Alexa Just Made Another Button On Your Remote Control Useless

Amazon's Alexa is adding another talent to help keep your remote control gathering dust, with a new Wake-on-LAN controller able to rouse TVs and other devices from low power mode. The new update addresses one of the lingering annoyances for those trying to use voice assistants with their home electronics, where gadgets in frugal standby modes aren't listening out for a wireless wake-up.

Often affecting TVs, home theater receivers, and other entertainment devices, it's a side-effect of the extreme lengths manufacturers go to make sure their hardware is only sipping power when not in use. That's good news for your electricity bill, of course, but not so great if you're relying on other devices – like an Echo smart speaker, for instance – to remotely power your TV or amplifier up.

Amazon's fix is the new Wake-on-LAN Controller. That uses the existing Wake-on-LAN and Wake-on-Wireless-LAN protocols to bridge devices with an Echo on the same network. While a TV in low power mode might not be listening out for the wake packet from a cloud service, it will be receptive to a WoL packet from an Echo on the WiFi or ethernet.

Importantly, the fix doesn't demand new hardware. "Although device makers can already use the Alexa Smart Home API to control TVs and other equipment, until today customers were often not able to power on devices in low power mode," Brian Crum, Amazon's Senior Product Manager on the Alexa team, said today of the update. "We have now delivered an alternative that can help power on devices, without requiring device makers to make hardware changes."

For manufacturers, there'll still be the choice to either use waking via the cloud or using the new WoL protocol. Of course, the TV or other device will have to support WoL – either other ethernet or WiFi – in the first place for the new system to work properly.

For users, meanwhile, it'll all be transparent. They'll just find that they no longer need to reach for the remote control just to turn on their TV in the first place. Vizio, LG, and Hisense are already working on updates for the new Wake-on-LAN Controller and their TVs, and Amazon says he functionality will be pushed out over the next few months.