Your TV just got even more hands-free: Google Assistant comes to Dish

By Kris Wouk July 9, 2018

If you’re looking for a reason to choose Dish Network over DirecTV for your satellite TV service, you just got one more, as Dish announced that it is rolling out Google Assistant across many of its devices. If you’re wondering what this means for you, it’s simple: Now you can control every aspect of your Dish hardware, including your DVR, using just your voice.

Of course, this isn’t necessarily big news if you’re a fan of Amazon’s Alexa, as Dish has had support for Alexa since last year. It even added more functionality in June of this year as Dish added a new suite of voice commands to its Alexa skill. Still, if you’re an Android user or a Google Home fan, this is going to be much more useful for you.

With the addition of Google Assistant, your Dish hardware goes truly hands-free, with commands like “turn on my Hopper,” “mute my Hopper,” “pause,” “resume,” or “tune to channel 140.” While you can be that specific, you don’t have to be. Commands like “show me Tom Hanks movies” or “show me home improvement shows” are also supported, which can be handy when you have a vague idea of what you want to watch but don’t have anything specific in mind.

Google Assistant isn’t actually built into any Dish hardware or firmware, so you’ll need another device running Google Assistant to use it, but that shouldn’t be difficult. If you’re using any Google Home-enabled device, that will take care of it, but you can also use your Android phone or even an iPhone, so you should already have everything you need. When it comes to the actual Dish hardware, you should be fine as long as you’re running something relatively recent.

This new functionality is available on all internet-connected Hopper DVRs as well as the Hopper Duo, Joey, and Wally. If you’re wondering how to get started, see the instructions for setting up Google Assistant to work with Dish in the blog post the company released announcing the new feature. For more general information, see our guide to getting the most out of Google Assistant.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Kris Wouk is a tech writer, gadget reviewer, blogger, and whatever it's called when someone makes videos for the web. In his…

Audio / Video

You have until June 9 to save $500 off an 85-inch Samsung The Frame TV

A painting being displayed on a Samsung The Frame QLED.

Looking for great TV deals? You still have time to save $500 on the Samsung 85-inch The Frame QLED TV when you head over to Samsung. It usually costs $4,300, but right now the popular and stylish TV is down to $3,800, making it more affordable than before. If you’re keen to invest in a large TV but love to save money too, this is a good opportunity. Here’s what you need to know about the TV before you decide to buy.

Why you should buy the Samsung 85-inch The Frame QLED TV
One of the best QLED TVs around, the Samsung 85-inch The Frame QLED TV is a delight in so many ways. At its core, it’s a fantastic QLED TV with 100% Color Volume with Quantum Dot technology saturating the screen with a billion colors. QLED adds a layer of quantum dots to a TV’s LED backlight with these dots, once exposed to light, emitting their own light with a high level of efficiency to provide great picture quality.

Audio / Video

It’s your last chance to get up to $1,900 off a Samsung OLED TV

The Samsung S90C in a living room environment.

There’s still a little time left to snap up one of the best TV deals available today, with Samsung still selling the 83-inch S90C OLED TV for $3,500 instead of $5,400. The $1,900 discount is a pretty vast one and one that you certainly don’t want to skip. If you’re looking for a great new TV for your large living space, you’re going to love this deal. Let’s take a look at how great the Samsung S90C OLED TV is.

Why you should buy the Samsung 83-inch S90C OLED TV
Samsung makes some of the best TVs around and we’re huge fans of the Samsung 83-inch S90C OLED TV. It has an OLED panel so you get self-lit pixels which can light up independently of each other. That means that you can enjoy the deepest blacks and the brightest colors all on the same scene, ensuring you never miss a detail. The Samsung 83-inch S90C OLED TV uses a Neural Quantum Processor with 4K upscaling so its AI-powered processor can transform whatever you’re watching. There’s also HDR OLED which uses AI deep learning to analyze each scene, detecting areas that need to brighter, darker, or simply richer in color.

Audio / Video

This Sonos Bluetooth speaker has a discount in time for beach weather

Sonos Roam SL in black on a rainy rock outdoors.

A day out at the beach. Cooking outside using a discounted grill or smoker. Pool party madness. What do they all three have in common? A lot of fun, but also a great chance to get any sound equipment ruined by a sudden downpour or a splash of inevitable water. That's why there are models of waterproof Bluetooth speakers, of which the Sonos Roam SL is one. And the good news is that you can get yours at a discounted rate before summer officially gets here. Right now, the Sonos Roam SL is just $127, which is $33 down from its typical price of $160. To get yours, all you need to do is tap the button below. Consider also reading below, as we examine the speaker and see why it is considered an easy pick up.

Why you should buy the Sonos Roam SL
The Sonos Roam SL is an easy-to-use, compact speaker for wherever you roam. Connect to it easily over Wi-Fi at home or Bluetooth on the go, giving you easy options to control the sound in a way that makes sense for you and your location. If you're at home and connected to your Wi-Fi system and have other Sonos speakers, you can even get the Sonos multi-room experience, which syncs everything in a nice way. So, you can keep the Sonos Roam SL out on the patio (where it might get rained upon) and keep the best Sonos speakers indoors and have a really cool, worry-free party experience that not many others will be able to replicate.