Plex for Alexa will get the party started with your voice
We really want to start calling it Plexa, though.
It seems like Amazon has been adding new Alexa skills nearly every day lately. The latest trick is voice control for the popular home media streaming server Plex. Just use your voice to ask Plex to bring up any movies or music you have stored on your home (or cloud) media server. Once enabled, all you need to do is ask Alexa for your favorite movies, TV shows and music, provided you have them all on a Plex-connected media server. The skill works on the Amazon Tap, Echo Dot, Echo, Fire TV and on newer model Fire tablets.
Got three minutes to spare? Check out this video on how it all works:
Now you can request The Big Lebowski by name or just ask to hear some Bob Marley songs; the Alexa skill will work the Plex install to find the right stuff.
While asking for a song or movie by name via Alexa is pretty great, the killer feature here is the ability to get suggestions. Just ask Plex to suggest some relevant music or videos. And yes, you can just tell Alexa to tell Plex to "get this party started" for some hip music or even "What's new?" to find out what movies have been recently added to your Plex system.
Plex itself is easy to use, and is available on many common media streamers, like Apple TV, Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and NVIDIA Shield. Using your voice seems like a useful addition, allowing fans of the app to perhaps spend less time with their remotes.
Just please, let's all call it Plexa from now on, OK?
