Fire TV Cube with Amazon IR Extender Cable

So my old smart tv was really struggling. Too often my TV was freezing or forcing reboots and I just had a feeling it had to do with the processor being a little old and not being able to keep up with running all my subscriptions and apps. It's a 65 inch, so replacing it entirely would be out of my budget at this time.The fire cube gave my TV a second life!Now if you've ever owned an alexa device, you probably know the first time powering on and setting up your device takes ages. Well that was especially true in my experience with the fire cube. PLEASE NOTE! it does require an ARC HDMI!! Sometimes you have to turn on ARC in your TV settings, and it's usually a dedicated HDMI port. This was my first problem.After I got that figured out, it probably took about 30 minutes to allow my cube to update and work at full capacity.But once the initial set up was done, I did have a few minor bugs for the first week. Sometimes I'd turn the TV off with the cube remote and audio would continue to play and I'd have to manually turn off the cube with it's physical button. This only happened two or three times.However, since pairing my alexa studios, this problem hasn't reoccured.Now I do have a switch that will trip my breaker if it accedntly gets flipped, and my cube and wifi are on the same breaker. So I do have to delete and repair my home theater when this happens, for some reason it completely ruins the connection and I'm not sure if it's because all my devices go offline, or if the cube can't reestablish connection on its own.Now, with all the quirks mentioned and dealt with. I love my fire cube!! Paired with my alexa studios watching TV or listening to music on my speaker group is awesome! There's one quirk about the home theater that irks me, but that's already been mentioned in my review for the studios.As for the cube itself though, I don't have any of the old issues I was having with my smart tv! Actually browsing different apps and my overall experience is much easier and intuitive! I love that I can use my voice to talk to the remote, or any of my alexa devices set to control the cube to immediately open an app or go straight to a movie or show. I got the remote Pro and I love the additional 2 custom buttons, along with the light up feature in the dark. And the "find remote" function works perfectly!! No more arguing over who lost the remote! LolMy partner was extremely skeptical about adding another alexa device to our home, he's not as tech savvy as I am, and he prefers to use his phone for smart controls. But even he has really enjoyed the fire cube! And honestly, that says a lot about this device!Initial setup may be rocky depending on person to person, but once it's running at full capacity, it's an excellent device for upgrading an existing TV that isn't smart, giving a second life to a smart TV that's having difficulty, and even for the home theater set up.If your buying a cube or fire stick for the theater set up, 1000% recommend two alexa studios. THIS WILL REPLACE ANY EXISTING AUDIO SET UP YOU HAVE THOUGH!!! theater mode cannot be paired with existing soundbars or other speakers.... Honestly not happy about that part... However!! The sound and quality I got from switching was worth it for me, though I had hoped to enhance my set up and not replace it...With that said, this is a perfect addition to your smart home journey.( would not recommend standard alexa speakers for home theater, even a cheap soundbar out performs two Alexas, but in my opinion, the alexa studios are a great trade even without the optional sub woofer.)The cube is capable of being a standalone alexa device if you don't have other devices, and on its own, the cube will play audio through a soundbar, TV, and I believe even an auxiliary audio source if you choose not to do a home theater with Alexa but don't quote me on that last one because I didn't try it.The cube can also easily pair to Bluetooth devices, so at night, I like to use my wireless earbuds without being too noisy.Like I said the cube can be a stand alone alexa device if you don't have any other alexa devices, so if your on the fence about a smart assistant, this could be a really great way to break into that, while still having a device that can do more than just being a smart assistant.

I've had my 2019 Cube for close to 3 years. Definitely got my money's worth out of it. I've owned other devices and still own a 2017 Shield. The Cube has been my daily driver for a few years though because I love how everything integrates and Android TV just doesn't do it for me. I use my Shield for other things and my Cube for my paid apps. I bought the 3rd gen Cube the day it was available for pre-order, along with the Pro remote which isn't released yet. I bought it because my 2nd gen was getting really laggy and it was enough to irritate me. The upscaling (Super Resolution) is what I was most excited for though. I received my Cube on Monday, a day before I was supposed to. I immediately plugged it in. I have it hooked up to my 65" Vizio OLED with an $80 Audioquest HDMI cable. I turned on The First 48 which is only a 1080p show and was blown away by the results. It looked so good in comparison to my 2nd gen. Everything looks better, the menus, the picture, the color is more vivid, everything. (I know Always HDR mode was enabled in the picture, it comes enabled by default and I just hadn't disabled it yet.) The GPU along with the upscaling is a major improvement by the looks of it. The new processor is really good as well. It's very quick. It will scroll through menus as fast as I can push the button and loads images instantly. There's a new menu button to the left of the home button on the screen as my picture shows, that you can switch to the HDMI input. I haven't tested this input as of yet. There's a few new items in settings as well. The Cube itself is also a huge improvement. I think it looks 10x better than the 2nd gen. 2nd gen was nice, but the piano black plastic scratches as soon as you touch it, even with micro fiber so I haven't liked that material much. The new Cube has matte plastic around the top and bottom housed by a black-greyish fabric. It's really nice looking (same as the new Echo Dots) The speaker (Amazon Echo built-in) sounds alot better too. All-in-all I think it's a huge improvement from the 2nd gen and I'm so glad they FINALLY upgraded the Cube and that it kept its design. Really the only other thing I can think of that needs changed is to make it a 3gb RAM box. It's 2022, yet we're still using the same amount of RAM as the 2019 Cube. I just have a feeling in a year or two, this 2gb RAM on this device isn't gonna be enough and it's gonna struggle, but I guess we'll see. I can't comment on Wifi 6e as I haven't upgraded my wifi yet, but I will eventually. But right now I don't have a reason too. As far as the regular remote that comes with it, I guess it's a nice remote, I'm just not a fan of all the added buttons. I much prefer the 2nd gen Alexa remote that has your standard buttons plus the volume and mute at the bottom. I just prefer the simplicity of it and don't like the clutter of the new one. Also, new remote that came with mine has really loud clicks. It's rather annoying. I know it's not cause my old remote is worn, cause it's been pretty quiet since I bought it (not the original remote that came with the 2nd gen Cube) so either the new ones are just really loud or I just got a bad one, which has happened to me with a remote I've had on a previous device and had to exchange it cause it was so annoying. I am waiting on the Pro remote which has even more buttons but I bought it for the backlit buttons. While it has a couple more buttons than the Fire TV remote that came with it, it's smaller in size. Pro remote is 5.8" and Fire TV remote that came with it is 6.2". My 2nd gen Alexa remote that I bought for my 2nd gen Cube is 5.6" so I'm sure I'll like the Pro remote a whole lot better. So with all that said, I am still happy with my purchase and am glad I decided to upgrade.

Delivery was great and product is excellent. Always buy thru Amazon