Comcast X1 DVR Gains Voice Control (via iPhone)

x1voice

Following in the footsteps of DirecTV, Comcast is the latest provider to bring voice navigation to the television:

The X1 Remote app first launched in mid-2012, giving X1 customers the ability to control the TV, navigate Xfinity On Demand choices, search for programs and tune to TV shows and movies directly from their iPhones. In addition to uniting the TV screen with customers’ mobile devices, the latest version adds the ability to issue voice commands for guide navigation and content discovery. For example, users can say “When is the next Phillies game?” or “Show me all action movies on HBO.”

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JD_CA9cWsmE&w=580]

8 thoughts on “Comcast X1 DVR Gains Voice Control (via iPhone)”

  1. The unpublicized easter egg in the Comcast X1 voice control feature is that if you sing the opening verse of the Daft Punk song to it, you unlock HBO Go on your Roku! Pretty cool.

  2. Also, off-topic, I just love this NYT correction:

    Because of editing errors, an earlier version of this article misstated the group’s name twice. As the article correctly noted elsewhere, it is Daft Punk, not Daft Puck or Daft Pink.

  3. “Also, off-topic, I just love this NYT correction”

    I can’t believe I missed that when I read the article. A quite lovable correction, indeed.

    Tangentially, that NYT piece seems to ignore an important part of the reason it took over the world: a thousand covers seemed to crop up within days of its release. I tend to frequently listen to KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic from noon to 3 Eastern, and every fourth song seems to be a cover of the Daft Puck/Pink song. It’s a phenomenon I can’t seem to recall ever seeing before. I keep waiting for Johnny Cash to rise and become Walking Dead just to record a cover version…

  4. Looks faster than the DirecTV app. I have the DirecTV one and there’s an inherent latency that its really more of a novelty. Plus it doesn’t know all channels. Say “change to Disney junior” and it displays the text on screen correct but it doesn’t work. Say “change to 289” or “change to espn” or “change to abc”, well those all work.

    Would love to get my hands on X1 and play with it so I could do a good comparison. It looks pretty smooth and quick in the YouTube reviews that various people made.

  5. Now all they need to do is roll it out on a bigger scale. Does anyone know when that might be?

  6. It’s likely that Comcast is artificially limiting distribution of X1 to avoid a huge CapEx increase associated with the relatively expensive boxes.

  7. @Sam,

    So this is pretty much irrelevant then? Most people are going to be stuck with boxes that can’t do this? I had expected it to suck and not use it, but wasn’t aware I wouldn’t be able to get the box in the first place…

    FYI to all the people assuming the HDMI connection on the XBox One will magically be able to control your cable box as you know how quickly the cable company rolls over their inventory of deployed boxes.

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