Ausdroid Reviews: Amazon Fire TV Cube 4K – Turn your dumb TV into a smarter TV

Amazon a short while ago introduced a new slate of Alexa-enabled products alongside a new fireTV streaming device that brings together it with an Alexa speaker to make the unit, even far more, person pleasant and smarter.

As someone who has fairly a couple Alexa units about the residence for our IoT or connected intelligent products such as lights, kettle and far more, I was intrigued in how this combination of an Alexa Speaker with a Fire Tv device would work. Thinking of I have in no way employed or owned a Hearth Television set dongle nor ever made use of one, I was enthusiastic to see what it features.

What’s in the Box?

In the box, you get the Fire Television Cube, remote with x2 AAA batteries, Handbook and important information and facts booklets and wall charger with PIN socket.

Sadly you do not get an HDMI Cable, so except you have a spare one particular close to, you might want to buy 1 at the identical time you buy the Hearth Tv Dice to steer clear of disappointment when you get to location up your new toy.

The style

The Amazon Hearth Television Dice is produced from a polymer plastic which you largely feel at the top rated, bottom and rear of the product, whilst the front and sides offer a mesh sort of fabric where the speakers are.

The leading of the Fireplace Television set Cube has 4 round buttons which present the next features:

• Remaining hand button – Mic On/Off
• Appropriate hand button – Motion button
• Top rated button – Quantity up
• Base button – Quantity down

There is a LED Mild strip that illuminates the front just higher than the mesh speaker to point out you have activated the Alexa speaker. Speaking about the speaker, there is a 1.6-inch (40 mm) speaker to interact with Alexa, even when the Tv is off.

The base is manufactured of a rubberised product to be certain that your Fireplace Television set Cube does not unintentionally get knocked or slide off your entertainment device significantly useful if you have destructive pets like the 4 cats we have, which are likely to knock every thing more than.

The back of the Hearth Television set Cube will come with an HDMI in and a single HDMI out port together with an IR extender, a USB A port, an Ethernet Port and a single electric power port which sadly utilizes the more mature fashion energy dice wall charger. This is not a dilemma if you really don’t have other goods in the other wall charger port or are prepared to get a powerboard with larger sized spacing to enable for these. I experienced a spare electric power board I could plug this into, so I didn’t have difficulties.

Front of Fire Tv Cube

Best showing buttons

Rear demonstrating 2 HDMI ports, USB A port, electrical power and audio ports along with ethernet port

LED front gentle

Additionally, the Hearth Television Cube comes with Dolby Atmos, 7.1 encompass sound, 2ch stereo along with Wi-Fi 6e tri-band connectivity together with an octa-main processor, 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage which is more than the present High definition and 4K versions of the Chromecast with Google Tv streaming units that Google have in the current market so this to me is a reward.

Amazon has advertised the Fire Tv Dice as 4K, on the other hand as we only have 1 Tv set that presently experienced Android Tv set on it, the critique for the Hearth Tv Dice was carried out on a “dumb” High definition Television. I have to say the viewing was not impacted, in actuality, the Hearth Television set Dice manufactured our dumb Television very clever and improved that expertise.

As element of set-up, you can get the Hearth Television Dice to be able to switch on and off your dumb Television, as pointed out building it smarter, along with also acquiring it to transform up and down the quantity. You can also link a Bluetooth-enabled audio process or Bluetooth speaker along with selected other Alexa speakers to make it a accurate surround seem system. Having said that, I did have troubles trying to join the Bluetooth speaker that I have for the Tv set the Hearth Tv set is plugged into.

What does it do perfectly?

Getting ready to control our smart property gadgets like Lights, and kettles to even convert on and off the Television or enhance or minimize the volume without the use of the remote via the crafted in Alexa speaker is terrific. Individually whilst I want to use the involved distant, but if the remote at any time does go missing it is a excellent backup and alternate at the very least.

Placing up the Television set controls was a little bit of an difficulty, looking at we have an off brand name Tv in the spare area and it took about an hour or so functioning on how to get Alexa to connect to the Television set. After related it intended I could question Alexa to command the Television set as I’ve presently described.

When it comes to connectivity, owning Wi-Fi 6E (802.11ax) in addition to 2.4 and 5GHz 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, is excellent but in terms of true general performance, I really did not see any sort of difference or improvement compared to other streaming solutions. On a community that has a large amount additional traffic, that variation could turn into much additional evident.

Getting able to connect your Bluetooth speaker or soundbar specifically to the Fire Television set Cube is a excellent element, if it can join that is. I struggled to get the Fireplace Tv set to hook up to our Bluetooth speaker from IKEA, unfortunately it just would not pick it up no make a difference how much I tried out.

On the other hand, the ability to hook up other Alexa enabled speakers this kind of as the New Echo Dot (5th Gen with Clock – evaluation incoming) or other equipment this sort of as The 3rd and 4th gen dot speakers is a great 2nd solution albeit if you only have the Echo Display 5 or Echo present 8 speakers these simply cannot be connected to the Fireplace Tv Dice.

Finally, getting able to include the Fire Tv Dice to your amazon Alexa speaker application and handle and permit it to consider portion in any routines is an additional bonus as you can established up for say when your Tv set will change on or off or get element in any alarms or other automated configurations you have set up, to be able to just take aspect just streamlines the whole approach and make it less difficult to include to a unique room or set up.

What does it not do perfectly?

Obtaining now mentioned the sound problems, I won’t address old ground there, but yet another issue that does will need mentioning is that not like the Chromecast with Google Tv set, which shows on the primary house web page what shows you have final viewed and to just instantly click on into them right from the Home Screen, you need to have to discover the application on the Property Display and simply click into it that way. Unsurprisingly, currently being an Amazon product, most of the demonstrates that are marketed on the property display are Amazon Prime displays.

Ought to you think about shopping for a single?

All in all I have to say there are some definite benefits to obtaining the Fireplace Television set Cube. Clearly a huge edge is currently being ready to turn virtually any “dumb” Tv set into a good-ish Television. Presented you do not mind the countless Amazon Primary Video plugs for its reveals in excess of one thing like Disney+, Netflix etcetera then I can say the Amazon Fire Television Dice will be nicely worth contemplating, especially with the likely submit-Christmas gross sales upcoming.

The Amazon Hearth Television set Cube can be ordered by way of the Amazon Australia internet site for RRP$219.00 — Editors Notice: $159.00 at the time of publishing throughout Cyber Monday specials — which is a little bit on the pricey facet presented the Hearth Television set Adhere 4K Max is only $99 — $49 throughout Cyber Monday — whilst Chromecast with Google Tv set 4K is equally priced at RRP$99.

Comparisons are a very little complicated even though as the inclusion of Alexa Speaker goes a extended way to obtaining this above the line with many end users.