So I own Game Night, Game Night the movie. There is nothing I can do to get my Fire Cube to play this movie. It’s not bonus edition, or special but if I ask it to play Game Night, it plays some random music track called… Game Night. If I ask it to play the Game Night Movie, it gives me 12 movies with the word Game in it, not Game Night. If I start Game Night and try to get Alexa to resume it, she starts playing the music again.
There is no way this is even close to replacing the a remote. It also seems slower as it tries to do everything under the sun except play the movie I asked her to.
Prime members were allowed to pre-order it for 89.99. So far, i am not impressed. At the same time when I got the Echo… it bugged out all the time and hardly could do anything too.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that was related to the problem. Eg most likely it’s not searching your library directly, but Amazon’s general library, and then checking if you have permission to watch it (because you bought it or it’s on Prime). If it’s not in Amazon’s Prime Video’s own collection of films, or the other services it indexes, then it wouldn’t match.
But even if that’s not the case, I’m not surprised by the jank, given my experience with the Echo.
Maybe, I have the same problem with Dr. Strange. Now I have the Plus Bonus Features version. That was ordered through Amazon, digital only because it was so cheap. Every time I ask it to try to play Dr. Strange… it at least tries to play it but the wrong version. It tries to play to the Theater version and no amount of with bonus, with features, my library gets it to recognize i am asking it to play the movie I… own.
like their little Hub claim, there is no way you can currently use the Cube and not also reach for a remote, not unless you want to put a cube through some sort of glass screen in the end.
I’m returning mine and decided to pick up a new TV that has Roku TV instead. Since it’s just for the bedroom, I was able to keep the cost down somewhat.
I find the built-in rokus to be very slow, annoying to use. Same as their cheapest roku stick, perfect for a guest room, but not anything I’d want to actually use. But I’m very sensitive to performance, that’s why I have shieldTVs.
I have the newer 55 TCL. It’s not bad and was pretty darn cheap for the size. I mostly use it for the PS4. Because of that the Fire TV and PS4 have all the “smart” stuff so my use of the native TV app is almost non-existent. The blacks aren’t great, but it is a secondary device for me.
I picked up the newer 55" TCL at Costco for under $300 on sale. Its an excellent tv especially for the price and Ive never had an issue with the built in Roku which works as well as the top of the line Roku box in my main room. I do have it hard wired instead of through wifi so perhaps that’s the difference?
Just have to ask, with Amazon’s liberal return policy, if you are having so many issues with the Echo box, why not just return it? I have an older Echo and I love it. Is it perfect? No but then I would be amazed if they actually built a box that could perfectly react to every different vocal pattern it has to face and do it flawlessly. That’s millions of people with completely different vocal patterns, accents and inflections.
I think you’re asking Nesrie? I am returning mine for just that reason. My Echos are all great, even the Plus despite the hobbled built-in Hue hub which I don’t need anyway, and I was reasonably happy with my older Fire TV, but the Cube just isn’t fully baked IMO. Maybe in a year or two they’ll get it right. At a minimum they need to improve device support and ideally add power/volume controls to the remote. And they really, really should put more thought into how customers who already use Echos extensively for multi-group music will use a Cube that’s in the same room as an Echo.
I think this is a question for me. I am torn because… when I purchased the Echo for 79.99, years ago and also at a steep discount, it couldn’t do even half the stuff it does today. I still kept it and now it’s a great machine, and I was part of the… early testing, feedback stuff.
They might be doing the same thing with the cube. I just don’t know for sure.
LeeAbe, how is the SPOT treating you? I am thinking of getting one on PRIME DAY. As much as a I love using my big Echo as an alarm clock, I miss seeing an actual clock in my bedroom.
If you are looking for an alarm clock type thing, it works great. I like having a bedside Echo and the screen makes it much more functional. I use mine mainly as a clock and bluetooth speaker, but sometimes I use if for shopping and really like that it shows you the item you just asked about. It’s often just nice having a visual of whatever the Echo is telling you/doing.
My biggest complaints, which are minor and fixable, is that I don’t like any of the clock faces very much. Odd backgrounds or just look corny. I prefer analog, but without my glasses none of the faces are very readable for me. Also it will only set one time alarms for the next 24 hours, which seems silly.
I would also like an option to turn off the display on a schedule. I try to remember to turn it off before work but have forgotten a couple of times. I have the rotating cards thing turned off because I don’t need to see the weather every 30 seconds on it. So it will have the clock face all day, and a good portion of it doesn’t move. I haven’t noticed any burn in though. Also, I would love to see an OLED version.
Just be aware it is really not good for music, but works great for podcasts. It’s also not extremely loud. I have to put it at it’s max volume setting if my portable AC running (which is pretty loud) to hear it. I sometimes use it to play NPR linked with my big Echo in the living room as I am getting ready in the morning and works great (I haven’t done this in months because the news is too depressing on a daily basis).
I highly recommend it if you want an Echo and music isn’t going to be a primary use.
So, we don’t have any echos or any smart home stuff.
But…one of the launch items for Prime Day is an Alexa-enabled Delta Touch2O faucet that can turn the water off and on, set the temperature and meter exact amounts of water via voice. As often as we work with raw meat, that seems really damned cool. And assuming it is going to be on sale, the price may end up being less than the normal Touch2O faucets.
As someone who went down a rabbit hole for flow metering liquids, I would wager that the faucet won’t be as accurate as described by Delta. I hate to be a naysayer here, but measure your amounts afterward, just in case.
The use of flow meters and control valves is all about chasing the dream of being perfect. And you get what you pay for. I cannot see a small scale consumer items being relatively constant at measurement over its lifetime with so many variables in your typical home. There is no standard water pressure, or water pipe circumference, or distance from major water source, or … anything, really. I went down that hole researching how to automate a home brewery so that it could be controlled via a PID or Raspberry Pi. Even something as easy as metering out, “7.5 gallons,” into a brew kettle meant that a ton of factors would vary the results: meters, valves, water temps, pressure, etc. Frequent calibration was also almost a necessity.
Sorry for the long winded sidebar, but the touch part of that sounds like it would be EXTREMELY useful, I’m just not sure about voice measurement being something to bank on.
Fair. My main interest would be turning it on and off and maybe staying the temp. We have been considering a touchless or one touch faucet for some time.
