The newly released Plex Alexa Skill is a great way to control the Plex app with your voice using a voice remote on the Amazon Fire TV or through an Amazon Echo. Here’s the full list of available voice commands that Plex understands.
On the Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, and Amazon Tap, you have to say “Alexa, ask Plex…” or “Alexa, tell Plex…” before saying a command. It doesn’t matter which you say, so just say the one that feels natural to you. For Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV Stick owners, you can just say “Ask Plex…” or “Tell Plex…” without first saying “Alexa” if you prefer, but saying “Alexa” first will still work.
Voice commands will be sent to your default device if you have Plex installed on multiple devices. You can ask to switch devices to send all subsequent voice commands to a device other than your default device. If you want a command to be sent to a device other than the default device, but don’t want to switch devices, you must add “…on [DEVICE NAME]” to the end of the voice command.
Server Settings
Ask Plex to change/switch my default server
Ask Plex to change/switch my default server to [SERVER NAME]
Ask Plex to change/switch my server
Ask Plex to change/switch my server to [SERVER NAME]
Player Settings
Ask Plex to change/switch my default player
Ask Plex to change/switch my default player to [DEVICE NAME]
Ask Plex to change/switch my player
Ask Plex to change/switch my player to [DEVICE NAME]
Player Controls
Ask Plex to play
Ask Plex to pause
Ask Plex to resume
Ask Plex to stop
Ask Plex next
Ask Plex previous
Specific Content
Ask Plex to play/put on/start [MOVIE/SHOW NAME].
Ask Plex let’s watch [MOVIE/SHOW NAME].
Ask Plex I would like to watch [MOVIE/SHOW NAME].
Ask Plex to play/put on/start season [#] of [SHOW NAME].
Ask Plex to play/put on/start season [#], episode [#] of [SHOW NAME].
Ask Plex to play/put on/start [SHOW NAME] season [#].
Ask Plex to play/put on/start [SHOW NAME] season [#], episode [#].
Ask Plex to play/put on/start music by [ARTIST].
Ask Plex let’s hear/listen to music by [ARTIST].
Ask Plex I want to hear/listen to songs by [ARTIST].
Ask Plex shuffle music by [ARTIST].
Ask Plex shuffle [ARTIST].
Ask Plex to play/put on/start the album [ALBUM NAME].
Ask Plex I want to hear/listen to the album [ALBUM NAME].
Ask Plex let’s hear/listen to the album [ALBUM NAME].
Ask Plex to play/put on/start the song/track [SONG NAME].
Ask Plex let’s hear/listen to the song/track [SONG NAME].
Recent Content
Ask Plex what can I continue watching?
Ask Plex what’s on continue watching?
Ask Plex what’s on my continue watching list?
Ask Plex what was I in the middle of?
Ask Plex what movie/show was I in the middle of?
Ask Plex what’s On Deck?
Ask Plex what’s up?
Ask Plex what’s been recently added?
Ask Plex what was recently added?
Ask Plex what’s new?
Suggested Content
Ask Plex can you suggest/recommend something?
Ask Plex to give me a suggestion/recommendation.
Ask Plex to suggest/recommend something to watch/listen to.
Ask Plex to suggest/recommend me something.
Ask Plex to hook me up.
Ask Plex what’s good?
Ask Plex what should I watch/listen to?
Ask Plex I don’t know what to watch.
Ask Plex I’m not sure what to watch.
Ask Plex to put on something to watch.
Ask Plex to suggest/recommend a movie/show to watch.
Ask Plex to put on a movie/show/music.
Ask Plex to suggest/recommend a movie/show to watch.
Ask Plex to suggest some music.
Ask Plex I want to watch a movie/show.
Ask Plex I want to hear/listen to some music.
Ask Plex let’s get this party started. (music)
Ask Plex throw down some phat beats. (music)
Ask Plex drop the beat. (music)
That’s pretty cool. So you can control Plex but not the Fire TV…lol
Mine works fine on Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV.
I can’t get plex to find my plex app on my amazon fire tv. It says that no player is running on the network. It is on the same network as my server. Both connected by ethernet cable to the router (via a few switches).
I run into the same issue, I have a TIVO and a Shield TV both running plex on the same network / subnet and when I tell echo “echo ask plex to change my default server” it says it finds no companion apps on my network. I do have remote access on at the point, everything. If I control it from app.plex.tv (browser) it finds my browser – but can’t find any of the devices I want it to control. Frustrating!!
I have been having issues myself and turned off secure connections, settings -> General. see if this helps, if not turn it back on. this also exists on the server in setting, and can be adjusted also.
Good Luck!
I am running into the same issue with my 1st gen Amazon Fire TV. Works perfectly fine on my Roku 3 though.
I had the same issue. Realised that my Fire TV is never switched off. Rebooted it and it detected it.
Also, make sure you’re logged in on the client as the master user, same as the server. It doesn’t work with managed users.
My issue is that Plex seems to find the content, says it will play it, but doesn’t actually do anything after that. An example is I had Alexa ask Plex to play John Wyck. Alexa then says “playing John Wyck, enjoy the movie” (I’m paraphrasing) then it just doesn’t play it.
Are you sure it is running on the correct companion app, do you have more than one player and is the one you are trying to play it on set as default?
Not exactly sure. When I tried the first command, Alexa said that it had found only one Plex server and selected it automatically. Then Alexa said that it had found only one player and it too was selected automatically. I did not see any choice of player within FireTV. What would be the correct companion app and player?
Ditto using Amazon Echo
So from looking at the Plex support page, it seems like there are “controller and receiver” Plex apps and then just receiver Plex apps. My assumption is the devices I am trying to run this on are receiver only and they need to support both.
The devices able to be set as controller/receiver are as follows
Android
iOS
Plex Web App
Windows and Windows Phone
The devices that can only receive are as follows
Android TV
Apple TV
Chromecast*
Google TV & Fire TV
PlayStation**
Plex for Smart TVs**
Plex Media Player
Plex Home Theater
Xbox 360**
Xbox One**
Roku
I am wondering if this has something to do with why not all people are able to get this working correctly. I am confused why it says android is compatible with both but then below it it lists android devices as receive only.
In my case, I run my Plex server on my Qnap NAS, and have a Roku 3 for the player. Alexa found it quickly and works fine.
In a somewhat related note, did you hear that Alexa might be used as a witness in a murder investigation?
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2016/12/28/tech/amazon-echo-alexa-bentonville-arkansas-murder-case-trnd/index.html?client=safari
Hopefully Alexa didn’t hear me when I was murdering my toilet earlier..
Doesn’t work for me either. It will only see the ‘player’ if the Plex app is running on my Gen 1 FireTV and it is listed as “My AFTV” but when I try to play a movie it will not… I don’t see any way to change the name of the player either (I have 4 fire tv devices in the house)
Doesn’t detect RasPlex on an RPI3 but does find the Plex PMP client running on another RPI3.
Seems like they released this without testing at all… quite unlike Plex to fail so bad…
I’m curious, is there any project work going on to continue to add the support for other plex platforms. e.g. Rasplex as understandably Rasplex is using the outdated base for plex which they are trying to move away from? Also is there project work going on to add additional features e.g.
1) volume control e.g. “Alexa Ask Plex to turn volume down 10%”
2) “Alexa Ask Plex what’s new” returning TV content not just movie.
3) Alexa to ask when it finds multiple entries of something in the database. e.g when asked to play “beauty and the beast” the Disney version the 2017 version and the TV show are present but it just plays the oldest record being the Disney version currently.
4) I was also under the impression that if a series is all set to watched that it will choose a random episode however it seems to be always picking s01e01 however I haven’t tested this fully myself (ensured the season I tried was completely watched).
5) If all episodes except s01e10-s01e15 of a show are set to watched because the latest episodes are watched it will do a random episode instead of locate the unwatched.
Thank you in advance and apologies for what started as a short post turning into a wall of text.
how do you create something like this and leave out playlists? kinda stupid right?