What you need to know
- It's the same Fire TV Cube, only better.
- It still has hands-free Alexa, and now supports Dolby Atmos.
- And it's finally coming to Canada.
In addition to the new Amazon Fire TV Edition Anker Nebula Soundbar (say that 10 times fast), Amazon today has refreshed the Fire TV Cube. The cube was the company's first Fire TV device that had an Amazon Alexa microphone array built in, so that you could control all your favorite TV stuff without ever having to touch a remote control.
At least in theory. The OG Fire TV Cube shipped with an OG remote control that couldn't do things like turn on your TV, or adjust the volume. So you'd either have to use your voice to do both (which is never all that fun while you're in the middle of watching something) — or you'd have to reach for another remote. It fixed that about a year ago with a refreshed Amazon Alexa Voice Remote, which started shipping with new Fire TV Cube orders.
None of that changed the fact that the newer, less expensive and less powerful Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K had one thing the Fire TV Cube didn't — support for Dolby Atmos audio. (Basically, the processor on board didn't support it.)
In addition to Dolby Atmos, the Fire TV Cube also supports Dolby Vision and HDR 10+ for high dynamic range. It's also got a new "Local Voice Control" feature that should process the most frequent commands more quickly, keeping that processing on the device instead of sending it up to the cloud first, and then back down to the Fire TV Cube. (That'll only be available in English at first.)
The new Fire TV Cube runs $119 in the U.S. It's also is available in Canada for the first time and is up for preorder for CDN $149.99. It'll start shipping on Oct. 10.
More powerful, still cube-like
The Amazon Fire TV Cube has gotten an internal refresh with a better processor, support for Dolby Atmos audio, and on-device command processing.
