New feature rolling out for US Fire Tablet users
If you own one of Amazon’s super cheap Fire tablets, you’ll soon be able to use it for controlling all of your smart home products, thanks to a new software update from the retail giant.
Looking to provide Fire users with an easier way to control their Alexa-compatible smart home devices, Amazon is rolling out a new Device Dashboard that it hopes will become a fundamental part of its budget tablet lineup.
Amazon’s Device Dashboard apes a feature Echo Show users will be familiar with to enable people to control smart lights, switches, plugs, cameras, thermostats and other connected devices from their Fire tablet.
After downloading and installing the free software update from Amazon, Fire users will see a new Smart Home button appear in their tablet’s navigation bar.
They can then access the new Device Dashboard from a compatible Fire tablet by tapping the button.
What’s great is that users will be able to access the Smart Home button from every screen on their Fire tablet, even when the device is locked. There’s even the ability to control smart home devices while using different apps.
The update essentially turns the Fire tablet into an affordable smart home control hub, which means you won’t need to purchase a dedicated hub to use different connected products around your home.
Amazon has begun rolling out the new feature in the form of a free software update. At the moment, it’s only available in the US (as is the Echo Show variant). International Fire users will have to wait longer.
It’s available for the Amazon Fire 7 (2019), HD 8 (2018 and 2020), and HD 10 (2019).
