today we're going to review three streaming products that I've had in my
smart home let's get going hello Automaters thanks for tuning in again I'm
Brian from automate your life and today I'm going to take the frustration out of
automation by helping you choose between three of the most premier streaming
devices in my smart home now before I tell you what those three devices are
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service we're going to start the reviews with the fire TV cube so this is the top
level device the second generation device from Amazon and quite frankly my
friend Paul Hibbert did not enjoy this device next up we're going to talk about
the chromecast ultra and this is google's top level streaming device
right here and thirdly we're going to talk about a sharp roku TV so this is
the full-blown Smart TV that you can buy with Roku full operating system onboard
that the fire TV cube is that top level device from Amazon and really it doubles
as a smart speaker although a very poor smart speaker it doubles as one with its
four button interface on top an actual included smart speaker the full fire TV
OS onboard onboard storage as well and so you know with its shiny exterior and
sharp edges it becomes a whole new class of device in your smart home some of the
big things about the fire TV cube is its Dolby Atmos capability and all of the
different HD formats that it can play video in it also within that fire TV
operating system has access to all of different applications it's not all
applications in the world so a great example of that difference here in
Canada is you know you can get a Sportsnet application but you can't get
a TSN application and this was a question I had recently on the channel
you can't get that other application and so you'd have to look for different
options and that's maybe where we'll talk a little bit about a chromecast
ultra but yeah in general the interface has just about every type of content
you're going to want the point of the fire TV cube is number one that little
bit of smart speaker capability so you can control your TV by voice just by
yelling at it and in a lot of cases you're probably gonna have to yell out
it if your speakers are quite loud or your fire TV cube is far away you can
control your smart home with it so it doubles as that smart speaker capability
and then you know the other upgrade reason for the fire TV cube is that
extra onboard storage and what that turns into I think for a lot of people
who are going to want that is the old-school gaming or the old-style retro
gaming and the ability to pair bluetooth headphones and a Bluetooth controller to
go ahead and control those kinds of things so you kind of get that next
level step up and a little bit more functionality the biggest thing you're
always going to like with any fire TV device is number one you get this little
remote which has the ability to voice control so you can voice control with
this remote just by pressing that button the remote itself is very small kids
love this remote and I will say just in general it's very easy to navigate the
whole interface using this and that interface is great so that's another big
benefit of the fire TV system the HD formats there they're awesome they're
fantastic everything I play on there looks great and the wireless home
theater setup that I showed you guys on the channel has really changed how I
consume content in my smart home in general this is the primary streaming
device in my smart home right now on the flip side what I don't love about the
fire TV cube Paul showed a couple of things that control the voice control
interface is definitely not perfect I don't think I've had the same experience
the same negative experience that he has with basic
searches and things like that but I don't use the voice search as often as I
think he was trying to use it in that video I find this remote to be my
primary control interface so if you're not really looking for the voice control
of the video services then I think this is going to be a great option I don't
like the look of it it is too shiny I don't know what they were doing with the
sharp edges on this thing you can actually hurt yourself I don't get it
but anyways that's Amazon's design and sometimes I hit and sometimes they miss
but it's hiding behind my TV anyways right now so I don't care how it looked
the other problem is that wired Ethernet connection actually makes it impossible
to use that home theater setup that I've talked about that is so important now
and what happens is it basically looks like it's on a different network to the
Amazon voice assistant application so then you have the fire TV on a wired
network and it can't work in conjunction with the speakers from Amazon echo
series of products there so that's kind of a big problem but the biggest problem
with the whole device is it's a $70 increase to go and get just the voice
control interface outside of this remote from the fire TV stick 4k to the fire TV
cube and I just don't think is worth it in terms of that upgrade you get all the
HD formats on the fire TV stick 4k you get Dolby Atmos capability you just
don't have the ability to straight up by saying the the wake word there to
control your smart home and to search for things which again isn't the best
interface so my recommendation in general is not to go all the way to the
fire TV cube it's the back off and go to the 4k here's why it's so important to
have that home theater set up with the fire TV cube
and here's how it sounds without that home theater setup
before we talk about the chromecast ultra I want to remind you guys leave
those comments down below I always want to know from these videos what you guys
want to see full reviews on or what you need a tutorial on often times I have
the tutorial already but you know what you might not know it's in the library
of videos we have here on automate your life or our new automate your life
tutorials channel which I'll leave a link down below to love for you guys to
subscribe to that help that channel grow moving on to that chromecast ultra this
is the $70 u.s. chromecast ultra and it has some upgrades over the existing
chromecast's that you might have already purchased in your smart home now what it
basically gives you is that 4k or HDR capability so it's that next level of
streaming and then it also is capable of playing the stadia service or so letting
you into that stadia Turris now that doesn't mean as soon as you buy this you
get into stadia that's a discussion for a little later in the video but the
other thing is it has a wired Ethernet connection and I think that's the
biggest upgrade here for what you're getting from the chromecast ultra I
think the biggest thing that I like about the chromecast the whole series of
products really is the reliability and this is reliable at that 4k streaming
level and it gets a little bit hot don't don't kid yourself but that's part of
the devices design so it's a little bit off-putting initially how hot it can get
and I've heard with stadia in some cases people have had it turning off but in
general once you set up a chromecast device it is extremely reliable and it
it just performs how you want it to perform and the other thing that I
really like about it is kind of what we talked about with the fire TV cube
having some limitations on the services really from a chromecast perspective you
don't have those limitations you can almost always mirror your screen at the
very least and most applications have that little chromecast button and you're
able to cast to that now the other thing to love about this is that wired
connectivity and data is really important because it can hit really hard
on your wireless system when you're streaming
content especially at that 4k level as we get more and more streaming content
we start to talk about streaming video games this is going to be a really
important thing for you and so that wired connection what I've done just so
you guys have an awareness to these kinds of solutions is I've used Ethernet
over power adapters from my router or from a network switch and then I go to
this with that same kind of adapter and that gives me a wired connectivity
capability it might not be the fastest but it does get me wired into places
that I wouldn't normally have wired connectivity and then that makes this
extremely reliable and very fast and takes that off of my wireless network
the other thing that's a really big deal about the chromecast's is the inclusion
in the multi room or multi speaker audio systems that Google home gives you
access to so I've included this in actually as part of my bedroom set up
now so I have a stereo pair of nest minis and now I have my TV able to
stream and what's really interesting about this and this will depend on your
TV is that I can get this to stream without turning the TV screen on so it
remains dark but now I have a three speaker system and so the chromecast
being included in that multi-room audio is a big selling feature
one other thing I do love about this is I can transfer music between that device
and other devices using the Google home products within my smart home so it
becomes part of that whole system and you can just transfer as you move
between rooms a huge benefit eventually it will play stadia just on its own with
a Bluetooth controller or the stadia controller that Google is selling but
that's one of those bigger drawbacks is that right now I can't just go buy a
stadia controller or I haven't been able to as of yet I've heard that this is
coming but we haven't actually seen that and then be able to play those stadia
games but right now that's not possible I can't pair a Bluetooth controller and
just start playing stadia any the invitation the other thing that I don't
love is I don't yet have a home theater setup option with Google and there
chromecast's I can see the pieces lining up and I'm talking to you guys a little
bit about that within our news updates but it's not there yet and it's becoming
a real issue with what Amazon did I did struggle with one of my older Smart TVs
actually causing me a problem you have to kind of play with the settings and I
got some help fact actually from gentleman who's caught commented on the
channel here we call him bugs at Google support he did a great job helping me
out and getting me tuned into the fact that it was my older Smart TV that was
actually causing the chromecast ultra to look like it needed to be set up every
time I turned off that TV so you might have to play with some of those older TV
settings but this is kind of normal for new technology versus older technology
overall though I think the chromecast ultra is the choice for a streaming
product from Google at this point that upcoming stadia capability the 4k
capability being so important here in the coming years I think this is the
right level and if you wait for a sale you can usually get these at around $50
US and I think this is my recommendation going forward for the chromecast series
now the last product I'm going to tell you about is a sharp roku TV so it's got
the roku OS on it and we know how long they've been around in terms of their
streaming devices this remote looks really familiar to a lot of people
because they have one in their smart home they have a visual interface that
looks a lot like the fire TV but they were kind of the originators of that
type of interface now Roku again they've been a lot around for a long time and
the sharp TV I bought has been around for a long time but really what I'm
reviewing here is not the sharp TV itself we have two more review this
streaming service from Roku because this goes into a lot of TVs and it becomes
very powerful at that point because it's the OS and you know going into this
review that's kind of my favorite thing is when you go and you buy a Smart TV
and you know I talked about the issues I had with the chromecast ultra here those
kinds of issues can show up because the TV OS doesn't get updated and they don't
give you any new settings or capabilities because they're maintaining
as a company and in this case it was a Panasonic TV they're maintaining that OS
and this is always a struggle for companies to keep up with all the
different TVs they've put out the different os's
they're not software companies so they're not updating that all the time
but Roku is a software company and they produce a streaming stick a streaming
box and a streaming service and the software that goes along with that is on
all of those so what I really like about this kind of methodology to streaming
services is that my TV is going to last as long as roku glass and i don't see
that ending anytime soon and that's the big thing
I love the interface that Roku has created their remote control interface
is good they have the little quick buttons here I don't love them all but I
can use them and their interface overall is very good and I can customize it a
little bit actually quite a bit in order to get to the services that I want I'm
not missing any of the big services that I want obviously chromecast with that
chromecast feature has a few more options I also like that there are less
ads on the Roku service than I've seen with the fire TV devices and that's
becoming quite a negative over here on the fire TV devices now
once you get past all of those great things and you get into actual ownership
of a Roku what you start to realize is there's maybe a few things that they're
not able to accomplish that these kinds of companies can so you know they're
they're casting capability is not nearly as good as the chromecast ultra they
don't have the home theater capability that Amazon has and they can't make that
happen very easily so you're going to need a receiver and some speakers and
the integration with the voice assistance I can make it work right I've
tried a lot of different things I've tried reintegrating I've tried changing
accounts I've tried doing all kinds of things all kinds of things
anyways I can't make it work right and I'm not the only one I have friends and
family who have Roku devices they can't get Google or Amazon to do anything even
if Google and Amazon are saying I'm doing that and the integration has
worked in terms of adding the device it shows up in both of these apps but I
can't make anything happen reliably and I think overall if you're heading down
this route you're adding a lot into the TV price and this TV wasn't overly
expensive but I could have bought something without the smart capabilities
at a slightly smaller form factor for about half the price so I start to look
at these streaming devices as maybe more of what I want so there you have it guys
now we focused on three streaming products today but when we do these
multi product review videos we often really attack unique smart home products
so go back and watch our playlist of these other videos where we review three
smart home products relatively quickly here on automate your life give you the
high level give you the best information about it and then give you our
recommendation otherwise thanks for watching and of course don't hate
automate