Is The Amazon Fire TV Alexa Voice Remote Pro Worth The Upgrade?

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Technology has come a long way, especially for televisions. If you wanted to change the channel on antique TVs, you had to physically do so by turning the dial, or have someone else do it for you. Today, you can control a TV with remotes such as the Amazon Fire TV Alexa Voice Remote Pro. It's an upgrade to the standard remote that comes with Fire TVs, but is it all it's cracked up to be? That all depends on what you want out of your remote.

The Amazon Fire TV Alexa Voice Remote Pro is updated in many different ways. The Pro version includes a remote finder, backlit buttons, customizable buttons, and a Bluetooth button for pairing headphones. All of these additions are alongside its power, volume, and mute buttons, preset app buttons, channel buttons, and Alexa features which can be found on the Alexa Voice Remote and Alexa Voice Remote Enhanced version. 

The Pro remote is only a few dollars more expensive than the two other remotes — typically available for $34.99, while the other two tend to go for around $29.99. For that small increase in price and all the added features, it's a worthwhile upgrade to Fire TV remotes. The backlit buttons, Find my Remote, and Bluetooth addition make it a more versatile remote. Plus, connecting your Amazon Fire Stick remote to a new TV is very simple.

With more than 23,000 reviews on its Amazon page, more than 77% rate the Amazon Fire TV Alexa Voice Remote Pro five stars out of five, at least at the time of this writing.

One reviewer on Amazon went so far as to say that the find feature doesn't just work great, it alone makes the remote worth buying. Amazon's line of remotes tend to be quite small, and people on Reddit agree, making them easy to get lost in couch cushions and misplaced. The added bonus of the find my remote means owners can use a device with Alexa to find the remote which will alert them with a ringing noise.

Reddit users find the backlit buttons to be quite useful, too. They can be especially beneficial in the dark when you don't want to bring the remote right up to your face to find a specific button. One Amazon owner said they used the voice feature to even rewind the movie they were watching. It's just one clever way to use Alexa on your Fire TV remote.

The find my remote feature may be useful, but it's been said that it can be quite a harsh noise. Tech reviewers say the beeping can be annoying and it will not stop until you select any button on the remote. This means you may want to find it rather quickly to shut off the loud and obnoxious noise.

Another negative of the Amazon Fire TV Alexa Voice Remote Pro, at least according to Reddit, is that the batteries may not last all that long. Multiple users reported that when the batteries in their remote got low, the find-my-remote feature did not ping as loudly, making it more difficult to find where the missing remote was. Another user recommended trying out lithium-ion rechargeable batteries to see if they made a difference. In response, an owner said they were using the exact batteries in them and they were not noticing the low battery problems. Drained batteries are a common problem with Fire TV Stick remotes.

The Amazon Fire TV Alexa Voice Remote Pro has a few extras that make it stand out from the other models. If all you want to do is control your TV with a remote, you may not need the Pro version. If you consistently lose the remote and need an easy way to find it, want backlit buttons, and want to make it easier to pair Bluetooth headphones, then paying a few more dollars for the Pro is worth it.