The 3rd-gen Fire TV Cube is the first Fire TV to come with an option that Fire TV users have literally been asking for since the original Fire TV debuted in 2014. In its display settings is finally an option to make the Fire TV Cube output no video signal when it goes to sleep, as opposed to outputting an all-black video feed, which is what all prior Fire TVs do. The “No Signal” option, which is on by default, for the new “Sleep Mode Behavior” menu will finally allow your TV to automatically turn off when the Fire TV goes to sleep.
All Fire TVs prior to the new Fire TV Cube 3 display a black screen when asleep with no other option. Since the black sleep screen is as much a valid video signal as actually watching something, all TVs will treat it as if someone is using the TV and stay powered on indefinitely. I’m sure a lot of you can relate to walking into a room and seeing a faint glow from your TV’s black screen and realizing that you or someone in your house has left the TV on for hours because of the Fire TV’s black sleep screen.
If you’re a psychopath and like the black screen sleep mode, you can still turn it on in the new Cube’s display settings. In all seriousness, you may find that, while the behavior of a black screen during sleep isn’t ideal, it may be necessary for some TVs that have trouble detecting HDMI signals correctly when the Fire TV wakes up. HDCP, the copy protection used by most modern TVs and streaming devices, can be a bit finicky sometimes when devices wake up, resulting in no signal at all or error messages. If you run into that with the new Cube, you may want to turn the black screen sleep behavior back on.
The Fire TV Cube 3 is running a slightly newer version of Fire OS, v7.6.0.7, than all other Fire OS 7 devices, which are currently on v7.6.0.3. Hopefully, that means this new sleep behavior option will be coming to other Fire TV models in the future when they sync up with the Fire TV Cube 3’s newer OS version.
See all my 3rd-gen Fire TV Cube coverage here.
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“Hopefully, that means this new sleep behavior option will be coming to other Fire TV models in the future…”
From your lips (keyboard) to the Amazon gods (Fire TV device leads) ears.
Hate sleep mode. Does it really make a big difference in power usage? All it does is close the app I was in while I took a phone call or did something else.
The power save mode is annoying. The Gen 3 shuts off and my Hisense indicates Signal Loss. I’d prefer the Black Screen.
I want to know if it can be used as an audio speaker for what’s on the TV. Echo dot you can use as a speaker for what’s playing on the TV but Cube can’t be used as a speaker which makes no sense at all.
If you mean can you play TV audio out of the Cube’s built-in speaker, then no, you can’t do that. However, you can send the audio of the device connected to the Cube’s HDMI IN port to Echo devices.
Received an update today on one of my 2nd-Gen Fire TV Cubes that bumped its firmware to Fire OS 7.6.0.8 (PS7608/3614), which is a dot-point above the article-referenced firmware. Unfortunately, still no “No Signal” option on this device. C’mon, Amazon, you can do this!
I saw that update arrive as well. Usually, the way it works is the newly released device is on a separate OS branch that will get merged in with the main OS later. So even though other devices have a higher OS version already, it doesn’t mean the Cube 3 features will never come to other devices. We just have to wait and see.