SEATTLE – Amazon today announced its “fastest and most powerful” Fire TV ever, the Fire TV Cube, is coming to Canada in October, but can be pre-ordered now.
It is a hands-free, voice-enabled (Alexa) video device which features far-field voice control built directly into the device and is now available for pre-order for Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Japan.
"Fire TV Cube was the first hands-free streaming media player powered by Alexa, and since launching last year we have gathered a wealth of feedback from customers about how they use voice in the living room," said Marc Whitten, vice president of Amazon Fire TV, in the company press release. "Over the past year, we have continued to expand and advance the Fire TV Cube experience based on this feedback with dozens of new features including Multi-Room Music, Follow-Up Mode, and Alexa Communications. These key learnings carried over and guided the development of the second-generation Fire TV Cube, and we are excited to introduce this new-and-improved experience to customers around the world."
Through the Fire TV Cube, users get access to tens of thousands of movies and TV episodes including favourites from Netflix, YouTube, Prime Video, Crave, CTV, and others (as videophiles can from many streaming devices, like AppleTV and Roku, for example). Content is available in 4K Ultra HD, HDR, HDR10+, or Dolby Vision, and access websites such as Facebook and Reddit with browsers like Silk and Firefox.
Fire TV Cube comes with Local Voice Control, which is a new on-device processing feature that lets users more quickly execute some of the most frequent voice commands including "Alexa, scroll right," "Alexa, go home," "Alexa, select number one," and more. This feature is available in English only at launch, however.
Fire TV Cube has eight microphones and “advanced beamforming technology that combines signals from the individual microphones to suppress noise, reverberation, content currently playing, and even competing speech to make sure Alexa clearly hears your request when placed next to your TV,” reads the release.
It also uses “multi-directional infrared technology, cloud-based protocols, and HDMI CEC,” so if when combined with Alexa, it can control a TV, soundbar, A/V receiver, and other smart home devices to let users dim lights, check weather, listen to news, play music, and so on, whether or not the TV is on.
The company also is introducing its first Fire TV edition soundbar, where the first comes via a partnership with Anker Innovations .The Nebula Soundbar – Fire TV Edition can turn any TV into a cinematic smart TV experience, says the company.
“Featuring support for 4K Ultra HD, a unified smart TV user interface, near-field Alexa voice control, Dolby Vision pass through, and more, the Nebula Soundbar – Fire TV Edition gives you a cohesive entertainment experience with rich sounds that will fill any room,” says the release.
The Fire TV Cube is available for pre-order in Canada for C$149.99 and ships with an IR extender cable and Ethernet adapter beginning on October 10. Customers can also pre-order Fire TV Cube and a Ring Video Doorbell 2 together for C$358.99. The Nebula Soundbar is available for pre-order today for C$269.99 and it will begin shipping on November 21.
