Using the Fire TV Cube in Canada
Amazon’s Fire TV Cube not only has the capabilities of the company’s 4K Fire TV but also the ability to talk to Alexa to control your TV and smart home products.
The Fire TV Cube shares a similar design to past Fire TV devices with a black exterior with the Amazon logo featured prominently. You’ll also find a volume buttons, mic mute and an action button for prompting Alexa manually as well as a blue light bar similar to the light ring on Echo devices.
While the Fire TV Cube isn’t officially available in Canada and works with a Canadian Amazon Prime account without issues, there are still a few workarounds that need to be made to watch Prime Video.
Setup
The Fire TV Cube is fairly straightforward to set up. First, connect your Fire TV Cube to your TV and to a power source. Once it boots up, you’ll be taken through the setup process to connect to Wi-Fi and login into your Amazon account and more.
After that’s all done, you’ll be shown a video that outlines the Fire TV Cube’s features and how to use Alexa on the device.
Video
The Fire TV Cube is capable of showing content in 4K Ultra HD from a number of providers including Netflix and Prime Video.
To use Netflix on the device, all you need to do is log in to the Netflix app. But if you want to watch Prime Video, it’s slightly trickier. Selecting a piece of Prime Video content on the device will show you a 5505 error. There are a few ways to get around this, the first is to use a VPN and changing your Amazon account settings.
The second is to cast video from your phone to your Fire TV Cube. To do this, download the Prime Video app on your Android device. Then log in to the app and then search for what movie or TV show you want to watch, then you should see an icon that says “Watch On Fire TV”. You can then control playback on your Fire TV Cube using the device’s remote. Please note, this only works on an Android phone or tablet.
Alexa, what can you do?
The Fire TV Cube also has Alexa built-in. In addition to being able to talk to Alexa using the voice remote, you can also use Alexa hands-free, similar to an Echo device.
You can use Alexa on the Fire TV Cube with your TV on and off. If your TV is on, Alexa will display information on your screen. But without your TV on, it acts just like an Echo device.
Alexa can also be used to turn your TV and other home entertainment device on or off as well as switch HDMI inputs. You can search, play, pause, fast forward, rewind and more using Alexa.
One thing to note is that you’ll need to adjust some settings in the Alexa app for the Fire TV Cube, such as changing the temperature to Celsius and also setting the place of where you want the weather for.
Alexa on the Fire TV Cube can also control your smart home devices such as Philips Hue, Wemo, ecobee, and more. The Fire TV 4K can show your smart camera feeds like Ring, Arlo, Wyze Cam, and Nest.
Buying the Fire TV Cube
In the US, the Fire TV Cube can be purchased from Amazon.com. In Canada, the Fire TV Cube isn’t officially available here but you can pick one up from Wantboard.
In summary, the Fire TV Cube is a great streaming device that combines the best of an Echo and Fire TV.
Canadian Compatibility: Apart from some workarounds for Prime Video and some streaming apps and Alexa skills that aren’t available in Canada, the Fire TV Cube works great with no issues.
Where to Buy: