Hello everybody Well, here we are in a brand new week, and I’d like to give you my overall conclusions regarding the second generation Alexa-powered Amazon Fire TV.
Price is quite reasonable. If you don’t already own an Alexa-powered device for audio, this might be a way for you to go. You can stream to, or from, the Fire TV in order to use either external video and audio, or to pie the output to a Bluetooth® speaker. The speaker solution seems a little pointless, given that the device needs to be connected to an HDMI device in order to function. It does not, however, take its power from the HDMI target, as the power requirements exceed those provided via the HDMI source. Instead, the power source is USB Micro, 5V at 200MA. Perhaps ironically, I have mine taking power from the Amazon Echo via a battery base. A power supply is provided with the unit. However, doing it this way is more convenient for me personally. Regarding my number 1 concern, accessibility, I find myself a little disappointed. Yes, there is voice feedback when you are simply issuing commands via the Voice Remote. However, if you don’t know what is available on the device, you have absolutely no voice feedback as you navigate the menus and options. Therefore, for a blind person, there is only partial accessibility. However, all is not necessarily doom and gloom. Once you learn your way around the device, most of what you want to do can be accessed via voice commands. For instance, you can say something like: “Play BBC News” “Play BBC1” “Play Fox News” etc., etc., etc.. One thing that did strike me as odd was the fact that in the Alexa App, network configuration is not possible. Therefore, it is necessary for visual assistance to be available in order to use the remote to configure your network connection. However, once done, that is not really an issue unless you need to change networks for some reason. My overall conclusions based on a couple of hours playing with this thing are that, unless you want to play movies or videos or TV shows which are available on Amazon, you’re probably better off with the Echo series of devices. I need to play more with this thing to see if there is any other way to address the accessibility issues. So it’s back to the drawing board really for men order to gain access to net TV. I still haven’t got my Neo box configured, much to my frustration. ======================================== My compliments and kindest regards Gordon Smith: <gor...@mac-access.net> Accessibility & Information Technology Support Specialist.. Contact: • UK Geographic – +44(0) 1642 688095 • UKFree Phone – 0800 8620538 • UK Mobile – +44 (0) 7907 823971 • Australia Geographic – +61 38 82059300 • US Geographic – +1 646 9151493Mobile/SMS: ———————————————
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