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Post by novisnick on Jul 29, 2017 17:12:34 GMT -5
Get a Harmony Hub and Alexa will turn your system on and off and to the right inputs. Only took me a week to get the hub connected to my Wi-Fi network and get it to work with Alexa but now it is neat to just say Alexa turn on the TV or Watch a Movie etc. Yep, my system is the same. Purchased the hub with remote from Best Buy while its on sale. Very nice discount. |
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Post by tasdom on Jul 30, 2017 11:46:35 GMT -5
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Post by knucklehead on Jul 30, 2017 12:14:45 GMT -5
I have 2 Amazon devices in my home. The Fire TV in the living room which I use to stream from Sony Playstation's Vue for some of my TV. It has a decently working voice recognition setup. The Fire Stick TV in the bedroom is also voice recognition - well supposedly since I've never gotten it to do anything I ask it. I got so frustrated one day when I tried using the voice remote that I told it to F-off. I got my very first response EVER from this nearly useless feature! It told me "that's not a very nice thing to say!" Or something very close to that. The Fire TV is the one you want if you're looking into buying a fire tv/stick. The Fire TV is light years faster than the clunky (and possibly nearly deaf) Fire Stick. I would not bother with either version of the Fire Stick - one with voice recognition - and the basic one with no voice recognition. I'll leave the Echo Dots et al to someone else to play with. I do have a wireless remote (comes with two remotes) with 5 on/off remote units that turn wall plugs on and off. I may buy another one of these - very handy. It communicates with the slave units via RF and not IR - the range is excellent. At least 100' with the one I have. That's about as automated as my home will ever get. For now! I have Siri on my iphone. Pretty good voice recognition. I use Siri to get weather reports - which come up on the phone's screen rather than a voice report. I'm sure Siri can do other tasks too - I just don't need that level of automation. |
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Post by garbulky on Aug 4, 2017 22:17:27 GMT -5
I just ordered a first gen Amazon Fire TV. They have just upgraded ALL firetv models to work with the echo dot and other echo devices! A no brainer really.
The idea is "Alexa play orange is the new black on netflix" and it just does it. No buttons pressed.
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Post by garbulky on Aug 6, 2017 17:46:51 GMT -5
After the excitement of the first gen fire tv, I quickly realized all the quirks.
First it kept saying "unable to connect to servers". Then amazon wanted to send me a new unit. After about an hour and a half which included resetting the router, switching from ethernet to wifi, registering, de registering blah blah, we found out the problem was that it needed an update.
But not before it needed another update.
And another update.
Now we are on our fourth update getting pretty irritated.
Edit now on the fifth update. And looks like there'll be at least three more to go. All have to be done manually. About to hurl something across the room!
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Post by tasdom on Aug 6, 2017 18:25:56 GMT -5
Sorry you are having issues. I have a Firetv, Amazon Echo and a Dot. They all have worked flawlessly together and they are also synced with my Harmony Ultimate hub.
Is it the Firetv that you keep updating?
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Post by garbulky on Aug 6, 2017 18:33:05 GMT -5
Sorry you are having issues. I have a Firetv, Amazon Echo and a Dot. They all have worked flawlessly together and they are also synced with my Harmony Ultimate hub. Is it the Firetv that you keep updating? Hey yes. I just got it updated to the latest version. Do you know how to make it work with the echo dot? |
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Post by tasdom on Aug 6, 2017 18:57:23 GMT -5
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Post by garbulky on Aug 6, 2017 19:45:15 GMT -5
Okay it says that the two are linked. But when echo tries to control the fire tv it says it cannot communicate. Now it's been 5 and a half hours on amazon tech support. |
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Post by novisnick on Aug 6, 2017 19:56:21 GMT -5
Okay it says that the two are linked. But when echo tries to control the fire tv it says it cannot communicate. Now it's been 5 and a half hours on amazon tech support. Sounds simple but are they both on the same network? Some routers have more then one ban. I always start simple, Ive gone the other route WAY too many times. |
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Post by garbulky on Aug 6, 2017 19:59:01 GMT -5
Okay it says that the two are linked. But when echo tries to control the fire tv it says it cannot communicate. Now it's been 5 and a half hours on amazon tech support. Sounds simple but are they both on the same network? Some routers have more then one ban. I always start simple, Ive gone the other route WAY too many times. Well it's on the same wifi. And my phone can see both devices and it says they are linked to each other. And the echo dot knows it. But it says trouble communicating. I don't know anything about different bands. |
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Post by tasdom on Aug 6, 2017 20:04:14 GMT -5
Say the command " Alexa sync devices" This will start discovery and find all devices.
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Post by novisnick on Aug 6, 2017 21:15:19 GMT -5
Sounds simple but are they both on the same network? Some routers have more then one ban. I always start simple, Ive gone the other route WAY too many times. Well it's on the same wifi. And my phone can see both devices and it says they are linked to each other. And the echo dot knows it. But it says trouble communicating. I don't know anything about different bands. My Harmony remote works with the echo and I had to set both apps up to comunicate with each other. |
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Post by garbulky on Aug 7, 2017 7:48:37 GMT -5
After seven and a half hours with amazon customer support, they were out of ideas. We do know my amazon fire tablet controls the fire tv no problem. But the echo says it can't communicate. They sent me a long apology email and said they would follow up in two days. I've also updated the firmware in my router to the most recent in case that was the issue as well.
The fire tv isn't quite as startlingly good in picture quality as my sony blu ray player and it doesn't seem to have 24 hz frame identical output. The picture quality though is still quite good. However its alexa voice remote and everything else is very speedy and impressive.
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Post by garbulky on Aug 8, 2017 21:15:08 GMT -5
Just an update the echo dot and the fire tv are working! It just started working for no good reason. Only thing I know is that nothing I did in the last 7 and a half hours of tech support had anything to do with it! Initial impressions of the Fire TV I was wrong about the "poor"video quality. The reason it looked inferior was because video scaling was enabled because I hadn't set my TV for bit by bit output. And truthfully it didn't look great. Kind of cheap. After bit perfect was enabled on my tv and the scaling was disabled on the fire tv the video quality is very nice imo. Only thing is it is 60 hz so the slight motion jerk every once in a while is there. Apparently there is a way to enable 24 hz using a hidden menu which I haven't had a chance to do so. But I really can't complain. The video quality is good. UI and remote: The Fire tv remote is EXCELLENT. Best remote i have used so far. It feels VERY good in your hand. The voice funciton is the real stsar. It does everything making controlling it seamlessly. I was surfing through youtube videos playing my favorite music very quickly by just saying it. Playing videos on amazon video, netflix and hulu was also very fast with the voice remote. Simply say the show and it searches everything and brings it up. The apps switch VERY fast. Maybe in 3 seconds. It's really hard to not LOVE the interface. The echo integration is a great and also so-so at the same time. The feature was just introduced last week so it's understandable. But it will open apps. Search for movies. And more importantly activate the stop and play buttons on the fire tv. So no need to pickup the remote for playing and pausing. However....it's not as seeamless with really exploring the power of the fire tv with the fire tv voice remote. Integration can only get better from here. But it does the basics fine. But things like searching youtube simply went better with the fire tv remote. So my next plan is to get a second voice remote for my wife. This voice controlled smart house is quickly becoming a reality.   |
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Post by garbulky on Aug 12, 2017 21:19:11 GMT -5
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Post by garbulky on Aug 14, 2017 14:42:07 GMT -5
Still in love with the echo dot. Voice controlled home automation done in a simple manner is extremely appealing.
I just purchased a TP link alexa controlled smart bulb. Yes this ridiculous thing has a wifi router in its bulb. It works great.
It's inevitable that my entire home is going to be soon controlled by voice. It's just too easy. I can't believe I paid $30 for the device to do all this.
In other news, I found the most hilarious thing - a smart light bulb with a bluetooth speaker in it. $18
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Post by garbulky on Aug 30, 2017 21:48:54 GMT -5
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Post by garbulky on Nov 27, 2017 18:39:11 GMT -5
I got some more amazon smart home devices for Alexa. I hope to update when I get a better impression. So far I'm very impressed.
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Post by rbk123 on Dec 18, 2017 14:12:16 GMT -5
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