Use the pre-installed web browser to work around the lack of support
If you’re wondering whether you can watch YouTube on an Echo Show, then you’ve come to the right place.
Watching YouTube on an Echo Show is certainly possible, but it still requires something of a workaround, with no official app or Alexa Skill available on the range of Amazon smart displays.
While built-in functionality may be coming, it’s not here yet – Amazon and Google have settled their differences enough to get the YouTube app back on the Fire TV, but, at present, it’s still not officially available on all Echo Show devices – at least through a dedicated app.
Unless you’ve got the Echo Show 15 or Echo Show 21. These models boast Fire TV modes so you can get the YouTube Fire TV app up and running.
However, as we say, it’s not impossible to watch YouTube on the smaller screen Echo Show models.
To do so, you just need to tap into the web browsing capabilities that landed with the second-gen Echo Show devices and launch the Firefox or Silk browsers.
Read on for the step-by-step guide.
How to watch YouTube on Echo Show
The first thing you’re going to need to do is to identify whether you have a first-generation Echo Show – which shouldn’t be hard because it looks like a kitchen TV out of the 70s – or a second-gen Echo Show, Echo Show 5, Echo Show 8 or Show 10.
If you have anything other than the first-gen model, that’s great – skip ahead to the next section. If you have an old Echo Show, you’re going to have to make sure your Show is updated to the latest software.
Open YouTube on the Echo Show Silk browser
You have two ways to watch YouTube on the Echo Show – and our preferred method involves Amazon’s own Silk browser.
All you have to do is say, “Alexa, open Silk” and the web browser will spring to life.
You’ll be greeted with a screen displaying some bookmarks – and would you look at that, it just so happens that YouTube dot com is the first bookmark. Tap on it to load the site.
Actually, using YouTube is pretty simple. It works just as it does on any other mobile web browser. You can even sign into your account and get all your subscriptions and playlists ready to go.
The big downside here is that you can’t command YouTube with Alexa – you’re going to have to actually use your finger and tap, swipe and type your way through. It’s a little annoying, and it’s definitely not what the Echo Show is built for, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
You can ask things like, “Alexa, play Oasis on YouTube” or “Alexa, play Wonderwall on YouTube” but Amazon’s digital assistant will simply do a web search based on that command.
The good news there, obviously, is that you will get a decent results page from YouTube to tap the video you want.
FAQs
Unfortunately, there’s no direct way to download YouTube videos on an Echo Show. However, you can try using third-party browser extensions or apps on your computer or phone to download videos and then transfer them to your Echo Show.
As of now, there’s no official announcement from Amazon regarding a dedicated YouTube app for Echo Show. However, given the growing popularity of smart displays and the widespread use of YouTube, it’s possible that Amazon might consider adding official YouTube support in the future.
You can officially watch videos on your Echo Show using apps from the likes Amazon Prime Video, Netflix and Hulu.. although different models may be missing some options.
Yes, as the Echo Show 15 and Show 21 models have built in Fire TV UIs.
