Samsung has begun to make available the official integration of some of its TVs of 2019 and 2018 the Amazon Alexa, so ‘at home, anyone who has an Echo device or another device with Alexa will get to ask the assistant to turn the Amazon voice TV, change channels, adjust volume and much more. At the time of writing, only two things can be done with Alexa- turn the TV off and on.
How to connect Samsung TV with Alexa
Installation and configuration of the Samsung SmartThings for Alexa is required to turn on / off the Samsung TV compatible with SmartThings. Such as? It’s very simple- the ‘Samsung SmartThings’ application must be installed on your Samsung smartphone from the Google Play Store, so follow the on-screen instructions to add a new ‘TV’ type. It is necessary to have a Samsung account to succeed in the configuration. Once you have configured your TV in the Samsung SmartThings app on your smartphone you need to open the Amazon Alexa application, then search for and install the ‘Samsung Smartthings’ app and follow the instructions to connect your Samsung SmartThings account with your Amazon Alexa account. Once this is done, it is possible to search for new devices’ in the Alexa app to find the Samsung TV in seconds. Once you find this you can say “Alexa, turn on / off [name given to the Samsung TV]”.
It should be noted that, while it is always possible to tell Alexa to turn off a TV set, it is not always possible to tell Alexa to turn on the TV- if a long time has passed since the switch-off and the TV has now entered standby, it does not ‘hear’ the Alexa command to turn on, even if Alexa replies ‘Ok’ to confirm that she has forwarded the command to the TV.
When will you be able to change channels, manage playback and more?
Samsung has released very limited support for Alexa for its TVs, despite promoting much more functionality. Soon, hopefully, it will be possible not only to turn on / off the TV via Alexa but also to change channels, adjust the volume, open applications, manage the playback of on-demand content and more.
It should be noted that the pages of the most recent TV models on samsung.com already support Alexa, although it is specified that “the launch of the service may not coincide with the launch of the QLED TVs and the availability of the service itself may vary depending on the country. The availability of the function and the GUI may vary by country. ”
