Amazon Fire TV Cube

Product Description

Amazon's new Fire TV Cube is the first hands-free streaming media player with Alexa that delivers an all-in-one entertainment experience. From across the room, just ask Alexa to turn on the TV, dim the lights, and play whatever you want to watch! [Read more]

Features

• 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 of content—search, play, pause, fast forward, and more. Plus control the power and volume on your TV, sound bar, and A/V receiver as well as change live cable or satellite channels 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.
• An Amazon Prime membership unlocks thousands of movies and TV episodes including "Thursday Night Football" and Prime Originals like “The Big Sick” and “Sneaky Pete”.
• Enjoy unlimited access to tens of millions of songs with Amazon Music, starting at just $3.99/month.

Top Reviews

Stay away
by iutaro girotto (1 out of 5 stars)
July 16, 2018

this device is a piece of junk, voice commands wont work 80% of the time, the device is slow and thinks about something forever, i have 4 fire tv sticks and they all kick this device's ass, the ir blaster, the main reason i purchased the cube is a joke, you cant control almost anything with it, i have ir light switches, an ir ac unit ir shades in my entertainment room and i cant control any of them because who knows why, that's nitpicking I guess but this piece of junk is so slow it hurts, when i say alexa play x song to my echo it starts almost instantly with the cube 80% of the time it wont ever start and the other 20% ill take about 30 seconds for it to say ok and begin playback.

do not purchase this piece of junk i ll be returning mine and i live overseas so i have to pay about 20$ to return it, its THAT bad.
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Why would Amazon release an unstable product?
by Amanda C (1 out of 5 stars)
July 10, 2018

I received the cube and I was excited. It was easy to set up and connect. As I navigated through the home screen, I instantly knew there was a problem. It seems that the processor was not fast enough to scroll and load the information, or there was a glitch with the firmware software. I have 2 older Fire tv boxes that blow this cube processor out of the water. I loaded all of my apps and set them up. I am a directv now customer and I instantly recognized that this cube does not play well with this app. When loading, the screen will freeze and will take a bit of time to log in. Sometimes, I would have to force exit and reset the cube. Once the cube would allow me to log into directv, the video thumbnails would take for ever to load and flicker. I try to navigate into the guide and that flickers as well. After everything settles down, I can select a channel but then the video lags and jerks. One would assume that it was a directv problem or an internet speed problem. Well, my internet speed is 300 mbps download and is perfect. The directv runs perfectly fine with my 4 other firetv devices. I noticed the video also lags on my prime account video, Netflix and YouTube accounts. Futhermore, Alexa was not responding to some of my commands like "what is today's weather."etc. Also, Alexa would randomly switch inputs when I didn't even command it to do so. I started to read other reviews and noticed that other customers were having the same problems. I decided to wait it out hoping that amazon would have their techs fix some of the glitches. Today, I couldn't take it anymore because the lagging was driving my family crazy. I placed a request call to amazon support and Nathalie called me back. I explained my problems and the solutions that I tried to rectify them. It was obvious that Nathalie did not have a solution and was trained to read dummy cards. She told me she had to download my logs. What? ( I guess this means that amazon knows exactly what there customer watch's!) I was placed on hold a few times but I was getting agitated because it was taking to long for an answer and I had to get to work. Finally, Nathalie came back and said that she put a ticket in for me and someone could not help me until Sunday because of a high volume of ticket problems. (6 days, really?). I told her that I was going to return it. She did not even offer to send me a replacement, and told me that she was sorry and I would have to wait for a service tech to call on Sunday. This was a deal breaker for me and I told her that I was going to return the cube because there were too many glitches. She particularly didn't seemed concerned or tried to talk me out of it. In fact, she did the label and extended warranty for me which leads me to believe that Amazon released an unstable product that was not perfected for public use. I am very disappointed and expected better from amazon because I Always believed that there customer service was excellent. I am hoping to see the cube perfected and will wait for the second version. I hope my post helps others.
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Updated: A solid 1 out of 5 stars - it's pretty much crap, but has a glimmer of potential.
by T. Porter (1 out of 5 stars)
July 2, 2018

**** Update 2 **** 08/06/18

I wanted this to work so bad that I actually purchased a new modem, hoping (foolishly) that it was our internet, even though the Fire TV cube was basically the only thing giving us trouble... Well, our internet speed increased quite a bit (~45mbps to ~80mbps) which is awesome, but guess what, The Fire TV still struggles to do anything, particularly navigate to Hulu, Netflix, play music, or turn on/off our TV about 80% of the time, which pretty much makes it useless to us.

Just to make extra sure that it's the Fire TV (we want it to work SO badly!) we played the same shows on the same apps on our Xbox OneX at the same time the Fire TV wouldn't work - and low and behold the Xbox doesn't hiccup a bit.

Also, for some odd freaking reason, when Alexa does choose to respond to "Alexa, play South Park on Hulu", she now plays South Park on Hulu in Spanish. I spoke to Hulu tech support for an hour and we came to the conclusion this is an issue with the Fire TV. Not surprisingly.

As much as I desperately want this to work, I think we have to return it.
**** Update ****

Voice control has basically stopped working at all. The first few weeks, it performed as my original review states below - meticore, but did some things well.

Now, it's just the constant frustrating yellow bar of confusion from the box. Our internet (still) is perfect. Newish router, high speed tests, all other devices perform perfect, and even the Fire TV Cube internet settings claim our signal is "very good".

Luckily, everything regarding tv/movies about the cube works as long as you use the remote (minus voice control of course), but summoning Alexa is impossible. After 10 tries we could finally get a timer set...

My advice is to HOLD OFF until they can figure these things out.
****End Update****
****Old Review (3/5 stars)****

I've been an Amazon member since 2007 and I'm pretty sure this is my first review, which I'm not proud to say. Reason being - this thing has so much potential it doesn't take advantage of, fails at a lot of the features it does have, and is missing many, MANY basic features it should have.

Pros first:
- 4K/HDR quality is excellent.
- Overall performance is much snappier and fluid than the older Fire TV
- Fire TV Cube hears and responds much better than our Echo Dot. Night and day difference.
- Controls TV and soundbar almost as well as they advertise.
- Many of the functions they advertise, such as searching and controlling apps, works great (most of the time...).

Cons:
- Lacks very basic features. The remote, like all remotes, has a back button that performs as you'd expect. The Fire TV does NOT. If you say "Alexa, go back", 9 times out of 10 it returns to the Home menu. This is extremely frustrating if your watching a show and just want to return to an episode guide or whatever the last page you were on in any app.
- Random pausing and general app functionality. Our internet is great and yet certain apps randomly pause and play during shows and movies. It's NOT buffering, it's clearly a bug they need to work out. General app compatibility is also really buggy. I assume this will be fixed in updates soon.
- Native Fire TV app design is terrible. It's clear they're trying to make the app as simplistic and straight forward as possible, but do so by sacrificing many basic functions you're used to. Getting to something as simple as a shows summary page is exhausting.

Overall, we enjoy the Fire TV, even with it's flaws. It's clear the device is in its infancy and will be fine tuned with time, but until then it has plenty of frustrating qualities. A solid 3 out of 5 stars - it's not crap, but it's not a perfect device yet either.
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Stuck With This...
by Nick Parker (1 out of 5 stars)
July 9, 2018

I'll start by saying I love my Echo and Dots, of which I have three. So imagine how disappointed I was by this.

It pauses every time you ask it do to something. Or if it hears the wake word on accident, which is all the time. It makes it super frustrating to watch live TV. Also, it is nearly impossible to navigate by voice and half the time will say "ok!" and not do what you asked it to. I have to ask another device to turn off my alarm/timer or work my lights.

Also, the lack of pause/rewind support by voice for anything other than Prime is frustrating.

Just stick with a Roku... wish I could go back, but I'm stuck paying for this. Disappointed.
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Amazon let down
by Erik C. Boehm (1 out of 5 stars)
August 12, 2018

Updated Review Aug 23 2018

I've since been contacted by Amazon to talk about my review, but it still doesn't fix some of the core issues. I went ahead and put the cube on my upstairs tv that only has Netflix. I didn't need it upstairs as my tv already has the app, but it needs a purpose as I'm not bothering to return it. It serves a purpose on a TV with only the cube connected and the IR blaster even allows my primary TV remote to control the cube. However I planned to still use the cube to maybe give weather or flash brief or play rain sounds as I go to sleep. Big fail because you can't do any of that without the tv turning on. That is a terrible design flaw as now I have two echos in one room with different trigger words. Come on. I attached a picture and I hope Amazon reads this and addresses the issue. My review stands and I still do not recommend the cube in its current state.

Original Review Early August 2018

Not sure how it has an avg rating of 3.5 when it's got to be the worst Alexa product that Amazon has released. I gave it a chance as I wanted something to more easily navigate my home theater system. I have a PlayStation 4...Nintendo switch...Xbox...a receiver....and Vizio TV.

The good

It does turn on the TV, but it defaults to fire cube tv and from there switching can be tricky

It looks sorta cool

That's it

The bad

The sound quality from the cube itself is utter trash. Think of a echo dot inside a trash can. Wtf Amazon

If you have the harmony remote and skill enabled on another tv ..which I did...good luck because it will turn that tv on too.

The devices you can add don't include the ability to customize your own device. Ie Nintendo for example...it's not on there and I had to call it game console. Get with the program and add devices that are mainstream. Not that hard.

It's glitchy as hell. Some commands seem to work, but others she just does something random like play music or lookup a term. This device is not ready and if their goal was to ruin it's name, mission success.

In the end I own 5 echo dots...2 echos and one echo show and none have the issues that this thing has. Terrible and I hope Amazon is reading these reviews and Jeff bezos fires the guy responsible for putting this mainstream. Don't buy this. Even if u think it's gonna be good...save your money. It's not worth 20 bucks more or less 120 and I only paid 90, but I'm so angry I didn't save the box cause it was a waste.
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Wait for bugs to be fixed.
by rodo (2 out of 5 stars)
July 13, 2018

Video playback pauses randomly quite often. It's only for one or two seconds, but it happens a lot. One time it would not respond at all to voice command. I unplugged it then powered back on and it worked again.

I think it will be a great device once the bugs are worked out.

I recommend waiting at least several months before purchase to see if the reviews get better when more updates come out.
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Not ready for Prime time
by K.Karalic (1 out of 5 stars)
July 17, 2018

As an Amazon Fire TV user for the past two years, I was genuinely excited when the Fire TV cube was announced. I have a soundbar that works well, but can only be controlled via IR, and thought this would be the perfect product to add to my living room setup to create some harmony between all of my devices. Unfortunately, that was not the case. In my opinion , there are two big reasons as to why this device didn't perform well:
1. Unstable Software - when the cube shipped, it shipped with software that was not ready for end user use. All too often my shows would randomly pause and require manual interaction in order to be restarted. Moreover, Alexa on the cube was far less useful and omnipotent than her counterparts on the Echo and Echo dot, failing to answer simple questions, and sometimes, not answering at all after a question was asked! Furthermore, the cube failed to turn on my IR-capable sound bar on many times, making it so that my shows would start without any sound and require that I dig for the remote in the dark) to turn on the sound bar - which is exactly the problem this product was supposed to solve, right??
2. Alexa Interference - due to the Unstable software, the cube would inadvertently pick up on requests that were meant for my Echo or Echo dot, and then systematically fail to execute the request. This behavior left me feeling frustrated and even muting the cube at times so my smarter and more capable Echo could listen for my requests.

In the end, I decided to return the cube and keep the 4k Fire TV pendant connected to my TV. With so many issues, I can't recommend this device to any aspiring Fire TV owners.
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Fire TV Cube - The silence is deafening
by J.Frazier (1 out of 5 stars)
July 2, 2018

This is by far one of the worst items that Amazon has released, and hopefully my review will help others steer clear of the mess this is. Below are the issues I ran into.
1: Setup was atrocious, the first time I plugged in the video kept crashing. I finally was able to get it to connect . The rest of the process wasn't eventful, the normal stuff you would expect from a "smart device". It didn't go into great detail on how to add other devices outside the first time setup stuff.
2: "Priority device option". For those like me who have a few Echo devices in earshot, be ready for some device confusion. The Fire Cube has a "priority" option that states it will process the command if able before any other Alexa keyword device, even if it is closer than the cube. False, my Echo show would constantly pickup the command tell me it could not process the command and to check Alexa skills for more help. I ended up having to set my show to respond to Echo instead of Alexa... occasionally the echo dot in the kitchen will pick up the command first, even though I am nowhere near it and RIGHT in front of the Cube, which is facing me with its mighty 8 mics...
3: Swapping inputs, sounds, etc.... Since I bought the cube to be my central hub for changing channels, moving between inputs, and even the raising/lowering sound of my sound bar.. I was ecstatic the first time I told the cube to swap to cable and back to fire TV... I then realized it wasn't that great at doing it. Sometimes it would turn off my soundbar in the process, sometimes it would mute the soundbar (technically it does this anytime it hears Alexa keyword and processes a command) but NEVER unmute it. I am then set fumbling through "Alexa unmute soundbar" or "Alexa turn on soundbar"... and sometimes I go the old fashioned route with the actual remote. Also, turning off the TV by voice command turns off the soundbar, which shouldn't as the soundbar is set to sleep only after 15 mins of TV inactivity, not turn off.
4: Sound - This is my biggest hangup, one that if worked correctly I could maybe overlook all other issues. The volume when the Cube Input is selected is low. When set to 20 on my soundbar it is pretty loud on all other devices (TV, PS4, Xbox one, Switch, Fire TV, Roku, Steam Link), but 20 on the Cube is a whisper. I tried to use the TV volume to ensure it wasn't a issue with the soundbar, but no luck. I changed the input the cube was on, still the same. I have to turn it up to 50 to even come close to an enjoyable audible experience. I called support and was told "oh, it is the way the channels work on Fire TV products"... no sorry.. all other devices work fine, including my fire TV. The end suggestion was "Just turn up the volume on the soundbar and turn down when done". Any clue how loud and potentially damaging 50 is when you swap to a different input? Ask my neighbor, he was rudely woken when my wife turned on the TV Saturday after I forgot to lower the volume.

Steer clear of the Cube for now, hopefully they will do some update or release a "updated model". The freedom of remote controls seems nice, but when you spend more time trying to tell it what to do, longer than pressing buttons on the remote, the value is diminished. I wish Amazon would of offered to swap my device to ensure it wasn't a bad unit, but support was convinced this is just how the device is supposed to work. Sadly this will most likely sway me from investing into future amazon electronic devices.
**UPDATE**

Now the Cube has stopped responding to many commands and returns a "I'm sorry, I could not find a linked skill" These are commands such as "Alexa switch to cable or TV" "Alexa watch X movie" and more.
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Sorry, technology should get better not worse.
by Maurizio L. (1 out of 5 stars)
July 17, 2018

I'm dad to report that amongst all the Amazon devices I have purchased, the Cube had been by far a big disappointment. If this is your first time buying a FireTV, I would suggest a previous gen FireTV many times over. The pendent style has the 4k but misses many conveniences such as a built in LAN Port and expandable memory card slot.

Pro: it's faster, ironically as it has a slower processor.

Also better wifi signal since it's positioned away from the TV.

Con: other than having less features, the worst part was the single thing the cube was trying to solve. The 8 microphones works so well that it becomes annoying. As your having a conversation watching TV or a movie it will interrupt assuming your talking to it. This pauses the movie requiring everyone to remain silent for several seconds before it resumes play. Then when you want it to bring up a movie it fails to understand. We don't have this issue with our other echo devices. Then, during a movie, you ask it to pause and it listens but ignores the request.

It became so frustrating that the entire family, including my 6 and 4yr olds asked that we return it. So sad as I wanted to like it.
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The Fire TV Cube is a great idea, being able to control the TV with ...
by CapsLock (1 out of 5 stars)
July 16, 2018

The Fire TV Cube is a great idea, being able to control the TV with your voice, but the execution is terrible. I have a Samsung TV hooked up to an Onkyo receiver, AT&T U-Verse cable box with several other gaming consoles and streaming devices. Installation was a headache, trying to configure and reconfigure inputs because Fire TV Cube can't seem to connect to the right one. Often you'll hear audio but a different video output is on or the other way around. I had a hard time making things work the first time and am still running into problems several weeks into the install. Today is Prime Day, I wouldn't recommend buying one at this time.

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