” it lowers the TV quantity to hear for voice instructions, and it could actually swap inputs or flip off the TV utilizing its built-in IR emitters. Its residence display screen and menu objects are additionally listed numerically, so you possibly can navigate by saying issues like “Alexa, select two,” and it’s the one Fire TV system that may simulate remote-control button presses.
The unique Fire TV Cube was too compromised in different areas, with sluggish efficiency, restricted HDR format help, and a distant that lacked TV quantity and energy buttons. The second-generation mannequin fixes all these flaws whereas additional refining Alexa’s capabilities. In different phrases, it truly delivers the leisure middle of the longer term that the unique model solely hinted at.
You simply must be comfy letting Amazon and its always-listening microphones run the present.