Dish Partners With Amazon To Bring Echo And Alexa Voice Control To Dish DVRs

Amazon’s Alexa has made it onto a lot of platforms in the past year and its latest jump will make it easier to find your favorite movies or TV shows. Satellite TV provider Dish announced Monday its digital video recorders can now be paired with Amazon’s Alexa in the home.

The feature, which is available on Dish’s Hopper or Wally DVR models, allows users to give voice commands to Alexa from the Echo, Echo Dot and Amazon Tap to control their TVs. Functions can be used across Dish’s live, recorded and on-demand titles and also work with Netflix’s catalog.

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Through Alexa, users can control the playback of a show with functions like time skipping, rewinding, pausing and restarting programs. Users can also have Alexa search for shows, individual channels by number or show works by specific actors.

In a statement, Alexa director Rob Pulciani said the pairing was a logical partnership between Alexa and Dish. Dish said it’s the first cable company to provide integration with Alexa on home TV hardware.

“Customers love the convenience of interacting with their smart homes via Alexa, and now that includes live TV on DISH,” Pulciani said. “With DISH’s skill for Alexa, changing the channel, pausing, rewinding and searching for content will be as simple as asking Alexa via an Echo family device. We think this is a big step forward for the television experience, and that customers will love this new voice functionality on DISH.”

The feature update is the latest link in the partnership between Dish and Amazon. Previously, Dish’s Anywhere app, which allows users to remotely access their DVR shows, was launched on all Amazon Fire TV devices.

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For Amazon, the move is the latest way for Alexa to extend its reach throughout the home. While Amazon already has its own TV offering with the Fire TV, piggybacking on Dish’s existing customer base makes Alexa and the Echos a more central part of a user’s home life. For instance, if you’re watching a TV show and have to move to the kitchen, you can tell Alexa to pause the show without needing to find a remote.

How To Set Up Alexa On Your Dish DVR

Here’s how to pair your Echo device with a compatible Dish DVR, via Dish:

1. Enable DISH TV in the Alexa app: Open the Alexa app on a mobile device and select Music, Video & Books → DISH TV → Enable Skill.
2. Get receiver code: Turn on internet-connected Hopper or Wally, and go to: Menu → Settings → Amazon Alexa → Get Code. Enter the generated code into the Alexa app and select Activate . Click Done in the confirmation message.
3. Pair Hopper or Wally with Echo, Echo Dot or Amazon Tap: In the Alexa app, select desired Hopper or Wally receiver from list of discoverable devices. Click Continue Amazon device to be synced with chosen receiver. Click Link Devices .