SmartStream

Although the Fire TV Cube was released by Amazon in June, it has not yet received the recognition or hype it deserves. The Cube is a cross between a smart speaker and a Fire TV media player. Like an Amazon Echo speaker, the Cube can hear commands from across the room and has a built-in speaker to play back its reply. Like a Fire TV media player, it streams from all the same apps as other Fire TV models and can play 4K HDR content.

Frndly TV has increasingly been appearing in search results over the past few months so I decided to check it out. The service offers live TV for as little as $7 per month.

In the search for ways to free ourselves from the escalating costs of pay TV, the missing piece of the puzzle is the ability to stream and record live local TV broadcasts. We can stream movies, previous TV seasons, and many cable channels—from Food TV and A&E to Cartoon Network on Sling TV— but getting local TV is another matter.

A number of streaming media players have recently been upgraded to include basic voice control via Amazon Alexa and Google Home, so I tested both systems on several players to see how close we’ve come to true hands-free control.

Netgear’s new Nighthawk X10 AD7200 router is a great choice for streaming 4K HDR content and VR games. Read on to find out why.

Paramount+ launched last week, absorbing and adding to the CBS All Access app. The newly rebranded service adds content from several channels brought to CBS following the 2019 merger of CBS and Viacom. Find out more about the expanded streaming service.

We revisit Plex to see how its new DVR and voice-control features work.