Amazon Echo Control on FireTV (sound output control)

1

All,

I am using the Amazon Echo Control binding and I am very happy with TTS and such.

Recently I switched to FireTV cube, because my Smart TV (Sony from 2016) became to slow.
The FireTV Cube (Gen 2) has internal Speakers and an HDMI output (of course).
This HDMI is connected to my Receiver, which connects to the TV.
I have connected my Playstation to the Receiver (Marantz SR7008) the same way.

When I powerup the cube and my Receiver, Alexa speaks through the internal speakers.
After “Alexa, play Spotify”, my TV is switched on (I did not find out how to prevent this) and Spotify as well as Alexa’s responses are played through the Receiver.
After I switched off the TV manually, the sound (Alexa AND Spotify) are still coming from the Receiver (which I prefer).

Question: Does anyone know how to control the FireTV output (internal speakers vs. HDMI)?
I have placed the question to Amazon, but did not get a reponse yet.
So, I hope someone else here has the same experience and maybe a solution.

(I tried to start the FireTV and the Receiver in different order without a change).

2

Not sure, but maybe look at the androiddebugbridge binding. I don‘t think you can control that directly from the amazonechocontrol binding.

3

That’s a good idea - I will try this.
Still no response from Amazon’s CS yet.

4

Are you just wanting to prevent the TV from turning on when you play music? If so, move the HDMI cable to a port on the TV that doesn’t have HDMI-ARC, so that it won’t sense a signal from your receiver and turn on automatically.

The downside of this is that you’ll always have to manually turn on your TV.

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5

Thanks, Russ that might be an option.
I use my harmony hub to turn on the TV anyway :slight_smile:

6

I also use Harmony remotes, so I’ve disabled ARC on all of my A/V devices. Older TVs and receivers usually only have one HDMI-ARC port, but I don’t know if that’s typical with newer devices. Whatever the case, the receiver is your issue since it’s between your Fire TV and your TV.

I have openHAB detect when my Chromecasts are streaming content and trigger the right Harmony devices/profiles to turn on/off, but I don’t know if that’s possible with a Fire TV.

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7

Sounds like a good approach.
Thank you Russ.
I will look into these options!

8

Hmmm… but I don’t get the TV (regular television) sound back to the receiver, if I don’t use the ARC hdmi, do I?

9

Sorry, I’ve been writing ARC, but I meant CEC. Too many acronyms.

10

:smiley: I know what you mean
Thanks - that totally makes sense

11

… does not provide the option to select the output on FireTV.
:frowning:
Thanks for this suggestion though.

I guess I will need to check with the Amazon CS again.

12

I am still using the same port on the TV, but switched OFF the CEC on FireTV.
So, whenever I start spotify, the TV stays OFF:
Thanks, Russ!

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