- Joined
- May 29, 2014
- Messages
- 1,013
- Reason
- Lost a loved one
- Diagnosis
- 04/2014
- Country
- US
- State
- VA
- City
- Poquoson
Our TV setup is somewhat complicated. We have Cable TV (Verizon FIOS) which feeds into Verizon's Cable Control Box. That feed is then routed to the Onkyo Audio Receiver (which allows me control of various other sources... ROKU, BlueRay, Bluetooth, etc.). I have the Universal Remote Control (came with Verizon's service) that allows me to turn on/off both the TV and the Cable Box with the push of one button. The Universal Remote also allows me to change channels... but I need the Receiver's Remote Control to take care of volume or the swap inputs. And then, if I swap to the ROKU, I need the Roku's Remote Control to manage that content. Darcey, unable to use her hands, is captive to my expertise in controls and my availability to actually make a change.
Yesterday, all that changed...
My new Amazon Fire Cube arrived, yesterday. I opened the box, removed the contents and read the quick start. It suggested that I hook it directly top the TV into one of its HDMI ports (cable not provided... but I had several already here). Instead, I disconnected the ROKU and plugged the Fire Cube into that HDMI cable. I then began the setup process.
I first selected the AUX port on the Receiver as that's where the Fire Cube was now connected. Powering on the Cube, it began to talk to me (there's an Alexa device in there) and displayed on the TV. The voice was coming out of the surround sound speakers as it normally would for anything else. In minutes, I had voice accessibility to Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Hulu, Firefox, Spotify (which should get me to YouTube... though I've not yet tried that) and a host of other free and fee based services.
Next, I began to work at adding in my Verizon FIOS TV service. I went to manage devices, add a cable source and followed the prompts to get it to recognize FIOS for my zip code area. It did take me about 15 minutes to experiment with input choices before I was finally able to get it all to work as desired (and that was only because the input names on my Receiver did not match the names used by the Fire Cube).
Now, either of us... BY VOICE ALONE... can:
My best...
Jim
Yesterday, all that changed...
My new Amazon Fire Cube arrived, yesterday. I opened the box, removed the contents and read the quick start. It suggested that I hook it directly top the TV into one of its HDMI ports (cable not provided... but I had several already here). Instead, I disconnected the ROKU and plugged the Fire Cube into that HDMI cable. I then began the setup process.
I first selected the AUX port on the Receiver as that's where the Fire Cube was now connected. Powering on the Cube, it began to talk to me (there's an Alexa device in there) and displayed on the TV. The voice was coming out of the surround sound speakers as it normally would for anything else. In minutes, I had voice accessibility to Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Hulu, Firefox, Spotify (which should get me to YouTube... though I've not yet tried that) and a host of other free and fee based services.
Next, I began to work at adding in my Verizon FIOS TV service. I went to manage devices, add a cable source and followed the prompts to get it to recognize FIOS for my zip code area. It did take me about 15 minutes to experiment with input choices before I was finally able to get it all to work as desired (and that was only because the input names on my Receiver did not match the names used by the Fire Cube).
Now, either of us... BY VOICE ALONE... can:
- Turn on/off the TV
- Select the Fire Cube and its online content
- Select any channel (by number or name) for Cable
- Turn the volume up/down
- Play music with Spotify
- Ask Alexa questions or to play an Audio Book
- And a whole slew of other tasks that we've yet to play with
My best...
Jim