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Alexa hands-free mode comes to Amazon’s Fire 7 and 8 HD tablets

It's now possible to control smart home devices from Amazon's tablets

An Amazon tablet placed on a patch of grass.

Amazon’s Fire 7 and Fire 8 HD (2017) tablets just got a useful new feature.

You can now control smart home devices via Alexa voice commands if either tablet is turned on or connected to a power source.

The update is currently rolling out to both the Fire 7 and the Fire 8 HD. It’s possible to disable this feature through Alexa’s settings menu, as well as to control whether the functionality works while the device is password locked. It’s also possible to set the tablet to respond less often whenever there is another Alexa device nearby — for example, an Amazon Echo.

In order to do this, you need to change the ‘Tablet ESP Behavior” in the Alexa app’s settings.

This update is compatible with Fire 7 and Fire 8 HD tablets running 5.6.1.0 version software and above. This feature was reportedly already available on Amazon’s Fire HD tablet.

When MobileSyrup’s Sameer Chhabra reviewed Amazon’s Fire HD 8 (2017), he described the relatively affordable tablet as “media-oriented,” but felt its lack of support for the entire Play Store, could be a significant issue for some users.

Amazon’s $59.99 CAD, Fire 7 Tablet features a 7-inch display, up to eight hours of mixed use battery life and 8 GB of storage, with support for up to 256 GB of expandable storage. The 16GB model is available for $79.99.

The Fire HD 8 Tablet, retails for $99.99 and sports an 8-inch HD display, a quad-core processor, up to 12 hours of battery life and 16 GB of storage, with support for up to 256 GB of expandable storage. The 32GB model is available for $129.99.

Source: Amazon 

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