Hey Alexa, Make My Fire TV Smart Home Dashboard Better
I published an article earlier this week about the agreement between Google and LG to deliver Smart Home Control through LG Smart Televisions. In essence, LG TVs will have the ability to become a Google Smart Hub and Control Panel. This got me thinking as to why don’t all have complete, highly customizable Smart Home Control through our Smart TVs?
We understand that the Amazon Fire Tv Stick and Apple TV already have the ability to act as hubs, but it comes with limitations. Now that Smart Home Living is mainstream, it is time to have full control and dashboard functionality on our TVs. Why do I need a mounted Smart Home Dashboard on my wall? To show everyone how smart my house is? Pass. I do not want to go to a singular place in my house to look at my dashboard, just like I do not want to get up off the couch to change the temperature because the house is too warm.
Having control and dashboard functionality through a tablet is fine, but the screen is smaller than my TV. I also have six TVs in my house and only two tablets. It is much more convenient for me to view my entire Smart Home Dashboard from one of my Smart TVs. Think about it, if you are watching TV, do you want to pick up your phone or tablet to check a Smart Home function? Wouldn’t it be easier just to see it all on your much larger television screen and control it with your TV remote?
The remainder of this post will focus on the Amazon Alexa ecosystem as that is the platform that I use in my own home. Check out the video on your right as to why I chose the Amazon Smart Home Platform.
I have Echo Show and Speaker devices in many rooms in my home and they are great for recipes, voice commands, and music. Dashboard functionality, however is lacking. The screens are small and the customization options are limited.
Amazon Echo Hub
To address this, Amazon just released their new Echo Hub. I like the Echo Hub compared to Echo Show devices as it does have much better Dashboard Interface with more customization flexibility. With that said, I would still say the customization options are limited, the screen is small (8 inches wide) and I still have the same issues that I had with a tablet dashboard. Not to mention, the Amazon Echo Hub costs $179.
The Smart TV is the best place for our Smart Home dashboard because the vast majority of us know how to operate and navigate a Smart TV and most family members have their own smart tv. This gives all family members access to control the smart home functionality they want to control from their own smart tv control panel. Apple, Google, Samsung, and LG are all going down this path and Amazon will need to commit to this strategy to keep pace.
With the popularity of Alexa and Amazon’s Fire TV, Amazon should be focused on becoming the leader in fully functional and customizable Smart Home Control including customizable Dashboard services using their Fire TV Stick.
Amazon’s Smart Home TV dashboard was originally added to the Fire TV Stick in late 2021. Currently, the Fire TV stick offers you the ability to view groups, cameras, lights, plugs, or items listed as a favorite in your Alexa app. In order to see items on your Fire TV Dashboard, IOT devices have to be Alexa compatible and set up in the Alexa app on your phone or tablet first. A major disadvantage to date, is that not all Alexa compatible devices set up in the Alexa app can be viewed or controlled via the Fire TV dashboard as of yet.
Fundamentally, the Fire TV Dashboard is a limited summary of what is on your Alexa App. The devices that work can be controlled but you are unable create smart home functionality from the TV Dashboard. Processes and Routines have to be created in the Alexa App. Routines can only be controlled from your TV Dashboard if they are listed as a favorite in the Alexa app. I would like the Dashboard to have full Alexa app functionality with more customization available. The video to the right does a good job of illustrating the Dashboard’s current functionality.
There is no access to climate control devices, smart locks or other IOT devices not fitting the previously mentioned criteria. Why can’t every family member have the ability to build and customize their own dashboard on each of their tvs?
Customized Smart Home Dashboard
I think we are making accessibility to customizable smart home dashboards way to cumbersome. We should have the ability to turn every one of our Smart TVs into a highly Customizable Central Smart Home Hub. Give individuals who are not advanced Smart Home users the ability to create, fiddle and customize our own Smart Home solutions in an easy to understand visual format that we all have experience with, the Smart TV. Give us the flexibility of the dashboard pictured and give us the freedom to make it our own!
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