Alexa Voice Remote (3rd Gen) with TV controls, Requires compatible Fire TV device, 2021 release
[{'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on April 14, 2021', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'Love the new shortcut keys. They make the experience super simple for kids and family turning on the TV, launch the app with simple click of single button.\n\nSize and feel are exactly the same as 2nd gen remotes and the setup was seamless. Just went into Settings and added new Remote, it took 2 minutes to add and remote was updated automatically in another 2 minutes.\n\nOnly differences are\n- Voice key is now Blue Alexa themed\n- New Channels/Live button\n- Mute button has moved to the left of Volume Up\n- Not-functional change - "Fire TV" above the logo at the bottom of the remote\n- And of course the 4 new shortcuts, which are the highlight.\n\nSuggestions/Feature I would like to have had :\n1. Ability to customize these buttons, e.g., I don\'t have Hulu and would have loved to make "Hulu" button open a different app\n2. "Prime Video" button seems like a redundant button also; pressing the existing Home button takes me to the main page with Prime as first option.\n3. Backlit keys.\n\nOverall, I like the new shortcuts. Maybe just wishing that Amazon could do a trade-in to get me to replace other 4 remotes around the household :)'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on April 15, 2021', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': "EDIT: soon after posting this review, the remote finally connected to the fire stick and began working. I was then able to easily connect it to my TV. Power, volume, and shortcut buttons are all working fine. The only explanation I can think of is that an update was pushed in the background and took a while to finish (largely while I originally wrote this review!)\n\nI was able to pair it to my fire stick 4k using my old remote that is dying, but it would not connect to my Samsung TV to control power and volume (the old remote did). I went through the process of re-adding the TV and pressing the >> button through all 6 options with no luck. After unpairing my old remote, I couldn't even attempt to add my TV as the stick apparently did not recognize this new remote as TV compatible...\n\nI've now gone through the process of unplugging the power from my fire stick, waiting 60 seconds, resting the remote with back, menu, and left buttons, taking out batteries, plugging in fire stick, waiting 60 seconds, putting batteries back in, pushing home, and trying to hold home for 10 seconds to put the remote in pair mode. The fire stick just says that it cannot detect a remote.\n\nI cannot get this new remote to even connect to the fire stick at all now. I either got a lemon, or their firmware was not good enough on release (despite the update to the remote that was automatically done immediately after I initially paired it).\n\nI'll update my review if I get it working. So far, no luck."}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on April 14, 2021', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-2 review-rating', 'review_body': "The remote adds a guide button and 4 media buttons. The media buttons are probably a way to get revenue from the companies that are given button space. Unfortunately the remote remains very pricey when you consider that it only comes with a 90 day warranty and cost more than the vast majority of replacement remotes.\n\nThere are two admirable improvements. The remote appears to be more responsive than previous models which seems to provide smoother menu navigation. The other is the mute button has a curved indented top surface which makes it easier to navigate the remote by touch. Wish there was a similar touch variation to the navigation buttons.\n\nNot sure if the Alexa recognition is improved. It fails about 80% of the time for me whether I am using the remote or the 3 different Echo devices I have so it doesn't seem worth it to test. Alexa has added features, but with such a poor failure rate, more features just mean more failure. Since it isn't improving I would be very happy if I could limit Alexa to only respond to requests for weather and beyond that only beep in response. There is nothing worse than having Alexa explain in detail everything Alexa gets wrong.\n\nAs noted in the description, it doesn't support Fire TVs, only certain model Fire TV sticks. There are not that many Fire TV models. It is extremely poor that Amazon didn't ensure their TVs would work with the remote. Sadly they are so dismissive, they didn't check to see if they would work. I'm using the new remote with an Amazon Fire TV and it's working fine.\n\nI was committed to the Fire TV ecosystem and was planning on only purchasing more Fire TVs in the future, but with the lack of support of both the new Fire TV interface and new remote for the latest model Fire TVs, I have decided that actual Fire TVs are a poor investment and will not buy them. As of today you can't buy a new Fire TV with the new Interface or use it with this new remote. Would be nice if Amazon updated their Fire TV product descriptions as a buyer beware courtesy.\n\nUpdate: Revised to 2 stars. I have been prompted several times that the remote cannot be detected by FireTV even though it still functions normally.\n\nUpdate 2: Revised to 1 star. The support person I contacted didn't even know this product existed."}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on April 14, 2021', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': "This is the newest Alexa Voice FireTV remote, for FireTV, FireTV Cube and FireStick devices.\n\n*note- Please check the compatibility list in the description, because while this remote works for most of the newer Amazon FireTV devices, it does NOT work with the older 1st Gen FireTV. *\n\nPROS:\n\nAPP BUTTONS: The biggest change is the inclusion of the “Preset App Buttons” toward the bottom of the remote. These four buttons automatically launch Prime Video, Netflix, Disney Plus, and Hulu. I tested them out and each seemed to work well, launching the apps quickly.\nCHANNEL GUIDE BUTTON– This remote now has a Guide button (shaped like a little TV) to the right of the Volume buttons. We use a FireTV Recast to occasionally watch live TV, and this button pops up the Channel Guide so you can scroll through the live TV channels. After the recent FireTV homescreen menu change, it is pretty easy already to get to the Channel Guide from the Home page, but still, this makes it even easier.\n\nCONS:\n\nCOST: At $30, this remote isn't exactly cheap. It works well, but might not be worth that price depending on your needs.\n\nOVERALL: This is a great remote, but I'm not sure if it is worth it to upgrade from a previous generation remote just for the added App Buttons and the Guide Button. We personally have found these buttons to be a nice touch though, as they might save you a second or two of scrolling. If you have an older remote that you were thinking about replacing anyway, then I would definitely recommend getting this one. (Also, keep in mind you CAN add this as a second remote to your FireTV Cube if you want, without getting rid of the first one, and you can use them both. We are currently doing that with one of our TVs, because we tend to misplace the remote anyway and having two that both work seems to be less of a headache.)"}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on April 14, 2021', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'Super easy to set up. Works perfect with the 4K Firestick and my Vizio tv. Went to settings and controller/Bluetooth devices to sync the remote with my Firestick and Equipment control to sync the remote with my tv. Took less than 5 minutes.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on April 23, 2021', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-1 review-rating', 'review_body': 'No matter what I do it will not pair to my fire cube, I bought this because our old remote is dying and unfortunately now we have no working remote.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on April 8, 2022', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'I accidentally washed my old remote in the washing machine, so I didn’t have an “old remote” when it came time to pair the new remote.. so I recommend just downloading the app on your phone.. it was real easy to set up.. googled the steps to take && they were pretty easy to follow.. batteries were included && everything works! Thanks'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on April 15, 2021', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-4 review-rating', 'review_body': 'I replaced my Fire Stick Lite remote w/ the Sideclick for this all in one remote, when my Sideclick fell to the floor and died. I felt this remote was a bit pricey but I was tired of carrying two remotes around to do one job. Since I had my original remote this paired real easy. I just followed the instructions. Because I have a Fire TV, a prompt asked if I wanted to set my volume controls. I said yes. It did it. No fuss, no muss. One nice little feature that that the new remote has is its dedicated buttons on the bottom to access four common apps, (Prime Video, Netflix, Disney+ and Hulu). I gave it 4 stars, (overall), because it has just one job and it does it. If something changes, I’ll update my review. I took away a star because Amazon knows they charge too much for this remote. That’s all. I’m off my soapbox.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on April 26, 2021', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': "This remote is an awesome upgrade from the last version we had, it has great voice recognition and is very simple to use. It has buttons on the bottom of the remote for prime, Netflix, Disny+, and Hulu, which makes getting to your streaming services a snap. It also connects to your television so there is no need to use two controllers which is convenient. It is very well made and holds up to abuse from our 7 year old. Overall I am very happy we upgraded to the new remote and it is well worth the price. If you're on the fence on whether to get this over the last model, just get it, you'll be happy you did."}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on April 10, 2022', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'Even though my Fire Cube turned on my old 2012 Samsung 70" TV through HDMI, I couldn\'t control volume except with Alexa voice. It did work, but was a little slow to recognize the commands so typically I used the Samsung remote. I was tired of using 2 remotes so I started looking for controllers. Then I saw this Fire TV remote which is significantly less in price so I gave it a try. It was easy to connect to my Fire Cube and somehow it connected automatically to my Samsung TV so the on/off button works and the volume control works. In fact, the on/off and volume controls works FASTER than the Samsung remote. How that is possible I don\'t know.'}]