DISH expands Alexa voice control to whole-home TV clients

DISH Expands Amazon Alexa Voice Control Support to Hopper ‘Joey’ Clients for Whole-Home, Hands-Free TV

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — DISH Network today unveiled Hands-Free TV™ for the entire home by extending its support of Amazon Alexa voice control to all Joey clients. Now, DISH customers can ask Alexa to control all TVs in the Hopper whole-home ecosystem by pairing each set-top box with an Amazon Echo, Echo Show or Echo Dot. In April 2017, DISH became the first pay-TV provider to natively integrate Alexa voice control when it enabled compatibility on its Hopper DVR and Wally single-tuner HD receiver.

When connected to a Hopper, DISH’s Joey clients extend Hopper functionality to other rooms in the home. Hopper 3 supports up to six Joeys simultaneously, while previous Hopper generations support up to three Joeys.

“DISH is again championing TV voice control, this time by extending our Alexa compatibility to create a more fully-integrated experience throughout the home,” said Niraj Desai, DISH vice president of product management. “Our customers now have the freedom to ask Alexa for help finding shows and movies in every room where their families enjoy watching TV.”

With today’s announcement, DISH’s list of Alexa-compatible products includes Hopper (all generations) and its Joey, Wireless Joey, 4K Joey and Super Joey clients, as well as DISH’s Wally single-tuner HD receiver. To enable Alexa voice control, each DISH set-top box must be paired with its own Echo device.

Ask Alexa for Hands-Free TV on DISH

Available voice control functions across compatible DISH set-top boxes include the ability to navigate, play, pause, fast-forward, rewind and search content based on channel, title, actor or genre. Universal search functionality works across DISH’s live, recorded and on-demand titles as well as Netflix’s selection of TV shows and movies. Example commands include:

• "Alexa, change channel to TNT"      • "Alexa, search for dramas"	
• "Alexa, tune to channel 120"        • "Alexa, play This is Us"
• "Alexa, go to Discovery Channel"    • "Alexa, skip forward"
• "Alexa, find The Voice"             • "Alexa, rewind 15 seconds"		
• "Alex, search for House Hunters"    • "Alexa, pause"
• "Alexa, show me Will Smith movies"  • "Alexa, resume"