Amazon Fire 7

[sabad66]

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It doesn't work out of the box, you have to go into the system settings and do all of the updates. Same goes for Prime Music, it doesn't work without doing the updates.

It also won't respond when it is asleep as alexa if it isn't plugged in. When it is plugged in it works just like my echo.

hmm did that, device is fully up to date and still no alexa. I opened another support ticket with Amazon and they mentioned it is not available in Canada yet. So either yours is setup as a US Amazon account somehow, or you found a hack to make this work somehow

[Sugarphreak]

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[kenny]

Alexa hands free was released in April for Canada.

Two requirements:
1. Need to upgrade to 5.6.1.0
2. Amazon Prime membership

#2 was when it was released, not sure if that is still the case.

[sabad66]

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I haven't really done anything to mine aside from the update

I do notice when I ask for the weather in Calgary, it gives me the weather in Calgary, Texas... so maybe I've stumbled into a US account setup somehow

Attachment 82299

When you go under settings do you have Alexa as an option under the device area? If you do, there are some toggles to flip on to get it to work.

Attachment 82300

Nope, no Alexa options anywhere.

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Alexa hands free was released in April for Canada.

Two requirements:
1. Need to upgrade to 5.6.1.0
2. Amazon Prime membership

#2 was when it was released, not sure if that is still the case.

This was a live chat from today:


Not sure what you guys did to make it work but this is the 3rd live chat rep that told me the same thing.
@kenny , where did you read that it's available in Canada as of April? Eitehr way i guess they have "misleading info on their website". I do have prime, but only .ca prime and not on .com if that makes a difference?

[Sugarphreak]

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[kenny]

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Nope, no Alexa options anywhere.

Not sure what you guys did to make it work but this is the 3rd live chat rep that told me the same thing.
@kenny , where did you read that it's available in Canada as of April? Eitehr way i guess they have "misleading info on their website". I do have prime, but only .ca prime and not on .com if that makes a difference?

Mine is stock, pre-setup with my Amazon.ca account after ordering it.

I gained the alexa hands-free feature after the update (5.6.1.0) that was released in April. Here is a blog post referencing the update: https://mobilesyrup.com/2018/04/04/a...-8-hd-tablets/

Have you verified you are running 5.6.1.0? If so and you still don't see that option, do you use Amazon Music on your prime account? If not, try activating it. They released Alexa hands free as a Music feature to test I think. Might be worth trying to see if you can get it to unlock there.

[Sugarphreak]

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[kenny]

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^^ Does your FireHD Alexa default to Calgary Texas for weather if you don't specify the country or province?

No, strangely enough it switches between Mahogany, Canada and Calgary, Canada.

When it responds with "Right now in Mahogany, its 16C...." I feel like I'm getting a really accurate forecast haha.

[sabad66]

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Mine is stock, pre-setup with my Amazon.ca account after ordering it.

I gained the alexa hands-free feature after the update (5.6.1.0) that was released in April. Here is a blog post referencing the update: https://mobilesyrup.com/2018/04/04/a...-8-hd-tablets/

Have you verified you are running 5.6.1.0? If so and you still don't see that option, do you use Amazon Music on your prime account? If not, try activating it. They released Alexa hands free as a Music feature to test I think. Might be worth trying to see if you can get it to unlock there.

yup, 5.6.1.0 and yes i've used Prime Music before on both my iphone and Echo.

I did actually come across that link from mobilesyrup that you posted before... funny thing is if you scroll down there's a comment that says it doesn't work in Canada yet and that the article is misleading

[kenny]

Hmm strange, not sure why it's not available for everyone.

I'll be ordering an additional HD8 tablet next time it's on sale so I'll post an update if it works on that one too.

[Sugarphreak]

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[Sugarphreak]

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[sabad66]

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My Fire HD did something today odd... after it updated it kicked me into an orientation screen and started telling me it does something called "show mode". From what I've read it has turned my tablet into a fully functioning Echo Show.

I have no idea what exactly that means yet

i think "show" in this case is a Echo feature where you can tell your non-screen device to show you something on your tablet. For example you can tell your echo dot "show me the stock chart for amzn the last 2 years"... obviously a Dot can't show you that, but it will kick the chart over to your tablet to show you it.

[Sugarphreak]

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[ZenOps]

$40 today only with "prime". Prime is a free trial for a month though.

The Fire 8 is $70 today only as well.

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B075VVSDLN

[Tik-Tok]

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$40 today only with "prime". Prime is a free trial for a month though.

The Fire 8 is $70 today only as well.

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B075VVSDLN

I don't think they give out free trials during prime day.

[ZenOps]

I'm on the free month right now, but I did sign up three days ago. They let you cancel without charges if you cancel before the month is up.

Its an even better deal now because they have the $25 promo for $100 for trying out "Amazon Cash". I have heard that you can download movies using primevideo, something that you can't easily do with Netflix.

[nzwasp]

Does anyone know why you cant buy the fire tablet kids edition in Canada?

[ZenOps]

No idea. Can't get the 10 either.

It seems a lot of the "features" are critically based on what you select right at the beginning



I personally would skip the network at startup and try to install google pretty much right away, if they still allow it. I'm not sure if the Canadian version has the ads or not by default either. If you want Alexa, try selecting "US" at startup for sure. If your network is setup to receive US Netflix through a DNS proxy, that will probably ensure that Alexa will install, but you will also always be redirected to the US amazon store in US dollars (which does not ship to Canada)

Although its still probably a good idea to create a fresh google account anyhow. I am not as trusting to use it with an existing google account. I don't know if many actually want the button hijack either - most people just want the huge games library from google play.

[ZenOps]

Side notes: Did manage to get Google Play working on Fire 8 HD (2017)

Also installed Pokémon GO on it. But it has the major caveat of only working about five minutes out of every hour, lol. I'm pretty sure its because it totally relies on Wifi location services, and I don't think my router actually has the capability of GPS forwarding. Also no cellular, so no positional tracking that way either. The fire 8 is to the second perfect tracking using Google maps - go figure.


And yet - even though it only works for five minutes of every hour because of limited wifi location services, its still useful to me as a place to dump a daily trade from my main Pokemon GO account.