Overview for Voice-enabling Your App and Content on Fire TV

With the release of Fire TV Cube, and the ability to link Echo devices to Fire TV, customers can interact with their TVs in a hands-free way (an interaction referred to as "far-field control"). They can ask Alexa to play content, search for content, control playback, and change channels on their Fire TV using voice. Even without Fire TV Cube or a paired Echo, customers can press the microphone button on the Alexa Voice Remote to say voice commands to Fire TV (this is referred to as "near-field" control).

To support voice interactions on Fire TV, it's becoming increasingly important that you voice-enable your apps. There are several techniques for voice-enabling your app: Video Skills Kit, Media Session API, and In-App Voice Scrolling and Selection.

Key Terms
Video Skills Kit (VSK)
Media Session API
In-app Scrolling and Selection

Key Terms

Integrating with Alexa introduces some terms that might be unfamiliar. The following glossary defines some of these terms.

Alexa skill: A capability or ability of Alexa. Alexa provides a set of built-in skills (such as playing music), and developers can use the Alexa Skills Kit to give Alexa new skills. A skill includes both the code (in the form of a cloud-based service) and the configuration provided on the developer console.
Alexa Voice Remote: A remote control for Fire TV that offers a voice button. Interacting with this voice-enabled remote (even if you're far away from your TV) is still considered "near field" control because you're near the microphone array of the remote control.
far-field: Using an Echo device that is paired to a Fire TV to issue a voice command.
Fire TV Cube: The first Fire TV device offering a hands-free TV experience (far field control). Without a remote, you can use your voice to access, launch, and control content, turn on your TV and AV devices, switch inputs, adjust the volume, search for content, and more from a distance. For details, see Device Specifications: Fire TV Cube.
Catalog: An index of the media on Fire TV. Integrating your media catalog with Amazon allows your content to be discovered and launched from Amazon devices. It will then be discoverable on the Fire TV home screen when users search for it (either through voice or text search). See Getting Started with Catalog Ingestion for details.
AWS Lambda: An AWS compute service that runs your code in response to events and automatically manages the compute resources for you. This lets you run code (referred to as a Lambda function) in the cloud without managing servers. The code for your skill must be hosted as a Lambda function and is required for smart home skills. You can also choose to use a Lambda function for the service for a custom skill. AWS Lambda is a service offering by Amazon Web Services.
AWS Lambda function: The code uploaded to AWS Lambda. Lambda supports coding in Node.js, Java, Python, or C#. A smart home skill must be implemented as a Lambda function. You can also choose to use a Lambda function for the service for a custom skill.
local search: A search for content within a specific catalog-integrated app on Fire TV.
near-field: Using the Fire TV Voice Remote to issue a voice command. In the case of the new Fire TV Cube, requests made to the Fire TV Cube initialize Alexa on the device, so although it uses the microphone array, it is a near-field experience.
transport controls: Playback controls while watching media (Play, Pause, Stop, Rewind, Fast-forward, etc.). Also called "media controls."
universal search: A search for content across all catalog-integrated apps on Fire TV. You can initiate a universal search using voice or text. All voice searches by default are universal searches. Any search using the search button within the Fire TV UI (rather than using the search provided within a specific app) is also a universal search.
utterance: The words the user says to Alexa to convey what they want to do, or to provide a response to a question Alexa asks.
Video Skills Kit: The name for implementing video skills for your Fire TV app.
Video Skill API: A set of APIs that enable the far-field control of video devices and streaming services using an Alexa-enabled device. For details, see Video Skills Kit (VSK) for Fire TV Overview.

Video Skills Kit (VSK)

You can integrate the Video Skills Kit (VSK) for your Fire TV app so that customers can use natural language commands to search for your app's content, launch your app, control media playback, change the channel, and more. Implementing the VSK involves building a Lambda to support the directives from Alexa, integrating the Alexa Client Library, handling cloud-to-app communication through ADM, and more. Catalog integration is also a requirement to implement the VSK for Fire TV. To get started, see Video Skills Kit for Fire TV Apps Overview.

Integrating the VSK for Fire TV gives customers the following capabilities:

App launching: When a customer asks to play or search for specific content, Alexa automatically launches the correct Fire TV app. When customers say "Alexa, open <app name>," they are directed to the app’s homepage. The video skill automatically enables the Alexa Video Skill API to launch the app.
Quick play: Customers can ask Alexa to play video by saying, "Alexa, play <show name> " or "Alexa, play <show name> on <app name>. Alexa routes the user to the correct app with that content, and Fire TV begins playback automatically (rather than just going to the detail page).
Search: Customers can ask Alexa to perform universal searches for content by saying "Alexa, find <show name>." Searches like this, which don't limit the scope to an app, are called "universal searches," since they look for the content across all catalog-integrated Fire TV apps. Searches that limit their scope to a specific app are called "local searches." Customers can also perform local searches by saying "Alexa, find <show name> on <app name>" or "Alexa, find <genre> on <app name>."
Transport Controls: Customers can control playback via voice through utterances such as "Alexa, fast forward", "Alexa, fast forward 5 minutes", "Alexa, next", "Alexa, previous", as well as rewind, pause, resume, and stop.
Channel Change: For apps that offer live TV functionality, customers can switch between channels through utterances such as "Alexa, tune to <app name>".

Integrating the Video Skills Kit (VSK) into your Fire TV app makes it easier for customers to discover and play your content.

Media Session API

If you don't have the bandwidth or resources to implement the VSK, or if your planned implementation is some months into the future, you can voice-enable the media playback controls in your app using the Media Session API. Media Session is an Android API that allows streaming applications to receive media commands, and it's the recommended best practice for handling events from remote controls, Bluetooth, ADB, the Fire TV companion app, and more.

Integrating Media Session allows customers to say commands such as "Play," "Pause," "Rewind," etc, during media playback. These commands work in both near field and far field devices. Media Session won't let users perform the more advanced voice controls described in the Video Skills Kit, where you can launch apps, search for content, and more through voice. Media Session integration just voice-enables the playback controls.

If you've already implemented Media Session in your app (most developers have), there's little to no extra work to voice-enable Media Session. You just add a special Alexa permission to your app manifest. Full details are available here: Voice-enabling Transport Controls with Media Session API.

In-app Scrolling and Selection

Fire TV Cube allows users to perform scrolling and selection using common Alexa phrases. The in-app voice scrolling and selection works by mapping D-pad navigation events to your voice commands. D-pad refers to the remote control's directional keypad, which is used to scroll right, left, up, and down. Alexa converts these voice commands into D-pad navigation events that are sent to the app.

In-app scrolling and selection is a feature that Amazon manually activates on the back-end for apps, after ensuring that the app will support the commands. Amazon is gradually increasing the number of apps with scrolling and selection enabled. For more details, see In-App Voice Scrolling and Selection.

Last updated: Aug 18, 2022