Alexa is now available on Fire tablets in the UK

Amazon is pushing an update to its Fire tablets enabling the Alexa service in the UK. This has been available in the US since October last year, but now makes its way to users this side of the pond. 

Alexa will be available on a wide range of Fire tablets, so if you’ve bought one recently you’ll be getting it on your tablet. Note that this is different to the Alexa app that is used to manage an Echo: Alexa on your tablet is fully integrated. 

You can access Alexa on your Fire tablet with a long press on the home button and you’ll get a blue listening line appear at the bottom of your screen. There’s no hotword activation on tablets.

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Then you speak to Alexa as you would speak to an Echo, with full support for the services that the Echo offers.

• Amazon Echo: What can Alexa do and what services are compatible?

That means you’ll be able to set timers, ask about the weather, ask Alexa to play music, check your weight with Fitbit, turn off your heating and so on. 

The best thing is that if you already have an Alexa device (Echo, Echo Dot) already setup, then you won’t have to do it all again, as Alexa on your tablet will know what skills you have and what links you’ve already made. 

Information delivered by Alexa on your tablet comes in the form of cards and it can open apps to serve you the information you want.

Alexa will be on the new Fire 7 and Fire HD 8 tablets, as well as the Fire HD 8. It will also be pushed out to the existing Fire HD 8 via a software update in the coming weeks. Amazon has also confirmed that it will be coming to older Fire tablets in the future.