Is the "Fire" tablet a smart speaker? Try "Alexa Hands-Free": Masahiro Yamaguchi's Smart Speaker Living (1/2 page)

Speaking of Amazon's "Fire" series, it is a popular product with outstanding cost performance while being positioned as a tablet dedicated to the company's digital contents. The 8-inch model "Fire HD 8" (8th generation) released in October is a 16GB model with a price of 8980 yen (tax included, same below), which can be said to be a price break.

By the way, this Fire tablet is equipped with a function that can be used as a terminal compatible with the same voice assistant "Alexa" as the company's smart speaker "Amazon Echo". So with it, you can use your Fire tablet just like the Echo Show, a smart speaker with a screen. Rather, Amazon.com features that feature more than the tablet's original features.

This "feature to use a Fire tablet like an Amazon Echo" refers to exactly two features, "Alexa hands-free" and "Show mode", but in the first place, what's the difference between them must be turned on at the same time. It's hard to understand if you haven't actually used it. This time, I will introduce both of these functions, which are expected to be available on Amazon.co.jp accounts in Japan.

You can call Alexa by voice without pressing and holding the home button.

Normally, when using Alexa on a Fire tablet, you need to press and hold the home button. No matter how much you call "Alexa" without pressing the home button, it won't respond.

If you enable this "Alexa hands-free", you can call Alexa by voice without pressing a button. As a result, you will be able to perform various operations using Alexa as if you were using Amazon Echo, without touching the Fire tablet located at a distance.

To use this feature, you first need a compatible Fire tablet. In addition to the current "Fire HD 10" and "Fire HD 8" (8th generation), the "Fire HD 8" (7th generation) released in 2017 is supported. Among the current models, "Fire 7" and "Fire HD 8" before the 6th generation are not supported. Each software must be up to date.

To use it, you need an Amazon.com account in the US, not an Amazon.co.jp account in Japan. You can set the setup language in Japanese, but the account you log in to must be from Amazon.com.

When you log in with your Amazon.com account, an item called "Alexa" that is not in the Japanese version is displayed on the setting screen. By turning on "Alexa" here and enabling the "hands-free mode" displayed on it, hands-free operation is possible.

As another preparation, let's change the unit of temperature and distance. By default, the temperature is "Fahrenheit" and the distance is "miles", so the display may be strange. Launch the Alexa app pre-installed on Fire, open "Units" from the Alexa device settings screen, change the temperature to "Celsius" and the distance to "Kilometers". This completes the preparations.