Beam + Alexa and Fire stick UK

Hello

I’m based in the UK and recently bought an Amazon Fire TV stick (2n generation) in the Amazon Black Friday sale.

I thought it would be simple to plug Fire stick in and use Alexa to control my TV inputs etc. However it appears I don’t have the input option on this particular amazon fire stick.

I think this works on the Cube but we don’t have that in the UK or the TV edition verion 3.


I can't speak to what's available in the UK, but you are correct that the ability to control TV inputs is on the Cube, not on regular fire tv sticks.


At the moment I can turn the TV on and off though CEC and the beam + Alexa but I would like to control channels and switch to my sky box Input etc.


CEC control will not switch channels, it can only control switching of inputs. And unfortunately, it appears that many TV brands do not support this feature. The Cube is able to get around this for inputs and and channels because it does not use CEC, but IR commands.


Which amazon device do I need? Also when I did have the input selected manually it would not launch the program such as “stranger things” just brought up the icon.

Thanks in advance

I don't use the fire tv voice features much, but I think that's expected functionality. It will bring up search results based on what you're asking for, but not actually initialize playback.

Hi melvimbe

Thanks for the reply and confirming I’m not going totally mad.

The Cube is not in the UK from what I can find. But as that has Alexa built in anyway would seem pointless with the Beam. Are there any other devices that have the same function? Amazon talk about Fire TV assume that is just an O/S for regular TVs or is there another device like the cube? Maybe the a different version of the Fire stick? Version 3? The one with the hdmi connected to a square unit?

As far as no opening content I saw a thread last year that said they were looking at fixing it? It seem strange it won’t play the content only find it.

The Cube is not in the UK from what I can find. But as that has Alexa built in anyway would seem pointless with the Beam. Are there any other devices that have the same function?

Logitech Harmony maybe something to look into for switching inputs and changing channels. I don't have it myself, but have hard positive reviews on it. It's somewhat of a difficult question to answer as different TVs and different cable/sat services are going to over different levels of voice control. There may also be a product out specific to the UK that I'm not aware of, and things are changing all the time.

I'm personally moving towards cutting the cord, so I'm less interested in switching inputs and channels these days. I don't even really use my cube much as I like the smart apps built in to the tv better than fire tv.


Amazon talk about Fire TV assume that is just an O/S for regular TVs or is there another device like the cube? Maybe the a different version of the Fire stick? Version 3? The one with the hdmi connected to a square unit?


I don't think Amazon has any other product to control tv inputs and channels besides the cube.


As far as no opening content I saw a thread last year that said they were looking at fixing it? It seem strange it won’t play the content only find it.

I tested this just a few minutes ago and it seems to be working fine. I have a tv with a beam and firetv stick. I asked my Beam "Alexa, play stranger things" and it turned on the tv, and started playing Stranger Things. (I believe turning on the tv and switching to the fire tv is something the stick does with the tv through CEC controls).

You may want to look at this doc for more details about what you can do with firetv control.

https://support.sonos.com/s/article/2656?language=en_US

Yeah I heard of the Harmony item so will have to look into that.

If I was to look at Amazon for inputs on there devices what do I look for?

Interesting that yours started to play and mine did not.maybe a different version?