Skip to main content

Amazon’s Fire TV Cube gets intercom-style Alexa Announcements feature

Amazon wants its Fire TV Cube to become a central part of your home, and not just for entertainment purposes. To show off its usefulness, the company is extended Alexa Announcement compatibility to the streaming media box. The one-way intercom style feature allows you to communicate with other Alexa-powered devices throughout their home.

Here’s how the Alexa Announcements feature works on the Fire TV Cube: All you have to do is trigger Alexa and give it something to broadcast by telling it to announce something. For example, say “Alexa, announce the movie is about to start.” From there, Alexa will rely the message to all of the Alexa-enabled devices connected to your account. Other Alexa speakers will play the message “The movie is about to start” in any room that they are located. It’s a perfect tool for quickly delivering a message to every member of your household. The command also working with the trigger “Alexa, tell everyone” or “Alexa, broadcast” followed by your message of choice.

Recommended Videos

In addition to working as an intercom for the rest of your home, the Amazon Fire TV Cube will also be able to receive notifications from other devices throughout your home and provide you with that information. If you have smart devices installed in your home, you can connect it with Alexa and have certain actions provide an announcement over the Fire TV cube. Say you have a smart doorbell at your front door, if it detects motion, it can tell Alexa to broadcast that via the Fire TV Cube. While you’re watching your programming, you will receive an announcement that someone is at the door. You can then tell Alexa to show you a feed of your front door if you want to check out who is outside.

Support for the Alexa Announcement feature on Amazon Fire TV Cube is available to all customers located in the United States. You can customize what types of announcements your Fire TV Cube receives and what Alexa devices will broadcast your announcements by managing the Alexa Announcements feature through the Alexa app on your smartphone.

AJ Dellinger
AJ Dellinger is a freelance reporter from Madison, Wisconsin with an affinity for all things tech. He has been published by…
I replaced my kitchen TV with an Echo Show 15 — and I kinda liked it
Amazon Echo Show 15 showing Fire TV experience, with an Amazon Fire TV voice remote in the foreground.

For the better part of the last 20 years, my family has had a TV in our kitchen. It was the cheapest 19-inch flat screen I could find at the time -- a 720p Sharp model -- and we hooked it up to our cable connection and a Tivoli One speaker for better sound. It worked just fine -- no complaints. But when Amazon asked if I wanted to try swapping that ancient rig out for something a bit more modern, like an Amazon Echo Show 15 with its latest Fire TV update, I figured why not? Three weeks into the experiment, here’s how it’s going.
You’re gonna need a mount …

1.
The original Sharp 19-inch TV …
2.
… and the Amazon Echo Show 15.

Read more
Amazon Alexa aims to streamline the EV charging experience
Amazon Alexa lists EV charging station locations on a vehicle touchscreen.

While the number of EV charging stations continues to grow, finding a station and paying for charging can still be a hassle. But soon you'll be able to simply ask Alexa.

At CES 2023, Amazon announced Alexa-enabled charging services that will let EV drivers find a charging station via Alexa, as well as pay for charging at certain stations when they become available to drivers in the U.S. later in 2023. You'll need a car with Alexa integration or an accessory like one of Amazon's Echo Auto devices, however.

Read more
The best Alexa skills to use on your Amazon Echo in 2023
Amazon Echo Show 15 Smart Display on a wall.

Your Alexa-enabled device is a standout gateway into the world of smart home automation. Using voice commands and the intuitive Alexa companion app, Alexa owners can control web-connected devices like smart security cameras, door locks, and A/V hardware like the Amazon Fire Stick 4K Max. In addition to schedule management and other great features, did you know that Alexa is capable of many "skills" too?

Alexa skills are small, free apps (though a few do have a subscription fee) you can download to add functionalities to your smart devices. You can install skills to use voice commands to call Lyft, get Alexa to read you a bedtime story, or turn Alexa into a cooking assistant.

Read more