Say goodbye to your remote.
During a test using the Dish Hopper 3 with Amazon Alexa, at CES 2017, it became obvious to me that all of the buttons and settings on our TVs, as well as the adjustments and tweaks we make to our televisions to watch movies and sports, will be going away soon. The satellite provider is a mainstay at my house, and for millions of other viewers, but finding that one Tom Hanks movie from 2007 can be a challenge at times. Amazon Alexa is here to help, or at least will be in a future update.
For my demo, I asked if I could be the one to ask the questions. To be honest, this makes some public relations professionals a little nervous, but Dish reps were open to the idea. At this stage, with the Alexa skill in development and not fully operational, you can say key phrases like “find me” and other prompts to change the channel. I first asked Alexa to change to ESPN, and it worked surprisingly fast — faster than typing in the numbers. As an aside, this is an important aspect of voice control. If it…