After little over a week of using the Amazon Fire TV Cube. I’ve been very happy with it my purchase so far. By far from control perspective I really love how the voice command to turn on and off my TV/Sound bar works very well without use of a remote. It does a good job launching applications via voice but I’ve seen voice commands within the app is not as great. For pausing and restarting video works good. But asking it to play a specific TV series in Hulu for example (when there are multiple user profiles requires interaction with remove to select profile and sometimes locate the TV show. It does a great job controlling my netgear arlos cameras, and all the other smart devices in the home.

Some of features that I feel that this device is lacking is the ability to control off the air TV antenna (don’t have cable to use voice command to control cable box). I also wish that it had full features of a typical echo, such as drop (to use as home intercom system). In addition to improvements anytime you issue your voice command it will pause the Video that you are playing (lets say that you want volume up or down) it will pause the video and adjust the volume and then continue. This may be something I just need to get use to not issue just a little annoying.

Overall I would recommend this to anyone especially those who have an older Fire TV (I had the original Fire TV), and those who don’t want a dongle and device with more horse power than a fire TV Stick. For controlling a main TV/Sound bar in living its great feature to be able to control with voice. As the most importing approval the wife seems also to embrace the device for her approval too.

Amazon has new Fire TV device called the Fire TV Cube.  I Pre-Ordered mine today for $89.99.  I’m an owner of the original Fire TV for my main TV in our house.  I’ve wanted to upgrade my Fire TV for quite some time b/c it was lacking many of the features that the Fire TV 4k had to offer but I did not want a dongle hanging from my TV but rather a piece of hardware that  had more horse power and performance like the original Fire TV had vs the Fire TV Stick.

The retail price of this unit is $119.99 but if you pre-order you can get it now for $89.99.  The ship date for this new device is June 21st.

Here is full description of the product from Amazon site:

• Fire TV Cube is the first hands-free streaming media player with Alexa, delivering an all-in-one entertainment experience. From across the room, just ask Alexa to turn on the TV, dim the lights, and play what you want to watch.
• With far-field voice recognition, eight microphones, and beamforming technology, Fire TV Cube hears you from any direction. Enjoy hands-free voice control—search, play, pause, fast forward, and more. Plus, control your TV, sound bar, cable or satellite box, receiver, and more with just your voice.
• Do more with Alexa. Fire TV Cube has a built-in speaker that lets you check the weather, listen to the news, control compatible smart home devices, and more—even with the TV off. Fire TV Cube is always getting smarter with new Alexa skills and voice functionality.
  Experience true-to-life picture quality and sound with access to vivid 4K Ultra HD up to 60 fps, HDR, and the audio clarity of Dolby Atmos.
• Enjoy tens of thousands of channels, apps, and Alexa skills. Get over 500,000 movies and TV episodes from Netflix, Prime Video, Hulu, HBO, SHOWTIME, NBC, and more.
• Access YouTube, Facebook, Reddit, and more websites with Silk and Firefox browsers.