Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I have a significant investment in Amazon Fire TV Cubes (3) and Sticks (6) and so I decided to try out the Amazon Fire TV (43 Inch Omni). This is for my master bedroom and is not my main viewing TV. I also own an LG 55 inch C6 (OLED), a 65 inch LG 9000 (IPS panel) and a 55 inch Hisense U8G (VA panel) which are fairly high end TV’s that all have above average picture quality and upscale functionality. The Omni TV does not compare to my main TV’s in picture quality, however, the 4K picture is actually quite decent for a bedroom TV whose main viewing time is either early morning or late evening (in a darkened room). Also, we don’t have any soundbars, DVD players, or Cable boxes attached to the Omni TV. We use YouTube TV for local channels and have a number of streaming services (Prime Video, Netflix, Hulu, etc.). What I like about the Omni TV 1. Very lightweight at 15.5 pounds making it easy to mount on the wall. 2. Set up was extremely easy since I am a registered Amazon customer. Plug it in, answer a few questions the TV does a software update, linked to my saved settings for WiFi, automatically downloaded my previous applications from my Fire TV Stick and it was ready to go. 3. The interface is exactly like all my other Fire TV Sticks and Cubes, there was no learning curve. The interface is zippy and functions well. After loading 30+ applications I still had 6 GB of memory unused, which is great. I was also able to jailbreak the TV (like the Fire TV Stick) and download Kodi, Cinema HD, Downloader, IP Vanish, and several other 3rd party utilities, with no problem. All applications work great. 4. Based on the integrated voice and Fire TV capability, you don’t need to spend $50 on a FireTV Max or $100 on a Fire TV Cube and a $30 Echo Dot, making the TV an even greater value. 5. The Bluetooth remote is a nice design and easy to use. A bit of an enhancement over the base Fire TV stick remote with some controls unique to the Omni TV (like settings, channel selector, prior key, live TV key) 6. The integrated voice commands worked for the most part. Actually, this is pretty cool and should only get better over time. I do have one issue where Voice Commands such as “Turn on the TV” work just fine, but “Turn Off the TV” does not work. This is a minor issue and hopefully will get fixed with future software updates. Note: Amazon customer service could not find a resolution to this problem other than resetting my TV and wiping out all my downloaded applications/passwords. I elected to live with the problem. All other commands seem to work well. 7. The 4K picture quality is acceptable in the bedroom. 8. The price is excellent. At $300 for the 43-inch TV, it was priced appropriately for the functionality. 9. Once you get used to how to tweak the picture using the Picture Mode function (Standard, Movie, Dynamic, Custom) settings you can improve the quality of the picture a bit. For me, the Movie mode, with Picture Temp set to Warm 1 worked best for me. Compared to other TV’s the number of adjustments are very limited. However, for ease of use for most users, this is probably acceptable. I do like using voice commands to “Switch Picture Mode to Standard, Movie, Dynamic, etc.”. This saves clicking the remote button multiple times and is easier to execute. 10. Integration to my Ring Doorbell and 4 cameras around my property works great. The Omni TV supports either full screen as well as Picture in Picture and is voice-activated. “Show me the Front Yard Camera” is all that is needed to bring up the picture….very easy to do. 11. All my TP-Link KASA smart plugs can be activated via voice through the Omni TV, i.e. “Turn on the bedroom lights”., “Turn off my backyard landscape lights”, etc. 12. Drop-in works across other Echo Dots. 13. The Omni TV can participate in standard “Speaker Groups”. i.e. “Play music Upstairs” works. 14. You can control attached Sound Bars, DVD players, and Cable boxes with this TV (like the Fire TV Cube). With 4HDMI ports, you have a lot of expansion capabilities. It comes with an IR blaster that can be used for non-bluetooth devices. 15. You can attach up to two Echo Dots to this TV to improve the sound quality. In my opinion, the sound quality on this set is ok for a bedroom. Not great, but not bad either. After all, it is a bedroom!! 16. The 43 inch size is perfect for a bedroom TV. Bumping up to a 50 or 55 inch TV would have been too big for my space. Not all TV manufacturers offer this size. What I don’t like about the Fire TV 1. The lack of Dolby Vision and HDR 10+ limits the 4K picture quality. Dolby Vision should have been included in all the TV’s and not just the 65 and 75 inch models. 2. The backlighting is very basic with direct-lit. I would have paid more to get Full Array backlighting to enhance picture quality. 3. Good HDR requires much higher NITs - I.e. brightness (like 500 to 600) to be truly effective. The Omni TV seems to top out around 325, which is not enough to make HDR details pop in a dark scene. 4. The VA Panel has poor side viewing angles (most all vendors have this problem) but in my bedroom, this was not a problem. All in all, I would recommend this TV if you want a decent 4K picture for a bedroom, want to save some bucks, and are invested in the Amazon echo system. The price is great for what you get and you don’t need to purchase a Fire TV and Echo Dot to gain voice control with another TV brand. For the main viewing area, I would pay more for a larger higher quality TV that supports Dolby Vision, Full Array backlighting, better-upscaling processor, and higher HDR peak brightness. UPDATE 5/2/22 FIX for TV not shutting down by voice command I was able to solve the voice problem of why the Omni TV's Alexa would "Turn on the TV" but fail to "Turn off the TV" (it would always go back to the home screen and never shut down). The solution was to go into the Alexa App on my Phone - Select Devices, then - Select All Devices - Find my Omni TV in the device list - Select the Omni TV then TURN OFF Two items 1) Adaptive Listening and 2) Follow up Mode. The minute I made these two changes the TV will now turn off using my voice. Many of my Echo Dots have these features turned on so I made the assumption that the Omni TV would work the same way since these features are available. That was a wrong assumption. My guess is when you have the Follow Up mode turned on, during the shut down process, Alexa gets confused and is waiting for a follow up command (so it does not shut down). In my opinion this is a software bug. I am surprised that Amazon support does not have this easy fix in their knowledge base. If you have this problem, try my fix.