I didn't put on the remote and then here I can navigate by swiping down here I have a menu and I can see my different Fire TV devices and I could actually see all the apps that I have right here on this Fire TV so if I wanted to open an app right here I can just select it and then it will instantly open it up on the TV. One of the benefits of having the remote on your phone is you can actually search with a keyboard, so instead of saying what you want to search for you would be able to do it all right on here.

Since this remote is pretty basic it does not offer all the functionality you would get if you had like the Harmony Hub. The Harmony Hub is able to control all kinds of smart devices and instead of different scenes and everything all in one, so where this can control a bunch of different devices that you have set up, it's not quite as advanced as a Harmony Hub. I really do want a device where you can control everything in one, so this remote as well as the TV remote just sometimes maybe this won't turn on and off the TV for some reason or the volume isn't working properly, I still would need to have that extra mode pretty nearby.

I cannot completely get rid of it yet. So this almost passes that category for me in the universal remote functionality, so then if I want to use the remote pretty easy press and hold open Hulu open Netflix go home. Now my fifth question I have is does it have the functionality to always be able to pause play or turn off whatever is playing on the TV. Currently with how I have my setup in one of our rooms I'm using a Google Home and I'm using an Android TV device and I can't turn off the Android TV device with the Google Home, so also if we're watching anything on the Android TV device I want to be able to pause and play it from the Google Home at any time but I can't do that.

I would have to pull up the Android TV app on my phone or find the actual remote. Is this able to answer that question? And the answer is yes, at any time anything that is playing from the Fire TV you can just ask it to pause you can activate Alexa and say pause or stop and it will stop whatever is playing which is super nice also you have the remote if you have the remote you can go in and pause or you can actually pull up the Fire TV app and pause it as well. I actually find it pretty interesting with the Prime Video app that when you are watching a Prime Video moving on here, you pull open the Prime Video application and it will show you where you are and you can pause it right there.

Which is pretty cool but it definitely passes in being able to be controlled at any time so I can just activate it pause it or I could just activate it and say turn off the TV and it will turn off the TV because either it's plugged in with the CEC or it can fire out a signal that would turn off the TV. Now one other function that you do have with the remote is because it has Alexa in here, you can control your entire smart home with activating Alexa or using the remote to do that. So if you're about to watch a movie you want to dim the lights all you would need to do is activate this device and you can quickly turn off the lights which is really handy to have and very convenient especially if you're already holding the remote or because Alexa's just right there, you can see it activated or not with the blue light.

So those are my five questions and I would say this gets about four out of five. There's definitely some room for improvement that I like to see but I would say by far it's actually able to hit pretty much all the requests I have for a Smart TV. I wish there were some of those applications available on here and then it would be almost perfect. Of course, Alexa's kind of boring I prefer Google assistant but this definitely can do the job if you guys have any further questions about the Fire TV Cube, let me know in the comments below.

And if you would like to see more tutorials or other videos about this device, let me know and if this is your first time here, I would love to have you subscribe so you can be notified of my new and upcoming videos also make sure you check out the playlist over here on the side where I talk all about devices that work with the Amazon Alexa family. Thanks so much for watching, we'll see you on the next one.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enover the last seven years I have been on a hunt to find the perfect all-in-one home entertainment solution to get rid of the remotes and being able to have ease of access to my entertainment in today's video we find out if the fire TV cube has what it takes to be that device let's get started everybody welcome to tech with Brad where I help tech work for you today I really hope I find out if this is truly the all-in-one device so this is the Amazon fire TV it costs one hundred and nineteen dollars on Amazon and it's essentially three different devices and today I'm going to ask five different questions to see if it can actually do all those things because those are the requirements I have in it the perfect Smart Home Hub streaming media player device so first this device is three different devices and one first it is a Amazon echo so it has Alexa built into it so it can do voice commands all right from the box second it's a fire TV so inside here has all the smarts of a smart TV it outputs in 4k 60 frames per second it's able to do all of that and third it is a universal smart remote so it's able to control multiple devices all from the fire TV cube there's actually some IR blasters here in the front of the device that it sends out a signal and can turn on and off different components and change the volume on your TV it'll also use CEC to be able to control your TV and then it comes with an IR blaster so it can actually control your receiver if it's sitting in a box underneath your entertainment center in the box you also get a a thermit adapter that plugs in via micro USB if you need that as well for a better internet connection onto the first question that I have is is this truly a smart TV device so I've used many different ones in the past and they all missed on a few different areas so the first thing this does output into 4k into your TV so this uses the fire TV system built upon Android but it works actually really well so it's very easy to navigate with the remote and I really like that it has the remote that's one of the most important things and we'll get into that more in a minute but it does output in HDR 10 and then it does have Dolby Atmos support so it's going to give you really good audio if you have a nice audio system now one of the things that it fells in is it does not have Dolby vision which is the superior quality and colors and it is pretty much the industry standard on having the best video output possible now this does have 16 gig of storage which is really nice previously the fire TV only had 8 gig of storage so that's great so you can download lots of different applications as well as you could download games and pair a controller to it and play your games right on this device now getting this set up that is a main part of a smart TV device super easy to do it runs you through everything and with the remote it's very simple to go through the menu now going through you will have to go and download each application that you want to use very simple to do but the app selection is very large now I'm a huge Google Play Movies fan so that is the one application that I'm missing now I have used the movies anywhere application to link my Google Play so that I can actually watch those movies on the fire TV and that app is available but I have a pretty big family that of shared videos so because other people have shared those videos with me I'm not able to watch them on the fire TV because it does not have the Play Movies application so that's one of the downsides but pretty much everything else is there you have Netflix Hulu prime video and that's one of the biggest benefits of this device is prime video is built right in if you are a prime member for the free shipping you have access to all of those prime videos and they are able to be seen on this very easily a lot of the videos are in 4k so they look really nice and one of the other cool things is when you are watching a movie on this you can use what is called x-ray where you can quickly see who is in the scene and who the actors are and learn more about them and learn more about the director that's one of the cool things about this device so here's the actually function at the bottom where you can actually see the different actors so if I swipe up it would then pull up more information about who is in the scene who is in the cast the different characters and music and trivia all right there which is pretty nice to have that but this will only work on the prime video movies that you have on top of all of the applications that are available you can easily subscribe to extra services right from the fire TV cube so if you wanted to use HBO or Showtime or even there was a kid's application that I set up a free trial for it's very simple to do right within the fire TV system so you could add all kinds of channels so you would have access to lots of video without having to even have cable you would have lots there you would just need to have that subscription but everything else as long as you have a subscription like to Netflix you would be able to watch that or if you purchased any movies on Prime video you would be able to see those as well so if you do have a cable subscription you would be able to sign in and watch many of these channels without having to actually subscribe to them now the last part about the Smart TV I want to talk about is it's missing one very important application which is YouTube so recently YouTube pulled the application from the fire TV and so you are not able to watch the HD quality now with the silk browser or the Firefox browser you can pull up YouTube and it is the full TV experience so navigating through the applications with remotes very easy to do but it is limited it's not able to do like full HD or 4k it's just 1080p and I did experience some issues there as a huge YouTube fan that is an issue I'd like that you can actually watch videos like if I couldn't that might be a deal breaker with that being said I do like how that if you go to the YouTube app on your phone and you cast something the fire TV cube does show up as an option so you're able to instantly play YouTube right from your phone to the fire TV cube without having to try and use the remote to find it it worked very seamlessly doing it this way and then you also have the pause and play options and then you can activate a le XA and you can pause it as well and with the silk browser you can actually browse all kinds of different websites you could pull up Facebook and everything right there on your TV and see it in the big screen which would be handy to have but there are also tons of other applications to play music and everything right on the TV with remote now on to the second question is is this a true universal remote experience so built into this like I mentioned before are the IR blasters so if this is sitting near your TV even if your TV's are not smart would it be able to turn it on it yes it should be able to do that and it should be able to change the volume so when you change the volume it will change it five at a time and you can change the increments I think up to 10 so if I ask the Alexa on here to up the volume it would quickly go up five now I really do like how it has this IR blaster included so is what this does you plug this into the back of the device and this essentially is set right next to a receiver or another device that may be hidden in a cabinet and the fire TV could actually control that device without being able to see it or without you putting a remote and changing that so if I had a receiver in here I could put this by the receiver when I would ask the fire TV to change the volume it would adjust the volume receiver or if I have maybe a cable box sitting inside my cabinet I could ask it to turn the cable box on and off and I think change the channel I'm actually not positive on that one it does look like you can change the channel if you are using a cable or a satellite box you just need to say tune to whatever channel you want the number or the channel type but if you are using an antenna like I am today you are not able to change the channel via the fire TV q also the fire TV cube is not compatible with the logitech harmony that I showed in the beginning of this video you can only use the universal remote commands built into the fire TV cube but that's what this will do I'm really happy that it has this I was a huge fan of Google TV in the past it had this functionality it had this awesome remote that could control everything so this is really nice to have now there are a bunch of different devices that you can add to this so I was able to add a media player you could add a blu-ray player or a cable box all kinds of devices like your Xbox so it knows what input to go to that's been one of the biggest problems about Smart TVs is it doesn't really know what input you're on and so you have to find your remote change the input if you want to switch from your blu-ray player to your Smart TV or whatever it is able to know what input you're on and when you set it up it's really nice how it goes through the process it verifies everything works so then I can use commands with Alexa and easily switch between the different inputs which is very handy to have but it is really nice to be able to have all that function in one one other thing I would have liked to see is have a volume button right on the remote so if I want to change the volume I either need to find my actual remote or I need to activate the voice assistant in here but then it pauses what I'm watching changes the volume and then it unpause it so if this remote had the volume that would have been super handy to have Alexa switch to media player okay so that command went right to my chromecast so if you had any other media player it would do that you can also set up Xboxes and all of that you will notice when you are trying to do some home control you'll see the volume in the mute button go off all the time I'm sure it's muting it so it can actually hear what you say but that's kind of interesting how that works Alexa switch to cable okay mute the TV switch to fire TV okay Alexa turn off TV so let me show you in the settings of the fire TV cube here you have the equipment control options so this is where you can add different equipment each you have down here we have managed equipment so if you wanted to add any new devices this is where you would do it here are all the different options you have cable media player blu-ray TV fire TV cube that's actually what I've added but here under the add equipment option you have all these options PlayStation Xbox Apple TV Roku DVD player DVR I wonder why there's no chromecast hmm and then down here under advanced settings this is where you can change like the delay in turning it on so maybe if it's having an issue you could come in here and change that and then if we go under the fire TV cube settings this is the HDMI input it will choose and when you set this all up it will go through and adjust all of that but you could choose all the different inputs that are available on the TV so here under the TV options this is where you could change the volume increments so right now it's going to adjust by volume increments of five here you do have some infrared options so you could change the time delay and all of that here you have power controls so you could have a power on delay and then if you wanted to change to a different TV you can do it there and if you were to add an equipment let's say we want to add a DVD player it just chooses the input and then it will run through the process on if that actually worked now question number three is it ain't easy to use voice controlled experience so I'm a big fan of the Google home and a chromecast and with that there are certain functions that you can do where you can play YouTube on the TV or you can play your Netflix on the TV but there are a few limitations that it has where it does not have a full remote experience and that's one of the big benefits I like about this but how does the voice control actually work so I'm really pressed with how you're able to instantly open applications and it gives you a menu of numbers that you can actually select so you're able to quickly go into whatever video you want to see that is on screen now using the voice assistant I did have some issues where I would say play Daniel tiger and it would pull up a different movie instead of Daniel Tiger's neighborhood so you do need to be specific but it does have a full Alexa built into this so whenever you ask it anything or ask it to play music it will actually pull up a nice big screen of the weather or it will pull up the lyrics to a song and then it will just pull up the search results and all of that right on the TV which is a really nice experience to have on the Smart TV now one of the interesting things is that when you are using this and you want to ask it something and the TV is off if you're going to play anything like music or you want to play a movie or a show it will actually automatically turn on the TV and start playing so the sound comes out of the TV or your TV speakers however you have that set up now with the fire TV cube it does have a speaker built into the bottom so it is able to give you responses without the TV being on but sometimes I was asking it a question and though it was still thinking I was playing it through the TV so I couldn't hear her so I did find out all you need to do is say that I can't hear you and it will actually change to the speaker on the device so here with the speaker down here you are able to get responses from this device without the TV being on but for the most part anytime it's going to play media it will automatically turn on the TV and play media out of it and then it will just use the TV speakers or it will use your sound system that you have set up to your TV Alexa play Paddington - from movies anywhere open Amazon music here's Amazon music Alexa download I like open I'm not quite sure how to help you with that Alexa open Amazon music here's Amazon music Alexa play Paddington - so even though I own this movie on movies anywhere and ended up only playing the trailer of the movie Alexa play the last Jedi Alexa turn up the volume Alexa go home Alexa what's the weather like tomorrow tomorrow in South Jordan there will be mostly sunny weather with a high of 96 degrees and a low of 69 degrees how far away is the moon the moon's distance is 239,000 miles 384,000 kilometers Alexa scroll down Alexa select to Alexis scroll Alexa scroll right Alexa select ten alexxa select Daniel Tiger's neighborhood so there it actually just opened up prime video and played Daniel Tiger's neighborhood I wish inside applications it had the numbering system as well but I'm sure that could be added through the developers over time Alexa play Ice Age skip 30 minutes play ant-man - so here if it can't find the movie it will pull up this menu where you can rent buy or watch trailer and then you could activate and change to this add to watch list so there sometimes you just can't get the command but I do own that movie so it should have played it from movies anywhere but it didn't I like the open prime video what's the weather like tomorrow there will be mostly sunny weather with a high of 96 degrees and a low of 69 degrees playmat carney shuffling songs by matt cardi there you can see it automatically turned on the TV and it's going to start playing music right from here and then it will automatically show the lyrics right on the TV when it's playing from Hamazon music which is pretty cool now if you are wondering what the voice experience is if you already have a fire TV and an echo device you are able to open certain applications and you're able to search and play for movies from certain applications but you are not able to select certain numbers that are on the screen they just don't appear as well as you are not able to change the inputs and have that universal remote functionality and then your responses to the echo will not show up on the TV and movies anywhere any movies anywhere for five TV let's go home I can't do that on farm TV search for the secret life of pets getting the secret life of pets from fire TV play the secret life of pets I can play it on Netflix or prime video which would you like Netflix getting the secret life of pets from Netflix so I'm actually really impressed with the voice control being able to instantly open applications selecting the numbers there are a few limitations that are interesting everyone still say I can't do that or maybe there's a menu and it just won't scroll and I wish it could scroll over or I wish on the very main menu I could just say navigate down and navigate over kind of like using this remote because maybe I can't find my remote that would be a super handy function to have but it can't do that and of course it is new there is some room to improve but that would be something that I highly request other than that you would have to open up an app and then one of the other problems is when I'm asking or searching for a movie it doesn't tell me where that movie is going to play from it most likely defaults to Amazon Prime video but let's say I own a movie on movies anywhere it's not able to search for that I would have to say play a certain movie on movies anywhere and then it would open it up or play this on Netflix I did find one feature though that if you ask it to play something and it finds two sources that are supported so I would say oh this is available on Netflix or prime video and then it asks you to choose which one you want to do that was kind of nice but I wish there were more applications that actually supported that function so yes it does have a full smart assistant built-in I like what it shows on the screen and I was able to actually ask for in a request pretty much everything that I like and one of the big things is it depends on where you have your media so if you have all your videos on iTunes this isn't going to be a really good device because you can't access that stuff easily unless you sync and go through all this process but if you are a huge fan of Amazon and Amazon Prime video this is going to be super simple easy to use I really like that it has all the Daniel Tiger neighborhood episodes so like all of the seasons are available if you have Amazon Prime video where on Google Play I would actually have to go and purchase the seasons to be able to play them now the fourth question I have is does it every mote and can that be controlled and I kind of already answered that but yes it does so having a actual remote is very important on a smart TV so that you can easily navigate through now a few things about this remote is it does have a voice button built in so if I just press it once I can then talk through it without having to activate the Alexa on the fire TV cube and it would work in the same way as this device now it has a enter button up down left right back home menu fast forward pause play and forward again I would love to see a volume up and down on this but it just doesn't have that function but this is really nice also you can download the fire TV application to be able to control your media controller at any time without having to activate by a voice setting up the fire TV remote is very simple your phone just needs to be connected to the same Wi-Fi network you need to have the application open and then on screen it will display a number and you place that into the app and then it will connect to your device and then you are ready to begin using it as a remote and then here on the remote you do have lots of options where you can do the full thing instead of having the actual remote you can go home go back menu mute oh here you can actually change the volume so I think that may have been added recently or I just didn't notice it before but that's nice that it's here on the actual application the fire TV app don't know why I didn't put on the remote and then here I can navigate by swiping down here I have a menu and I can see my different fire TV devices and I could actually see all the apps that I have right here on this fire TV so if I wanted to open an app right here I can just select it and then it will instantly open it up on the TV and that one of the benefits of having the remote on your phone is you can actually search with a keyboard so instead of saying what you want to search for you would be able to do it all right on here since this remote is pretty basic it does not offer all the functionality you would get if you had like the harmony hub the harmony hub is able to control all kinds of smart devices and instead of different scenes and everything all in one so where this can control a bunch of different devices that you have set up it's not quite as advanced as a harmony hub I really do want a device where you can control everything in one I still think I might have to have both of my remotes around so this remote as well as the TV remote just sometimes maybe this won't turn on and off the TV for some reason or the volume isn't working properly I still would need to have that extra mode pretty nearby I can't completely get rid of it yet so this almost passes that category for me in the universal remote functionality so then if I want to use the remote pretty easy press and hold open Hulu open Netflix go home now my fifth question I have is does it have the functionality to always be able to pause play or turn off whatever is playing on the TV so currently with how I have my setup in one of our rooms I'm using a Google home and I'm using a Android TV device and I can't turn off the Android TV device with the Google home so also if we're watching anything on the Android TV device I want to be able to pause and play it from the Google home at any time but I can't do that I would have to pull up the Android TV app on my phone or find the actual remote so is this able to answer that question and the answer is yes at any time anything that is playing from the fire TV you can just ask it to pause you can activate Alexa and say pause or stop and it will stop whatever is playing which is super nice also you have the remote if you have the remote you can go in and pause or you can actually pull up the fire TV app and pause it as well I actually find it pretty interesting with the prime video app that when you are watching a prime video moving on here you pull open the prime video application and it will show you where you are and you can pause it right there which is pretty cool but it definitely passes in being able to be controlled at any time so I can just activate it pause it or I could just activate it and say turn off the T and it will turn off the TV because either it's plugged in with the cec or it can fire out a signal that would turn off the TV now it is recommended that you have this one foot away from your TV or from the speaker's of your TV as well as on the same level as your TV so you shouldn't have it hiding in a cabinet below now one other function that you do have with the remote is because it has Alexa in here you can control your entire smart home with activating Alexa or using the remote to do that so if you're about to watch a movie you want to dim the lights all you would need to do is activate this device and you can quickly turn off the lights which is really handy to have and very convenient especially if you're already holding the remote or because Alexa's just right there you can see it activate you don't have to try and look around to make sure she activated or not with the blue light so there you go those are my five questions and I would say this gets about four out of five there's definitely some room for improvement that I like to see but I would say by far it's actually able to hit pretty much all the requests I have for a Smart TV I wish there were some of those applications available on here and then it would be almost perfect of course Alexa's kind of boring I prefer Google assistant but this definitely can do the job if you guys have any further questions about the fire TV cube let me know in the comments below and if you would like to see more tutorials or other videos about this device let me know and if this is your first time here I would love to have you subscribe so you can be notified of my new and upcoming videos also make sure you check out the playlist over here on the side where I talk all about devices that work with the Amazon Alexa family thanks so much for watching we'll see you on the next oneover the last seven years I have been on a hunt to find the perfect all-in-one home entertainment solution to get rid of the remotes and being able to have ease of access to my entertainment in today's video we find out if the fire TV cube has what it takes to be that device let's get started everybody welcome to tech with Brad where I help tech work for you today I really hope I find out if this is truly the all-in-one device so this is the Amazon fire TV it costs one hundred and nineteen dollars on Amazon and it's essentially three different devices and today I'm going to ask five different questions to see if it can actually do all those things because those are the requirements I have in it the perfect Smart Home Hub streaming media player device so first this device is three different devices and one first it is a Amazon echo so it has Alexa built into it so it can do voice commands all right from the box second it's a fire TV so inside here has all the smarts of a smart TV it outputs in 4k 60 frames per second it's able to do all of that and third it is a universal smart remote so it's able to control multiple devices all from the fire TV cube there's actually some IR blasters here in the front of the device that it sends out a signal and can turn on and off different components and change the volume on your TV it'll also use CEC to be able to control your TV and then it comes with an IR blaster so it can actually control your receiver if it's sitting in a box underneath your entertainment center in the box you also get a a thermit adapter that plugs in via micro USB if you need that as well for a better internet connection onto the first question that I have is is this truly a smart TV device so I've used many different ones in the past and they all missed on a few different areas so the first thing this does output into 4k into your TV so this uses the fire TV system built upon Android but it works actually really well so it's very easy to navigate with the remote and I really like that it has the remote that's one of the most important things and we'll get into that more in a minute but it does output in HDR 10 and then it does have Dolby Atmos support so it's going to give you really good audio if you have a nice audio system now one of the things that it fells in is it does not have Dolby vision which is the superior quality and colors and it is pretty much the industry standard on having the best video output possible now this does have 16 gig of storage which is really nice previously the fire TV only had 8 gig of storage so that's great so you can download lots of different applications as well as you could download games and pair a controller to it and play your games right on this device now getting this set up that is a main part of a smart TV device super easy to do it runs you through everything and with the remote it's very simple to go through the menu now going through you will have to go and download each application that you want to use very simple to do but the app selection is very large now I'm a huge Google Play Movies fan so that is the one application that I'm missing now I have used the movies anywhere application to link my Google Play so that I can actually watch those movies on the fire TV and that app is available but I have a pretty big family that of shared videos so because other people have shared those videos with me I'm not able to watch them on the fire TV because it does not have the Play Movies application so that's one of the downsides but pretty much everything else is there you have Netflix Hulu prime video and that's one of the biggest benefits of this device is prime video is built right in if you are a prime member for the free shipping you have access to all of those prime videos and they are able to be seen on this very easily a lot of the videos are in 4k so they look really nice and one of the other cool things is when you are watching a movie on this you can use what is called x-ray where you can quickly see who is in the scene and who the actors are and learn more about them and learn more about the director that's one of the cool things about this device so here's the actually function at the bottom where you can actually see the different actors so if I swipe up it would then pull up more information about who is in the scene who is in the cast the different characters and music and trivia all right there which is pretty nice to have that but this will only work on the prime video movies that you have on top of all of the applications that are available you can easily subscribe to extra services right from the fire TV cube so if you wanted to use HBO or Showtime or even there was a kid's application that I set up a free trial for it's very simple to do right within the fire TV system so you could add all kinds of channels so you would have access to lots of video without having to even have cable you would have lots there you would just need to have that subscription but everything else as long as you have a subscription like to Netflix you would be able to watch that or if you purchased any movies on Prime video you would be able to see those as well so if you do have a cable subscription you would be able to sign in and watch many of these channels without having to actually subscribe to them now the last part about the Smart TV I want to talk about is it's missing one very important application which is YouTube so recently YouTube pulled the application from the fire TV and so you are not able to watch the HD quality now with the silk browser or the Firefox browser you can pull up YouTube and it is the full TV experience so navigating through the applications with remotes very easy to do but it is limited it's not able to do like full HD or 4k it's just 1080p and I did experience some issues there as a huge YouTube fan that is an issue I'd like that you can actually watch videos like if I couldn't that might be a deal breaker with that being said I do like how that if you go to the YouTube app on your phone and you cast something the fire TV cube does show up as an option so you're able to instantly play YouTube right from your phone to the fire TV cube without having to try and use the remote to find it it worked very seamlessly doing it this way and then you also have the pause and play options and then you can activate a le XA and you can pause it as well and with the silk browser you can actually browse all kinds of different websites you could pull up Facebook and everything right there on your TV and see it in the big screen which would be handy to have but there are also tons of other applications to play music and everything right on the TV with remote now on to the second question is is this a true universal remote experience so built into this like I mentioned before are the IR blasters so if this is sitting near your TV even if your TV's are not smart would it be able to turn it on it yes it should be able to do that and it should be able to change the volume so when you change the volume it will change it five at a time and you can change the increments I think up to 10 so if I ask the Alexa on here to up the volume it would quickly go up five now I really do like how it has this IR blaster included so is what this does you plug this into the back of the device and this essentially is set right next to a receiver or another device that may be hidden in a cabinet and the fire TV could actually control that device without being able to see it or without you putting a remote and changing that so if I had a receiver in here I could put this by the receiver when I would ask the fire TV to change the volume it would adjust the volume receiver or if I have maybe a cable box sitting inside my cabinet I could ask it to turn the cable box on and off and I think change the channel I'm actually not positive on that one it does look like you can change the channel if you are using a cable or a satellite box you just need to say tune to whatever channel you want the number or the channel type but if you are using an antenna like I am today you are not able to change the channel via the fire TV q also the fire TV cube is not compatible with the logitech harmony that I showed in the beginning of this video you can only use the universal remote commands built into the fire TV cube but that's what this will do I'm really happy that it has this I was a huge fan of Google TV in the past it had this functionality it had this awesome remote that could control everything so this is really nice to have now there are a bunch of different devices that you can add to this so I was able to add a media player you could add a blu-ray player or a cable box all kinds of devices like your Xbox so it knows what input to go to that's been one of the biggest problems about Smart TVs is it doesn't really know what input you're on and so you have to find your remote change the input if you want to switch from your blu-ray player to your Smart TV or whatever it is able to know what input you're on and when you set it up it's really nice how it goes through the process it verifies everything works so then I can use commands with Alexa and easily switch between the different inputs which is very handy to have but it is really nice to be able to have all that function in one one other thing I would have liked to see is have a volume button right on the remote so if I want to change the volume I either need to find my actual remote or I need to activate the voice assistant in here but then it pauses what I'm watching changes the volume and then it unpause it so if this remote had the volume that would have been super handy to have Alexa switch to media player okay so that command went right to my chromecast so if you had any other media player it would do that you can also set up Xboxes and all of that you will notice when you are trying to do some home control you'll see the volume in the mute button go off all the time I'm sure it's muting it so it can actually hear what you say but that's kind of interesting how that works Alexa switch to cable okay mute the TV switch to fire TV okay Alexa turn off TV so let me show you in the settings of the fire TV cube here you have the equipment control options so this is where you can add different equipment each you have down here we have managed equipment so if you wanted to add any new devices this is where you would do it here are all the different options you have cable media player blu-ray TV fire TV cube that's actually what I've added but here under the add equipment option you have all these options PlayStation Xbox Apple TV Roku DVD player DVR I wonder why there's no chromecast hmm and then down here under advanced settings this is where you can change like the delay in turning it on so maybe if it's having an issue you could come in here and change that and then if we go under the fire TV cube settings this is the HDMI input it will choose and when you set this all up it will go through and adjust all of that but you could choose all the different inputs that are available on the TV so here under the TV options this is where you could change the volume increments so right now it's going to adjust by volume increments of five here you do have some infrared options so you could change the time delay and all of that here you have power controls so you could have a power on delay and then if you wanted to change to a different TV you can do it there and if you were to add an equipment let's say we want to add a DVD player it just chooses the input and then it will run through the process on if that actually worked now question number three is it ain't easy to use voice controlled experience so I'm a big fan of the Google home and a chromecast and with that there are certain functions that you can do where you can play YouTube on the TV or you can play your Netflix on the TV but there are a few limitations that it has where it does not have a full remote experience and that's one of the big benefits I like about this but how does the voice control actually work so I'm really pressed with how you're able to instantly open applications and it gives you a menu of numbers that you can actually select so you're able to quickly go into whatever video you want to see that is on screen now using the voice assistant I did have some issues where I would say play Daniel tiger and it would pull up a different movie instead of Daniel Tiger's neighborhood so you do need to be specific but it does have a full Alexa built into this so whenever you ask it anything or ask it to play music it will actually pull up a nice big screen of the weather or it will pull up the lyrics to a song and then it will just pull up the search results and all of that right on the TV which is a really nice experience to have on the Smart TV now one of the interesting things is that when you are using this and you want to ask it something and the TV is off if you're going to play anything like music or you want to play a movie or a show it will actually automatically turn on the TV and start playing so the sound comes out of the TV or your TV speakers however you have that set up now with the fire TV cube it does have a speaker built into the bottom so it is able to give you responses without the TV being on but sometimes I was asking it a question and though it was still thinking I was playing it through the TV so I couldn't hear her so I did find out all you need to do is say that I can't hear you and it will actually change to the speaker on the device so here with the speaker down here you are able to get responses from this device without the TV being on but for the most part anytime it's going to play media it will automatically turn on the TV and play media out of it and then it will just use the TV speakers or it will use your sound system that you have set up to your TV Alexa play Paddington - from movies anywhere open Amazon music here's Amazon music Alexa download I like open I'm not quite sure how to help you with that Alexa open Amazon music here's Amazon music Alexa play Paddington - so even though I own this movie on movies anywhere and ended up only playing the trailer of the movie Alexa play the last Jedi Alexa turn up the volume Alexa go home Alexa what's the weather like tomorrow tomorrow in South Jordan there will be mostly sunny weather with a high of 96 degrees and a low of 69 degrees how far away is the moon the moon's distance is 239,000 miles 384,000 kilometers Alexa scroll down Alexa select to Alexis scroll Alexa scroll right Alexa select ten alexxa select Daniel Tiger's neighborhood so there it actually just opened up prime video and played Daniel Tiger's neighborhood I wish inside applications it had the numbering system as well but I'm sure that could be added through the developers over time Alexa play Ice Age skip 30 minutes play ant-man - so here if it can't find the movie it will pull up this menu where you can rent buy or watch trailer and then you could activate and change to this add to watch list so there sometimes you just can't get the command but I do own that movie so it should have played it from movies anywhere but it didn't I like the open prime video what's the weather like tomorrow there will be mostly sunny weather with a high of 96 degrees and a low of 69 degrees playmat carney shuffling songs by matt cardi there you can see it automatically turned on the TV and it's going to start playing music right from here and then it will automatically show the lyrics right on the TV when it's playing from Hamazon music which is pretty cool now if you are wondering what the voice experience is if you already have a fire TV and an echo device you are able to open certain applications and you're able to search and play for movies from certain applications but you are not able to select certain numbers that are on the screen they just don't appear as well as you are not able to change the inputs and have that universal remote functionality and then your responses to the echo will not show up on the TV and movies anywhere any movies anywhere for five TV let's go home I can't do that on farm TV search for the secret life of pets getting the secret life of pets from fire TV play the secret life of pets I can play it on Netflix or prime video which would you like Netflix getting the secret life of pets from Netflix so I'm actually really impressed with the voice control being able to instantly open applications selecting the numbers there are a few limitations that are interesting everyone still say I can't do that or maybe there's a menu and it just won't scroll and I wish it could scroll over or I wish on the very main menu I could just say navigate down and navigate over kind of like using this remote because maybe I can't find my remote that would be a super handy function to have but it can't do that and of course it is new there is some room to improve but that would be something that I highly request other than that you would have to open up an app and then one of the other problems is when I'm asking or searching for a movie it doesn't tell me where that movie is going to play from it most likely defaults to Amazon Prime video but let's say I own a movie on movies anywhere it's not able to search for that I would have to say play a certain movie on movies anywhere and then it would open it up or play this on Netflix I did find one feature though that if you ask it to play something and it finds two sources that are supported so I would say oh this is available on Netflix or prime video and then it asks you to choose which one you want to do that was kind of nice but I wish there were more applications that actually supported that function so yes it does have a full smart assistant built-in I like what it shows on the screen and I was able to actually ask for in a request pretty much everything that I like and one of the big things is it depends on where you have your media so if you have all your videos on iTunes this isn't going to be a really good device because you can't access that stuff easily unless you sync and go through all this process but if you are a huge fan of Amazon and Amazon Prime video this is going to be super simple easy to use I really like that it has all the Daniel Tiger neighborhood episodes so like all of the seasons are available if you have Amazon Prime video where on Google Play I would actually have to go and purchase the seasons to be able to play them now the fourth question I have is does it every mote and can that be controlled and I kind of already answered that but yes it does so having a actual remote is very important on a smart TV so that you can easily navigate through now a few things about this remote is it does have a voice button built in so if I just press it once I can then talk through it without having to activate the Alexa on the fire TV cube and it would work in the same way as this device now it has a enter button up down left right back home menu fast forward pause play and forward again I would love to see a volume up and down on this but it just doesn't have that function but this is really nice also you can download the fire TV application to be able to control your media controller at any time without having to activate by a voice setting up the fire TV remote is very simple your phone just needs to be connected to the same Wi-Fi network you need to have the application open and then on screen it will display a number and you place that into the app and then it will connect to your device and then you are ready to begin using it as a remote and then here on the remote you do have lots of options where you can do the full thing instead of having the actual remote you can go home go back menu mute oh here you can actually change the volume so I think that may have been added recently or I just didn't notice it before but that's nice that it's here on the actual application the fire TV app don't know why I didn't put on the remote and then here I can navigate by swiping down here I have a menu and I can see my different fire TV devices and I could actually see all the apps that I have right here on this fire TV so if I wanted to open an app right here I can just select it and then it will instantly open it up on the TV and that one of the benefits of having the remote on your phone is you can actually search with a keyboard so instead of saying what you want to search for you would be able to do it all right on here since this remote is pretty basic it does not offer all the functionality you would get if you had like the harmony hub the harmony hub is able to control all kinds of smart devices and instead of different scenes and everything all in one so where this can control a bunch of different devices that you have set up it's not quite as advanced as a harmony hub I really do want a device where you can control everything in one I still think I might have to have both of my remotes around so this remote as well as the TV remote just sometimes maybe this won't turn on and off the TV for some reason or the volume isn't working properly I still would need to have that extra mode pretty nearby I can't completely get rid of it yet so this almost passes that category for me in the universal remote functionality so then if I want to use the remote pretty easy press and hold open Hulu open Netflix go home now my fifth question I have is does it have the functionality to always be able to pause play or turn off whatever is playing on the TV so currently with how I have my setup in one of our rooms I'm using a Google home and I'm using a Android TV device and I can't turn off the Android TV device with the Google home so also if we're watching anything on the Android TV device I want to be able to pause and play it from the Google home at any time but I can't do that I would have to pull up the Android TV app on my phone or find the actual remote so is this able to answer that question and the answer is yes at any time anything that is playing from the fire TV you can just ask it to pause you can activate Alexa and say pause or stop and it will stop whatever is playing which is super nice also you have the remote if you have the remote you can go in and pause or you can actually pull up the fire TV app and pause it as well I actually find it pretty interesting with the prime video app that when you are watching a prime video moving on here you pull open the prime video application and it will show you where you are and you can pause it right there which is pretty cool but it definitely passes in being able to be controlled at any time so I can just activate it pause it or I could just activate it and say turn off the T and it will turn off the TV because either it's plugged in with the cec or it can fire out a signal that would turn off the TV now it is recommended that you have this one foot away from your TV or from the speaker's of your TV as well as on the same level as your TV so you shouldn't have it hiding in a cabinet below now one other function that you do have with the remote is because it has Alexa in here you can control your entire smart home with activating Alexa or using the remote to do that so if you're about to watch a movie you want to dim the lights all you would need to do is activate this device and you can quickly turn off the lights which is really handy to have and very convenient especially if you're already holding the remote or because Alexa's just right there you can see it activate you don't have to try and look around to make sure she activated or not with the blue light so there you go those are my five questions and I would say this gets about four out of five there's definitely some room for improvement that I like to see but I would say by far it's actually able to hit pretty much all the requests I have for a Smart TV I wish there were some of those applications available on here and then it would be almost perfect of course Alexa's kind of boring I prefer Google assistant but this definitely can do the job if you guys have any further questions about the fire TV cube let me know in the comments below and if you would like to see more tutorials or other videos about this device let me know and if this is your first time here I would love to have you subscribe so you can be notified of my new and upcoming videos also make sure you check out the playlist over here on the side where I talk all about devices that work with the Amazon Alexa family thanks so much for watching we'll see you on the next one\n"