DISH has released a new voice remote that ships with all Hopper DVRs. Upgraded with motion-activated backlighting and two customizable buttons, the remote interprets natural language to control navigation, search, and content selection on compatible set-top boxes.
New DISH customers will receive the remote with a Hopper at no extra cost, while existing customers can upgrade for $20. This is the second-generation of the voice remote DISH unveiled July 2016.
“Voice control will now come as a standard feature on DISH remotes shipped with our Hopper set-top boxes,” said Niraj Desai, DISH vice president of product management. “In the not-so-distant future, we’ll begin to navigate our TV experience the same way we navigate human conversations. Our new voice remote is not only a technological stepping stone as natural language processing and machine learning progress, but it’s also an effort to bring customers along in the process by increasing their familiarization with voice control.”
DISH’s new voice remote includes two customizable buttons that customers can program to create shortcuts to some of their most frequented menu destinations like Netflix, parental controls, and video-on-demand. Equipped with Remote Finder functionality, the remote emits a series of beeping noises after customers press the “Locate Remote” button on compatible receivers.
The remote is compatible with all generations of DISH’s Hopper DVR, as well as Joey, Wireless Joey, 4K Joey and Super Joey clients.
DISH’s voice control technology suite also includes hands-free TV on the Hopper, Joey and Wally set-top boxes with Amazon Alexa. Users can ask Alexa to navigate, play, pause, fast-forward, rewind and search content based on channel, title, actor, or genre. DISH is the only TV provider to offer direct compatibility with Amazon Alexa.
How to program customizable buttons on the voice remote
1. The two customizable buttons are located near the bottom of the remote, and are marked with a Diamond and a Double Diamond.
2. After turning on a Hopper or Joey, click a customizable button (from anywhere within the user interface). A pop-up menu will appear on the right side of the screen with a list of 12 possible shortcuts.
3. Scroll to the desired shortcut, then click Select. Once set, the customizable buttons will perform the selected function any time they are pressed.
4. To reprogram, hold down a customizable button for two seconds. The pop-up menu will reappear on the right side of the screen with the list of 12 shortcuts.
