Appholic
Member
Worth checking which tier you actually landed on before getting excited. Alexa+ is rolling out to Fire TV in the US at no extra cost, covering current-generation Sticks, the Cube, Amazon's Ember sets and supported Hisense and Panasonic TVs. No app to install, no subscription, and no Prime membership required. Eligible boxes just get upgraded.
The catch is what sits above the free line. Routines stay behind Prime or an Alexa+ Standard subscription, along with certain Ring camera moments and the advanced Home Modes. So the free half is conversational search and follow-up questions; the automation half, which is the part I'd use every evening, is still paid. Reasonable commercially, but it does mean the "no extra cost" headline covers the feature people are least attached to.
On the search side the change is genuine. Old Alexa wanted a title or a keyword and fell over on anything vague. This one handles a request like a highly rated thriller, then lets you narrow to something newer without starting the whole query again. Amazon says users are having nearly twice as many conversations as with the original Alexa and picking the top movie recommendation over 40% more often. Both of those are engagement numbers rather than accuracy numbers, and I'd read them that way. More conversations can just as easily mean the first answer missed.
The smart home reach is the bit I didn't expect: Ring feeds, lights, locks, scores and timers without leaving what you're watching. Which raises a question for anyone who has had it flip over already - does the Prime Video handoff actually work between two different rooms, or only from a Cube to the TV it's plugged into?
The catch is what sits above the free line. Routines stay behind Prime or an Alexa+ Standard subscription, along with certain Ring camera moments and the advanced Home Modes. So the free half is conversational search and follow-up questions; the automation half, which is the part I'd use every evening, is still paid. Reasonable commercially, but it does mean the "no extra cost" headline covers the feature people are least attached to.
On the search side the change is genuine. Old Alexa wanted a title or a keyword and fell over on anything vague. This one handles a request like a highly rated thriller, then lets you narrow to something newer without starting the whole query again. Amazon says users are having nearly twice as many conversations as with the original Alexa and picking the top movie recommendation over 40% more often. Both of those are engagement numbers rather than accuracy numbers, and I'd read them that way. More conversations can just as easily mean the first answer missed.
The smart home reach is the bit I didn't expect: Ring feeds, lights, locks, scores and timers without leaving what you're watching. Which raises a question for anyone who has had it flip over already - does the Prime Video handoff actually work between two different rooms, or only from a Cube to the TV it's plugged into?
