Amazon is pushing the official YouTube app to all its Fire TV devices that didn’t yet have it following the cooling of the company’s ongoing spat with Google. Additionally, Alexa Announcements are now compatible with Fire TV.
Alexa Announcements are set using voice commands such as “Alexa, announce dinner is ready”, and then Alexa tells the rest of the house via all the Echo and Alexa devices in the house. On Fire TV, you can now press the microphone button on your remote and say a command.
If you have a large house or just a family that is deep into the Alexa ecosystem then this is a handy addition, though it’s not the most groundbreaking feature. It does stop parents hollering like banshees up to room-ridden children though, so it might save a few senior vocal cords.
The updates are rolling out from today to all Fire TV devices including YouTube to the Fire TV Stick (1st Gen), Fire TV (1st Gen), Fire TV (2rd Gen) and Fire TV (3rd Gen). The YouTube app will simply appear in ‘Your Apps and Channels’ row on the TV menu after the device has downloaded the latest updates.
You can sign into your YouTube account and can playback 4K HDR videos in 60fps if you have a compatible TV.
Author: Henry Burrell, Phones Editor
Henry is Tech Advisor’s Phones Editor, ensuring he and the team covers and reviews every smartphone worth knowing about for readers and viewers all over the world. He spends a lot of time moving between different handsets and shouting at WhatsApp to support multiple devices at once.