{"id":535,"date":"2024-12-15T14:55:43","date_gmt":"2024-12-15T14:55:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/engadget.vip\/?p=535"},"modified":"2025-03-05T14:51:13","modified_gmt":"2025-03-05T14:51:13","slug":"alexa-makes-amazons-new-fire-hd-8-tablet-even-more-useful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/engadget.vip\/?p=535","title":{"rendered":"Alexa makes Amazon&#8217;s new Fire HD 8 tablet even more useful"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='booster-block booster-read-block'><\/div><p>With the Echo Dot, Amazon proved that its Alexa assistant &#8212; and voice commands in general &#8212; could actually be pretty helpful. But how will it fare on a device that isn&#8217;t listening to you all the time? That&#8217;s the question I had when Amazon unveiled the new Fire HD 8, its first tablet to include Alexa support (it&#8217;s also coming over the next few weeks to the last-gen Fire tablets). Instead of shouting &#8220;Alexa&#8221; or &#8220;Amazon&#8221; aloud, you have to hold down the Fire HD 8&#8217;s home button to activate the assistant, similar to how you&#8217;d access it on the Fire TV. That means using Alexa is less seamless than on Echo devices, but it still ends up making the Fire HD 8 a more capable device.<\/p>\n<h2>Gallery: Alexa on Amazon&#8217;s Fire HD 8 | 5 Photos<\/h2>\n<ul class=\"slides\">\n<li>\n<figure>\n<\/figure>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<figure>\n<\/figure>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<figure>\n<\/figure>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<figure>\n<\/figure>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<figure>\n<\/figure>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>                        <button class=\"prev-btn\" aria-label=\"Previous Button\"><\/p>\n<p>                        <\/button><br \/>\n                        <button class=\"next-btn\" aria-label=\"Next Button\"><\/p>\n<p>                        <\/button><\/p>\n<p>                        \/5<\/p>\n<p>                .wafer-lightbox-content {<br \/>\n                    height: 100%;<br \/>\n                    max-width: 80%;<br \/>\n                    display: flex;<br \/>\n                    margin: 0 auto;<br \/>\n                    justify-content: center;<br \/>\n                    align-items: center;<br \/>\n                }<\/p>\n<p>                .wafer-lightbox-overlay {<br \/>\n                    z-index: 5001;<br \/>\n                }<br \/>\n                .article-lightbox {<br \/>\n                    outline: none;<br \/>\n                    width: 100%;<br \/>\n                    max-height: 100%;<br \/>\n                }<br \/>\n                .article-lightbox ul {<br \/>\n                    list-style-type: none;<br \/>\n                }<br \/>\n                .article-lightbox img {<br \/>\n                    border: none;<br \/>\n                }<br \/>\n                .article-lightbox .scrollview {<br \/>\n                    width: 100%;<br \/>\n                    position: relative;<br \/>\n                    overflow: hidden;<br \/>\n                }<br \/>\n                .article-lightbox .scrollview .slides {<br \/>\n                    white-space: nowrap;<br \/>\n                    overflow: auto;<br \/>\n                    display: flex;<br \/>\n                    margin: 0;<br \/>\n                }<br \/>\n                .article-lightbox .scrollview li {<br \/>\n                    display: inline-block;<br \/>\n                    white-space: normal;<br \/>\n                    zoom: 1;<br \/>\n                    padding: 0;<br \/>\n                }<br \/>\n                .article-lightbox .scrollview li:before {<br \/>\n                    display: none;<br \/>\n                }<br \/>\n                .article-lightbox .scrollview .content {<br \/>\n                    display: flex;<br \/>\n                    justify-content: center;<br \/>\n                    align-items: center;<br \/>\n                }<br \/>\n                .article-lightbox .scrollview .content img {<br \/>\n                    max-height: calc(80vh &#8211; 60px);<br \/>\n                    max-width: 100%;<br \/>\n                }<br \/>\n                .article-lightbox .scrollview .pagination .prev-btn {<br \/>\n                    position: absolute;<br \/>\n                    left: 0;<br \/>\n                    top: calc(50% &#8211; 30px); \/* 50% minus half the defined height = middle *\/<br \/>\n                    border: none;<br \/>\n                    border-radius: 50%;<br \/>\n                    width: 60px;<br \/>\n                    height: 60px;<br \/>\n                    outline: none;<br \/>\n                }<br \/>\n                .article-lightbox .scrollview .pagination .next-btn {<br \/>\n                    position: absolute;<br \/>\n                    right: 0;<br \/>\n                    top: calc(50% &#8211; 30px); \/* 50% minus half the defined height = middle *\/<br \/>\n                    border: none;<br \/>\n                    border-radius: 50%;<br \/>\n                    width: 60px;<br \/>\n                    height: 60px;<br \/>\n                    outline: none;<br \/>\n                }<br \/>\n                .article-lightbox .scrollview .indicators {<br \/>\n                    font-size: 14px !important;<br \/>\n                    font-weight: bold;<br \/>\n                    text-align: right;<br \/>\n                    color: white;<br \/>\n                    margin-top: 10px;<br \/>\n                }<br \/>\n                .article-lightbox .scrollview .indicators svg {<br \/>\n                    vertical-align: middle;<br \/>\n                    fill: white;<br \/>\n                }<\/p>\n<p>                    <button aria-label=\"Close\" style=\"border:0;cursor:pointer;background:none;padding:10px\" class=\"wafer-lightbox-close\"><\/p>\n<p>                    <\/button><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"color: white\">Gallery: Alexa on Amazon&#8217;s Fire HD 8 | 5 Photos<\/h2>\n<ul class=\"slides\">\n<li>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>                            <button class=\"prev-btn\" aria-label=\"Previous button\"><\/p>\n<p>                            <\/button><br \/>\n                            <button class=\"next-btn\" aria-label=\"Next button\"><\/p>\n<p>                            <\/button><\/p>\n<p>                            \/5<\/p>\n<p>Aside from needing to press a button, Alexa works just as you&#8217;d expect on the Fire HD 8. It accepts all the same voice commands as the Echo devices, and it supports most of the skills from third-party developers. (As Amazon tells it, some devs require specific devices for their skills, but there aren&#8217;t many of those around.) And yes, if you&#8217;ve connected smart home devices to another Alexa device, you&#8217;ll be able to control them from the tablet as well.<\/p>\n<p>Because I can&#8217;t just shout for Alexa, though, I noticed that I use it differently on the Fire HD 8 than on the Echo. It&#8217;s easy enough ask about the weather while you&#8217;re reading an e-book or have it tune into your favorite radio station while you&#8217;re perusing your favorite site. But if your hands are full while cooking, you can&#8217;t easily reach over to change the episode of a podcast that you&#8217;re listening to. I learned pretty quickly that the hands-free aspect of Alexa on the Echo and Echo Dot is a big reason why I warmed up to it so quickly.<\/p>\n<p>I can understand why Amazon isn&#8217;t letting you use your voice to access Alexa on the Fire HD 8, though. It&#8217;s just a $90 tablet, and while it&#8217;s a bit faster than the previous version, battery life remains a major concern. It&#8217;s simpler to have you manually access Alexa than to have a background service sip battery life while it waits for your command. Heck, it took Apple years before it made Siri completely hands-free.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>There is one change for the better when it comes to using Alexa on a tablet: It takes advantage of the screen to display some helpful cards based on what you request. If you ask for the weather today, you&#8217;ll also get a glimpse at what the temperature looks like for the rest of the week. There&#8217;s also an experimental feature for existing Echo owners called &#8220;voice cast&#8221; that will display cards about requests to your Echo on your Fire HD. Unfortunately, it didn&#8217;t work on my Echo or Echo Dot, but I&#8217;ll give it a pass for now since it&#8217;s still in testing. Amazon says that feature should be available to owners of the new Echo Dot within the next few weeks.<\/p>\n<p>Despite not being as useful as it is on Echo devices, it&#8217;s hard to complain about having Alexa on Amazon&#8217;s tablets. The company isn&#8217;t charging any extra for the feature, and it&#8217;s not stopping it from driving down the cost of its slates either. That being said, I can&#8217;t wait to see Alexa go completely hands-free on future Amazon tablets (and perhaps on the current devices when they&#8217;re plugged in and charging).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With the Echo Dot, Amazon proved that its Alexa assistant &#8212; and voice commands in general &#8212; could actually be pretty helpful. But how will it fare on a device that isn&#8217;t listening to you all the time? That&#8217;s the question I had when Amazon unveiled the new Fire HD 8, its first tablet to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":536,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[699,84,700,701,255,256,65,67,80],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/engadget.vip\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/engadget.vip\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/engadget.vip\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engadget.vip\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engadget.vip\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=535"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/engadget.vip\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1265,"href":"https:\/\/engadget.vip\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535\/revisions\/1265"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engadget.vip\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/engadget.vip\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engadget.vip\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engadget.vip\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}