For several months now, Amazon Echo users in the US were able to control their Amazon Fire TV devices directly through their Echo’s Alexa – so literally hands-free. After a not-so-fashionable delay, that feature is finally crossing the pond.
Starting this week, you can finally connect your Amazon Fire TV device (either a box or the stick) to one of your Amazon Echo devices, and start giving your Fire TV streamers voice commands.
Of course, if you have a Fire TV voice remote, you were already able to use voice commands – but you still had to hold the remote in your hand and press a button before you actually started talking. Now, you can just call out Alexa, and tell her to run Netflix, or watch movies with Idris Elba.
Roll-out with these type of features is usually gradual, so if you don’t see it on your device just yet, you might have to wait a couple of days.
How Do I Control My Amazon Fire TV With My Echo Device?
First, you need to pair your Echo with your Fire TV. The easiest way to do this, if you only have one Fire TV device in your house, is to give the Echo a command involving the Fire TV, such as “Alexa, Run Netflix on my Fire TV”. At that point, the two SHOULD pair automatically.
However, these type of tech magic tricks often don’t work. So if it doesn’t – or if you have more than one Fire TV device at home – you would need to connect them manually:
- Using the Amazon Alexa app on your phone, go to the menu and select “Music, Videos & Books” (it might show up as only Music & Books on some devices)
- On the upper bar, select the Fire TV
- Follow the instructions on-screen
- Finally, select “Link Devices.”
Now, you can start giving your Fire TV commands without even searching for the remote.
Some of the available commands are (note that with some of them, you will have to add “… On Fire TV”)
- “Watch Fire TV“: This will wake up your Fire TV and your telly (on some TV models)
- “Play / Pause / Stop / Resume / Watch From Beginning”
- “Fast-forward [timeframe].”
- “Go back [timeframe].”
- “Open [App Name]
- “Go Home” – Will go back to the home screen.
You can buy the new Fire TV 4K from Amazon, and you can also buy Echo devices in all shapes and sizes… from Amazon.