We’ve got two TCL 4K Roku-enabled televisions in our house, and I feel like TCL is one of those brands that isn’t yet well-known, but they should be. TCL products are extremely well made, they work exactly as promised, and they are generally well priced.
TCL has just added the Xess to their lineup; it works as a voice controlled home hub in conjunction with Amazon Alexa.
If you already have an Amazon Echo, then you probably already have a solid appreciate for all of the things it can do — everything from ordering a pizza for you to controlling your connected thermostat or lights to playing music and reading audiobooks — to name just a few of its skills. Alexa, the voice-enabled service that powers the Echo, waiting to do your bidding as soon as you ask.
But the one thing missing from the Echo is a way to make Alexa visual, and that is where the Xess comes in. Pairing Alexa with the Xess gives you a visual hub that you can use to “control a suite of compatible devices including thermostats, lights, garage doors, sprinklers, and more. This is in addition to other Alexa capabilities and skills like creating shopping lists or catching up on the latest news and weather thanks to thousands of instant hands-free voice commands.”
The Xess has a 17.3″ 1920 x 1080p Full HD display, it uses the Android operating system, and it is designed to work anywhere in your home.
The Alexa voice service integration also enables Xess to share the latest traffic, weather, news, sports scores and schedules, information and more. Plus, Alexa can connect to smart home devices like WeMo, Philips Hue, Nest, and more so customers can control their home by just asking Alexa. To enhance the functionality of the Xess device, it is being packaged with an IP camera, bringing in-home monitoring to any room in the house, perfect for keeping an eye on the nursery, playroom or living room from wherever Xess is setup. More than just a home hub, it also packs entertainment for the whole family, with access to streaming content from an expansive library of popular apps, as well as dual 3.6-watt JBL speakers for a loud, immersive audio experience.
If you keep the TCL Xess in the kitchen, you’ll enjoy that it comes pre-loaded with Kitchen Stories, which gives you access to meal recipes and how-to videos — all of it accessed hands-free through Alexa voice control.
If you set it up in the bedroom, then you can use it as compact home control and media center; you can stream videos over it, hear daily forecasts, monitor another room in your home (using the included HD camera), and just about anything you can imagine.
The TCL Xess with Alexa is now available at an introductory price of $499; you can check it out on Amazon [affiliate ink].
