Amazon Fire streaming on TV earns raves

I’m a 13-year-old trapped inside an old bald-headed man’s body. I love toys — especially toys that blink and beep and need batteries or an AC outlet.

In truth, they don’t have to be useful to please me. But those that are useful are even better.

For instance, look at my newest toy. Like any self-respecting 13-yearold, I need to talk about it. It’s the new Amazon TV, a tiny little box no bigger than a DVD case. And it truly is useful. It has made my video streaming easier and more fun.

My wife and I have used video streaming for many years — it dates way back to the days when it was an unusual and even exotic way to watch video. Now it’s old hat (but a fine old hat). I started out streaming video using a complicated connection between my computer and the TV. Then I moved to an early video streaming device called the Boxee (it’s out of production but still has some advantages) and finally to a smart TV — a TV with the capability to receive streaming video built into the set. No added box is needed with that TV.

Using my TV to stream video works fine. But it can be sort of clunky. It has a very limited number of apps as streaming choices and it also makes searching for a specific movie or TV show difficult. So I tried the newest Apple TV. And it was pretty neat. But — and keep in mind that this is based on what suits me, so your experience may differ — it didn’t really wow me. I tried using the built-in ability to command the Apple TV by voice, using our old friend Siri, and that didn’t work all that well. Hey, maybe it was my thick Southern accent.

Then, just for the heck of it, I tried the Amazon Fire Streaming TV. It wasn’t much of a gamble at $90. And I knew — just as I did with the Apple TV — that if it didn’t suit me I could give it to a TECHNOBUDDY’S BIG Q&A friend. My friends love it when I end up with a toy that doesn’t work out — they are likely to get it as a gift. But, my friends will be sorry to hear that I’m keeping this one.

The voice recognition of the Amazon TV is really astounding. Maybe it’s a secret Southerner, but for whatever reason, it translates my voice commands with no trouble at all. More importantly, it almost instantly makes things happen. If I simply say “watch ‘Endeavor’ (a BBC TV series)” ‘Endeavor’ pops right on my screen ready to play. No other searching is needed and it sure beats typing my search words on a crude on-screen keyboard.

And it controls a lot more than TV shows. If I just want some music I can say — being an old guy who likes jazz — “play Louie Prima” and the music starts. The other day the woman who cleans my house wanted some music. I asked her what she wanted to hear and she said: “Gregorian.” I thought, well that might be a bit much for the Ama- zon set. But, Gregorian music started in a flash.

There are a few things I don’t like about the Amazon TV. It doesn’t have a built-in web browser (nor do most competing models). It would be nice to stream from other web sources rather than just built-in apps. And the Amazon TV’s remote doesn’t use infrared to communicate like most other remotes. Instead, it uses radio waves. That means most universal remotes won’t work with it — you’d have to buy a high-priced model such as the Logitech Harmony. So you’re stuck with using the Amazon remote for that gadget and yet another remote for your TV and yet another for other devices. My house is overrun with remotes already so that’s a real problem. It’s a big enough deal that I will talk about remotes in a future column.

There are downsides to any product, and while this thing isn’t on the par with a cure for the common cold, it truly has made a big difference in the joy my wife and I get from home entertainment. It has a lot of other features — many I don’t use often, but some of them might please others. I’ll mention just a few. I can ask it for the current weather and that pops up, or I can tell it I want it to remind me to do something in five minutes and it faithfully does. All this is designed to work with Amazon’s Prime service.

At this point, I sound like an advertising copywriter (a job I once held between newspaper jobs in a pathetic attempt to make a living wage) but I need to tell you I don’t get paid by Amazon to tell you all this. Heck, I send them money — not the other way around. It’s just that this hits my sweet spot. Regular readers know I seldom praise specific commercial products in this column. But I’ve enjoyed this thing so much I wanted to tell you about it.

In fact, the Amazon TV has been so amazing that I feel as if I ought to be able to pick up the remote for it at this point and say “finish this column and send it off.”

When that day comes I can return to full retirement rather than my current semi-retired state.