One of the most common questions I’ve been asked recently, during the Q&A portion of the AFTVnewscast, is whether or not UK and German Fire TVs and Fire TV Sticks will be getting access to Alexa on their devices like is available on US devices. Now that the Amazon Echo and Echo Dot are officially available in the UK and Germany, you would think Amazon would activate Alexa on all Fire TVs, but they’ve been silent on the matter. I did some digging through the latest Fire TV software update to see if I could determine the answer to this question for myself and I think I’ve found evidence that suggest Alexa is indeed coming to Fire TVs and Fire TV Sticks in the UK and Germany.
All Fire TVs and Fire TV Sticks, regardless of where they’re sold, contain the exact same operating system. This means that UK and German Fire TVs have had Alexa capabilities ever since it was added to US Fire TVs, but the feature has been disabled if the Amazon account signed into the device is not a US account.
Over the weekend, I searched through the code in the new 5.2.1.1 Fire TV software update that pertains to Alexa and discovered newly added code that appears to allow Alexa to determine the country and language settings of the device. This code was not present prior to the latest software update. Since Alexa was only available in the US and could only understand English, there was no reason for the feature to know the device’s country and language.
While it’s not a guarantee, the addition of country and language identification for Alexa in the new software update is a strong indicator that Fire TVs and Fire TV Sticks internationally will soon gain the ability to make Alexa requests. I speculate that Amazon is either waiting for the arrival of Echo in the UK on September 28th, or waiting for the announcement of new Fire TV hardware to be revealed, before activating Alexa on international Fire TVs and Fire TV Sticks.
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You could always download the Alexa App off the UK play store and note that your Fire TV and Fire TV Stick are listed in the available devices ;)
Yeah, I saw that, but wanted more proof since that could have been left over from the US version.
I can see in the Now Playing section of the Alexa app it sats:
To control playback of Moe’s Fire TV tell Alexa what you would like to do.
It also has in bold playback support not supported. Will check it out tonight.
Is it necessary to get a Echo or other Hardware to use Alexa on a FireTV or Alexa App?
Greetings from Germany ;)
Ferruh
No, if Amazon makes it available in the UK and Germany, it’ll just start working. All you need is either a voice remote or the Fire TV mobile app.
Thanks for the Info. Sounds good :)
Says here it’s coming 28th September:
http://layla.amazon.co.uk/spa/index.html?#skills
That’s referring to the Amazon Echo being released on the 28th, not Alexa on the Fire TV.
Well, all my Fire TVs are registered in there.
They are with mine too which may indicate it’s coming in the near future but at present we have no date for when Alexa will come to UK Fire TVs. Now that I have the Echo I have no real need for Alexa on the fire TV.
There’s no mention of the Echo coming to Amazon France or Italy, Amazon’s two other European locations. I’m not from these countries but I’m curious to know why it’s only being released in two Amazon countries in Europe.
I got an Alexa app update on my tablet and it read WHAT’S NEW
*Bug fixes and performance enhancements
* Support for Alexa devices in UK
That’s referring to the Echo that was released today. Prior to the update you couldn’t use Prime services and UK skills. I had the old app today and wasn’t able to connect to the UK Prime or see UK exclusive skills like Radioplayer, but could after I updated.
On Amazon it says third gen echo dot it’s available in UK from October 20. I wonder if alexa on Fire tv will coincide with this.
Is Alexa on uk fire tv’s now? I want to control my hive thermostat. I’ve installed Alexa on iOS and it sees my hive and fire tv’s but fire tv’s does not understand the commands. They are running 5.0.5 due to firestarter issue. Do I need a later software version to make it work??
Any Update on this, not any news regarding Alexa coming to UK fire TV
I just spent ages on the phone with Amazon tech support but they have no idea when it will be enabled on Fire TV. I have an echo device but still nothing on the FS
Amazon.com will not ship the fire stick with alexa to me in the uk. Does anyone know of a company in the states that does ship to uk.
After just buying the firestick with voice control for £45 I’m totally unimpressed that Amazon have just announced that a new stick will be released with Alexa for £40!!!! What’s more, the original firestick with voice control (without Alexa) has disappeared off Amazon. So I guess we aren’t getting an update. Feel totally cheated.