Amazon announces Fire TV Cube with hands-free voice control

Amazon has announced the Fire TV Cube, a new product in its series of media players that is controlled entirely by voice.

The Fire TV Cube is built almost like an Echo, which means it includes eight far-field microphones so you can talk to it directly without needing a remote and it can hear you even over the sound of the television. You can tell it to turn on the television or just directly tell it to play your favorite content. It can turn on the television automatically over HDMI-CEC and then automatically navigate itself to the particular content, even if it is within a non-Amazon app, such as Netflix or Hulu, as long as the app integrates with Alexa.

But the FireTV Cube goes beyond online streaming. It even integrates with your cable TV box from leading providers such as Comcast, DISH and DIRECTV. The box itself includes IR blasters on all four sides that can control any IR controlled device in the room. You can tell Alexa to play channel 31 and it will do it for you.

Apart from that, the Cube works both as a Fire TV and as an Echo device. It can stream in 4K HDR with Dolby Atmos from all the leading streaming services (except YouTube, that is), just like any other Fire TV. And it also works like an Echo, answering your queries and controlling smart home devices in your house. Because it's connected to a television and maybe even a good speaker system, it can show that information on the big screen and you can hear it on the speakers, making it the best Echo device, ever.

The Fire TV Cube is now available for pre-order in the U.S. for $119.99 and ships with an IR extender cable and Ethernet adapter starting June 21. As an introductory offer, Prime members can pre-order Fire TV Cube on June 7 and 8 for a special price of $89.99. Plus, for a limited time, customers can pre-order Fire TV Cube and the recently announced Amazon Cloud Cam together for $199.98. Customers who purchase and register their Fire TV Cube by July 1, will also receive a $10 credit for Prime Video. And starting on June 21, Fire TV devices are eligible for access to Amazon Music starting at just $3.99/month.

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