Nvidia Shield TV gets support for Alexa voice assistant in US

The Nvidia Shield TV media player will receive support for Amazon’s voice assistant Alexa in the United States. This gives users the option to control the media player with voice commands via the Amazon Echo speakers.

According to Nvidia, this update means the Shield TV is the only media player that can be controlled by both the various Amazon Echo devices and the Google Home speaker. Support for Google Assistant has already been implemented. Nvidia has also announced that another functionality will be available to Shield TV users: Dolby Atmos passthrough for Prime Video.

With the addition of a new Alexa skill, users can ask Alexa, for example, to navigate through the collection of content on the Shield TV. The media player can also be switched on or off with voice commands, or the volume can be adjusted.

To use Alexa commands, an Echo speaker must first be connected to the Shield TV from the Alexa app, then the new skill can be selected and associated with the Nvidia account. Finally, the speaker and media player must be selected for them to work together.

For now, Alexa support is limited to Nvidia Shield TV users in the United States, but Nvidia says it’s coming to other regions in due course. However, it is not clear when the update will come to Europe.