Echo speakers are getting a brand-new feature that should boost your next movie night. Amazon has quietly added the ability to connect your Echo hardware together to transform your living room into a home cinema set-up.
Amazon says the update is a great way to upgrade your home theatre system without investing in a dedicated speaker set-up. Granted, it’s not going to offer quite the same sound quality that you’d get with some of the pricier dedicated surround systems, but that’s not really what Amazon is aiming for.
Instead, this is a genius way of repurposing the AI-powered speakers that you’ve already got on shelves around the kitchen, living room, and bedroom.
If you’re interested in testing out the new capabilities, you’ll need to make sure you’re running the latest version of the Alexa application. Launch the app on your Android or iOS device, then navigate to the Home Cinema screen, which is found under the Set Up Audio System option.
This will take you through the set-up process and help you link any compatible Alexa-fuelled speakers that you’ve got registered to your Amazon account.
As it stands, you’re only able to connect up to two Echo devices for 1.0 and 2.0 configurations. If you have an Echo Sub to throw into the mix, you can boost that into a 1.1 and 2.1 configuration too.
You’ll also need an Amazon-designed Fire TV to play the film or series you’re planning to watch with your newly-upgraded sound system.
Compatible Fire TV Devices
- Fire TV Stick 4K
- Fire TV (3rd Generation)
- Fire TV Cube (1st Generation) – which only ever launched in the United States – and the Fire TV Cube (2nd Generation)
Compatible Echo Devices
- Echo Dot (3rd Generation)
- Echo (2nd Generation)
- Echo (3rd Generation)
- Echo Plus (2nd Generation)
- Echo Plus (1st Generation)
- Echo Dot with clock
- Echo Studio
The news comes as Amazon also added the ability to stream thousands of TV shows and movies from iTunes – as well as exclusive content created for the Apple TV+ streaming service via its Fire TV boxes, HDMI streaming sticks, and Fire TV Cube.