TiVo boxes will soon let Alexa be your remote

A placeholder app appeared over the weekend indicating the imminent arrival of Alexa compatibility.

Lori Grunin Senior Editor / Advice

I've been reviewing hardware and software, devising testing methodology and handed out buying advice for what seems like forever; I'm currently absorbed by computers and gaming hardware, but previously spent many years concentrating on cameras. I've also volunteered with a cat rescue for over 15 years doing adoptions, designing marketing materials, managing volunteers and, of course, photographing cats.

Expertise Photography, PCs and laptops, gaming and gaming accessories

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Lori Grunin

May 14, 2018 7:57 a.m. PT

DVR manufacturer TiVo appears to have set up a placeholder app for Alexa last weekend, Dave Zatz reports.

TiVo announced at CES in January that it would be bringing Amazon's Alexa voice assistant to its boxes, old and new. Last March Amazon announced the skill programming interface (Google translation from Spanish) that would make it possible. The creation of the placeholder app appears to herald its imminent arrival.

Alexa support will be available on TiVo hardware back to the Premiere series, and the skills we know it'll support include navigation and app launching. Google Assistant support is also in the cards, which will offer a deeper list of commands and smart home integration such as being able to automatically turn down lights when you start a movie. It will also allow you to leave the mic open so you don't have to say "OK Google" before every command.

TiVo's boxes currently support custom IFTTT applets as well, which will allow you to do things such as automatically trigger TiVo's SkipMode that jumps over commercial breaks without using a voice command or button.

There's a dizzying number of Alexa devices not made by Amazon

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