Gadgetory

welcome to the 359 I'm Ben Fox Ruben I'm Afra dang Dan that's Myer oh I was gonna introduce you and we've got with us David Katz Mayer aka cat's in the cradle aka whispering damn it see that's a pretty good intro you should have waited for it David is here to help us walk through the new amazon firetv cube a new alexa powered video streaming box that the company just announced this morning the 120 dollar device which is only available in the US for now can be used to control your TV cable box sound bar a and AV receiver using a remote and Alexa voice commands so David we both got a chance to demo this thing what are your immediate thoughts what did you think like big picture well that's a lot the simple thing is you can just say Alexa turn on my TV and it happens and that happened in our demo amazons guys showed us that that's pretty straightforward functionality we actually able to do that for about a year if you have an echo and a fire TV this thing builds it in to one little device and that's kind of the hook is you can get that kind of living room voice control without picking up the remote from one single thing so you know it's it's a match of a bunch of different things but the coolest part is that it blasts out infrared signals to turn on your TV to play around with your sound bar volume up and down that sort of thing just with voice commands so that's really sweet so you've been able to do this for about a year with your other with your other setup that you have I've been really skeptical of this since the beginning like how much of a change is there really to be able to turn on your TV with your voice so at home I use a harmony remote which is a really awesome universal remote that this thing doesn't really replace cuz you still have to use like your remote to do stuff like set the DVR and and things like that that require a clicker this thing is great for turn on the TV turn off the TV launch Netflix stuff like that like you know large commands that start something off but once you get into the Nitty Gritty of browsing you know it's it's you're gonna need a remote I mean you can say stuff like Alexa page down or you know Alexa right left but that's not nearly as easy as just pressing about on our own I think they did a pretty credible job also saying that you know there are some many different apps now specifically whether you have a Roku streamer amazon firetv whatever and to a certain extent I kind of feel like using voice and doing it with the fire TV cube might actually be easier just to jump to I don't know Rick and Morty on Hulu and then go to I don't know something else on Netflix whether it's I don't know what's on Netflix right another thing really yeah well the that's nice you are in the fire TV universe you know which means that you're gonna be directed toward a lot of Amazon stuff they were showing us HBO and Showtime for example that's not support for those apps that support for the Amazon channel within the Amazon universe so you know and Netflix was not quite as supported as you'd expect you know they're they're a competitive service so prime video use a lot of that stuff is gonna be a lot more useful just like a regular for our TV I also wanted to get into you mention harmony already but how do you think this will stack up against the competition and where do you think it kind of fits into that well first of all it's a really unique device there's nothing out this like this on the market right now harmony does a lot of the stuff but it doesn't have integrated voice you gotta add you know echo or whatever to get that to go there's another device called convo that's a lot more expensive that's another universal remote so Amazon's getting into a space here where there's not that much competition I mean harmony kind of rules the roost in terms of device control so I'm really excited to see Amazon provide some competition and you know kind of take these guys and and make them more voice centric and maybe you know light a fire under them because harmonies been the same for a long time you need like a specific type of television for this like it needs to be like the latest like HDTV or something or you can put on something that's like 10 15 years old yeah so the joy of IR is that you can use other devices you've had for a long time and Amazon says they support for thousands of devices they say 90% at the cable box they say a lot of the you know sound bars and other devices out there so we'll see we'll take no one taking what there were but I'm pretty sure that you you're gonna be able to control pretty much whatever you have out there no it's pretty cool either way we're out of time for the podcast itself so if you want to read more about these stories check us out on CNN I'm Ben Fox Ruben I'm Alfred hang I'm David cast Meyer thanks for watching thanks for listening really I said thanks for thank you via podcast let's keep it true to form Ben I mean we were an audio podcast first yeah sorry hey so now it is time as always for me to jump into the chat and pull out your questions and comments and everything you want to know about this little box game cube cube 2.0 in the meantime so David tell me does this instantly render the fact that I have an echo and a fire TV completely Moo and I just throw them away start fresh no unless roam away anyway we must you've always been hankering to control that random thing with your two devices that you can't control are ready for example if you have a sound bar and all the volume comes through that you know you can't control volume with a fire TV and echo combination right now so that's I mean you can't with some TVs but with most of them you can't which at the demo I think we were both pleasantly surprised to see that they went a little bit further than just creating a fire TV and crammed it with Alexa and then calling it a day so to their credit I think they did a good job in trying to provide a little bit more value to customers for that but if you've already got a fire TV streamer and you've got an echo across the room you're 95% of the way there what's that what's like is that customer actually gonna go and switch and get the cube they would have to be a pretty rabid Amazon fan I would argue to do something like that yeah or the again the kind of person that has this other device in their system that they've never been able to get to work with it you know you always said to keep your soundbar remote out to turn it on for example you know as stuff like that but for the most part that this does tread on a lot of territory that Amazon's already been there by the way I also wanted to mention if you're really interested in this device it's on sale for the next two days today and tomorrow for $90 again it's in the US only but if you're a Prime customer you can get it for $30 cheaper today or tomorrow that's a pre-order and then it actually ships June 21st and we'll probably get a chance to get our hands on it and spend a little bit more time with it as we get closer to that date and David you'll probably have a fuller review yeah one of the things I'm really good in is AV receiver control so that's one of the key to set ups where the using AV receiver for the switching instead of the television be actually see how well that controls it cuz you got two different input switching things in the system and you know a harmony does that beautifully or for example if you're a guy that ran out of HDMI inputs in your using one of these HDMI switches to throw on you know whatever it is you know there's a lot of legacy stuff in people's systems that Amazon's got to account for especially early you know when this thing first launched is that they're gonna probably not be able to support very well so it'll be interesting to see how well it actually you know does that I'd be very impressed if I could put the echo cube on a on like an old CRT yeah yeah it don't control it if it's got the the IR codes it will and and I think Amazon can probably do that well one of the things I asked in the demo was and I wasn't just being jerk but I said hey can this thing control an Apple TV or a Roku and because I mean honestly I like Roku a lot better than fire TV and I like Apple TV better than fire TV so I'd want to use one of these things he's like we haven't really figured that out yet but why would you watch them like because they definitely have a lot of research going into them yeah right of course that's the first thing I want to do is support the competitors product if that being said do you think that this device gets them a little bit closer to some of those other guys no because this isn't really about streaming this is about controlling your other stuff I mean you've been able to control a TV with an Apple TV since launch for example it actually has volume buttons on the remote it can it can turn on your TV with CEC really reliably and control volume and you can pick up the remote and ask Siri for stuff so you know again this isn't like all new the thing that is new and cool is the far-field voice built into one box I feel like the big bet for this is that everyone loses their remote controls every day yeah Oh totally totally I agree and I was also gonna like and we should get the question soon but all right so Amazon key folks right they come in your house and then they take your remote control so that you have to get firetv cube i like that idea jacket the pre-chat i hope you're watching this is this is a great idea on a first-name basis with good basis I've never spoken to you together every day unfortunately I'm pretty sure Jeff doesn't know I exist but that's okay well anyway that takes a good segue into a really good critique coming in from APEC okay we can always count on for being my fellow YouTube cynic The Voice Alexa thing is hilarious how is this different from what Microsoft did with tea and the Kinect and the 360 and the one especially now that the Kinect is our IP for good reason without I added that part well this survive in the long haul he goes on to say I once had TV av audio and everything routed through the Xbox one would connect support for voice controls and it was great all along with the gestures and the whole nine yards so is this really new I mean I would make a big argument that the big difference is that like this is like how much cheaper then yeah and the size yeah yeah and also like they have a whole like dedicated like Ewing service for it right yeah yeah well so does Xbox but I take your point I mean again this is stuff that a lot of people in trying to do for a long time the infrared part of it is is cool it doesn't just rely on CEC ostensibly you know with all this alexa integration you can do different stuff with skills that you couldn't begin to do with something like an xbox I mean that whole universe of extra stuff is already coming along with this device like they showed us that Jeopardy thing for exists which I kind of liked it was just basically it's the Jeopardy skill that it shows up on your television so you see the clues and you can kind of like play along it seems like a fully interactive Jeopardy game so if I if I asked it to play like music from Spotify like it would show up on the TV yeah that's really cool with the lyrics and much better sound than any echo or da you know because you're listening for your soundbar or whatever how much of the audio testing were you able to do because I know you mentioned it in your review of your first take where it's like they adjusted the microphone so that even if you're blasting something on your TV to be able to hear you cuz I always have that problem with my Google home like right next to my TV as well mm-hmm so we you know this was right next to the TV it was a can demo you know so who knows from from Amazon when this thing ships we're definitely gonna want to test that because you're right my echo is across the room and I use it to control the TV with harmony that works very well because it's far away from other speakers and I can turn my head and kind of shout out it if I you know if I'm in the in the room with a music playing loud but if it's right next to the TV they're saying we use beamforming technology and there's a primeira phones and there's a bunch of new crap we need like the microphones up front which is apparently supposed to help with that - genius yeah yeah I take your point I mean it's not an easy thing and for example Sonos has been contending with this because their one speaker so most one speaker has you know microphones and it plays music loud and you know it can those two things can interfere with each other so it takes some some pretty good tech to be able to figure it out in the demo it worked so to their credit it didn't completely like its he was playing the sound bar pretty loudly and it would hiccup but to balance that out there would sometimes he would query Alexa and it would take like the second or the third query to actually get it to do what it yeah which is pretty typical when you're using these types so when you use this do you have to talk to this specific like Alexa for for it to turn your TV on so what or like if I'm in my kitchen and I have an echo they're like turn on TV I don't know like relay it to like the cube so usually the way these things work is that all Alexa's in a system recognize you so you you talk to them you've set them up as an Alexa home and and they're actually supposed to be recognized which ones closer and have that respond so I haven't tested it yet we didn't ask that question but I'm almost positive that in a home situation with a secondary or tertiary device you'll be able to do that kind of TV control as well another thing to remember is it does come with the fire TV remote which has voice built-in so if it can't hear you or if you're in another room you can pull out the remote and talk into it and get the same effect so you know that's another way to use it that makes it a little bit more versatile i'm with alfred honest or no they should have gone for efficiency i want that thing ready by the time I make my six-foot journey from my kitchen to my living room yeah there's no time to waste here it works it works really well or or you can you know you can shout in the bedroom while you're walking or if you know your kids are watching I use this literally every day kids are watching TV I can you know hey turn off the TV and it you know it didn't have to find the remote I don't wait for the kids to do it it just I don't know that that actually works though because there isn't an IR blaster and the other echo speakers sorry so what I was talking about well what he's asking is it requires a network so it requires this cube to know that there's another echo speaker and have that speaker do the kind of control that turns it on I would be pretty cool I don't yeah we didn't test that out we didn't ask yes we'll find out I feel like I'm asking all the questions instead of like our viewers so I don't Brian do we have any more questions oh absolutely Danny Green wants to know does this go on or is this going to work with TiVo great question we don't know I so when you say work with basically you're asking does it turn on and switch to the right input and start me off because once what else is TiVo do well you know DVR yeah all that stuff Tebow does a crap load but most of you're gonna have to use the remote control to do of course t-boz his own voice remote but the whole starting and activity is kind of what this is about and and controlling the volume mute that kind of thing yes I mean you'll be even be able to say skip forward 30 seconds would be really cool but we don't know yet so like this isn't exclusive to just like Netflix or Hulu like online streaming stuff right like you can also use that for like normal TV yes old TV you might say you could play ESPN live like what you do is you look at it and we don't know how complicated the setup will be for this but when you setup with your cable box you just say like play ESPN live and it's gonna know what Channel tells you so like you know you can say like play cat videos in a row no to put like cat videos on I wonder if you say like play basketball will it like put on the game itself or will it play like just like and one basket but like street ball clubs yeah or or it'll find like you know a basketball movie yeah there's a lot of stuff like that that routinely messes up on alexa and other voice assistants and it's just a matter of them being smart enough to prioritize hey this is what this person means in context and i see google assistant honestly is better at that in my experience then alexa is especially the entertainment stuff because they've been working on it for a while but it seems to know a little more about what you're talking about let's let's delve into YouTube by the way because we just mentioned cat videos we we asked in the demo how does YouTube work on this thing I'll let you take it from there yeah the interesting thing is so background YouTube and Amazon have a little bit of a feud going on where for example certain Amazon devices like the show don't have a YouTube app and you can't use YouTube on them at all which is an issue because YouTube is gigantic and awesome so hey YouTube out there so you with this thing YouTube works beautifully so there is no YouTube app what happens is the same thing happens on any other fire TV when you activate YouTube it launches what is actually looks just like an app but it's a browser and there's a little bit of a URL there at the bottom but otherwise it doesn't look anything like a browser link of it yeah yeah so we heat the in the demo the dude said you know YouTube I want to watch some cat videos popped cat videos on YouTube exactly like the app experience so you're missing nothing with this thing and compared to having YouTube built in so it's just a different way of getting but how does the search work on it like if I said like I want to watch like the latest episode of the 3:59 right episode 409 like would it like specifically put that on words yes I mean it again it's the search worked with that phrasing Alexa I want to watch the 359 on YouTube that you know according the demo you just saw would call it up exactly as you'd expect and start playing this amazing podcast alright guys we're expecting everyone in the chat to go buy one and test this out and report back to us thanks specifically with the 359 right now so good such a hard like thing for it to pick up I think that like I think we need to keep yeah yeah waiting for your Alexa to fire back like oh you should have picked a better name well I want the other 359 okay we are getting close to running out of time so let's try to crank through some more of these questions because there's some good ones piling in from Huey yeah Google seems to be lagging behind Amazon in devices is it likely that Google will respond with a similar device in a year or two or is Amazon finally leaving Google in the dust that's a good question from a device perspective this is actually the 11th Alexa powered Amazon gadget that I counted and that feels like a lot to me I mean like three right so so is more I don't know I think that Amazon is just currently in a phase of experimentation and trying to figure out what's actually working if you are buying an echo speaker most of the time it's an echo dot because the price point is really good it goes on sale for like between thirty and forty dollars all the time mm-hmm I don't think my immediate impression is is that the fire TV cube is not going to be a huge market for them but they're still trying to experiment and figure it out and try to see okay where can we cram Alexa into all these different places in your home whether it's your entertainment system or your closet with the echo look or just like more of a generalist device with like the echo its dot and the just like the regular echo yeah and and some of those devices fall flat you know like the spot for example like really the Amazon tap is a really good example yeah nobody's really buying that or very few people are buying they just made the echo look like publicly available for everyone now - I'm like I don't think I know what's gonna buy that one either yeah they just throw as much as they can at the wall plus they're hardware company they've a lot more motivation to come up with different gadgets whereas Google is much more of a software company and they're again every time you talk with IO what they care about is you know AI and and making their smart assist yeah in software I'm smarter I also make the argument that like Google has been way ahead of Apple sorry way ahead of Amazon as far as like TVs go considering that like the majority of Smart TVs are running Android like it's not like a like a smart home thing not now or like a voice assistant thing but like yeah most like Smart TVs are running Android aren't they well if you're gonna compare the two yeah I mean but Roku TVs is actually a really better seller than either one right now and Samsung is the you know anyway so in terms of smart TV itself but you're right that Google has a head start and smart yeah because they've had chromecast built in on Vizio TVs for three years now they also have Android TV on Sony TVs and you know these amazon firetv Edition televisions are relatively new best buys to start selling and stuff like that so Amazon although but then again Amazon has a lead in there right there with chromecast in terms of device sales so their fire TV devices are really really popular fire TV stick with the legs of voice control I think Amazon says it the best selling device on their site and that one yes $40 device so they're both really into avy space especially streaming because amazon wants it you know get you to watch prime video okay let's take a quick and easy one from chris is this faster than the fire TV stick or the fire TV box it's from what i saw it's basically the same as the new fire TV which is hella fast the new fire TV stick is also really fast so i think an operational speed you not gonna see much difference we neni of them they're all pretty darn fast from syringe oi speaking of Alexa do you think Amazon will soon infiltrate car assistance with dedicated integration like apple carplay and android auto currently handful brands support Alexa Ford Lincoln and BMW yeah yeah he knows been he knows Oh sir enjoy knows all friend joy does know more than I do and most topics so yes the answer is absolutely yes and that's that's a big play for for all those companies because smart home and automotive are two of the strongest plays for voice assistance because they're private / semi private areas where you know you're not going to annoy people by talking to your voice assistant and they're a little bit more contained than doing it in an open office or a subway let's take one more from stern joy do you think in video should focus more on TVs with more affordable variants of the shield TV yes the og right there yeah I'd like to see a cheaper shield something along the lines of a you know original Nexus player at a hundred bucks instead of 200 it's a great device with assistant built-in but I think in videos going in a different direction more gaming centric more processor centric like they show to see yes they actually had a Nvidia BFG monitor and and that thing is pretty crazy just like a super tricked-out gaming smart TV monitor thing so it'd be interesting to see a cheaper shield I don't think there's much room there in the market for those cheaper streaming devices with Roku and everybody else playing there the general takeaway in the chat right now is that Amazon just seems to be kind of flooding things throwing everything at the wall seeing what sticks and maybe that could backfire them could we see any potential negative results of them just cranking Alexa into every device next one the spoon right if I read right the Alexa spoon yeah yes if if you're like a brand new customer to this kind of stuff it's possible that you would just get over well didn't like move away and try to find something else to do but okay maybe you would consider Apple but the home pot is three hundred and fifty dollars and there's only one of them but at the same time it doesn't really provide you nearly as much optionality to the point of like you would really want to have that device if you were gonna spend there antimony and and once they get their hooks into you with a dot for 50 bucks or 40 bucks or whatever it is your next thing is like oh I really like this thing what can I put in the living room what can i you know put you know elsewhere in the house what can I do for this and that and that's what they're trying to do is ramp you up as a lifetime ecosystem customer yeah at some point I expect them to trim this portfolio but they haven't really yet I'm surprised I haven't discontinued any of this like the Amazon tap seems the most likely that they would discontinue at some point but they haven't even done that yet so I don't know I would say wait to see that but like I said before at this point they're in like flood the zone their interpretation phase yeah I think that's been mirrors gonna be the first one to faceplant I would say look for like a home pod mini that's probably like the most likely new smart speaker that I would hope to see sometime later this year and next year because like Google already jumped into that space Amazon's been doing that really well I don't know what a home pod Mini price would be it would probably be at least $100 actually more expensive that's it's smaller though and he's super thin I would love to see that even though syria's like a much weaker voice assistant but I think Apple will probably inevitably have to do that but guessing the future is a fool's errand Scott my it's still waiting for Alexa to Pier and a Smart Watch wants to know if anyone else is interested in that cluck says when will Google duplex be able to tell Alexa to turn on your TV yeah can you turn on the TV for one please about three almost at a time couple more cookies let's talk about going around the horn from the other integrated smart home entertainment systems Josh asks why doesn't the Sonos beam include a fire TV it's already got the Alexa on it probably cuz it's not really about video I think that's one of those things where it's designed to be an audio centric device first and foremost and Sonos is really good with their audio ecosystem and they don't want to really dip their toe in that area again where it's very very crowded already will you be able to run your own apks or Kodi on the fire TV cube I'm guessing yes Amazon has a lot of traction with that kind of stuff with the fire TV universe the stick is super popular with preloaded you know apks in the shady realm of things so I can't imagine they would turn any of that off for this device and one more from Josh is this the first time that they've made something cheaper for Prime members they make everything cheaper for Prime members they're desperately hoping that you join prime because it's another one of those elements where they get their hooks in you they make shipping cheaper for Prime members are you kidding yeah how quickly do they arrive like they I don't know every I don't know okay there's like three to five days would be pretty good I didn't really say if it was to joining some that's not possible there's no way actually one more let's take one from Yahoo how much is this FBI proof I'm assuming that this is in the air of security and everybody's cameras it's not a burden it's not FBI FBI proof nothing is FBI yeah there's there's absolutely no way especially the fact that it is a like it records your voice it sends it to Amazon servers I mean they could subpoena Amazon for it there's been that like murder trial where Amazon just gave up that data to them that wasn't the FBI that was just like the local police okay the alleged guy yeah agreed to get the data release yeah just to throw that out okay but like still like it was the local police who asked for it right yeah yeah it's if you're concerned about this data getting into an Amazon server don't buy this device it's just if you're uncomfortable with it it's not gonna work don't get any voice assistant if you're worried about like you know police or any like law enforcement like trying to listen in on you or get and you don't use a phone either yeah maybe just go camping for a while oh don't watch YouTube okay we are out of time that's gonna be it for us for the week and we are unfortunately going to need to announce that Monday and Tuesday we're off once again you can blame me okay Audio though if you're subtracting audio podcast on Google Play Music and the Amazon echo and iTunes and etc etc will tell you all about it yeah that'll still be happening but no live show Monday or Tuesday again I'm sorry I have to deal with some personal stuff but yeah we'll be back after that we do want to tease something on our way out the door today though it's been a great week it's been great to be back next week our cohorts in San Francisco are hosting dads and grads buyer's guide for all of the grad and I'm a buyer how appropriate is that so stick around everybody and I will let Brian coolly tell you all about it after we retail out the show so I've been it's in your hands okay all right the 3:59 is available on itunes tuna and stitcher feedburner Google Play Music the Amazon echo and of course cnet.com calm thanks for watching everybody take care hey folks coolie here with breaking news dads don't want neckties and grads don't want that lame tech you parents think is cool like a neat digital camera no they want the cool stuff that's found on SEANET we know what the right stuff is and gear makers go out of their way to offer deals on it here because they know you're here and we've got rig Broyden the cheap skate backing it all up because he thinks whole sales paying too much sound pretty good well join me and Lexus Avitus for a new dads and grads tech deals show right here from Studio six in San Francisco Lexi and I will have our favorite gear picks Boyd has got deals you won't find any other way and we're giving away an iPhone 8 so join me Lexie and Rick on Sina Monday June 11 2 o'clock Eastern 11:00 a.m. Pacific and give these to Goodwill you