Hulu's Alexa Integration Is Now Live

Back in September, Hulu revealed plans to integrate Alexa voice commands with its service. At the time, Hulu only said that this new functionality would be coming sometime in the fall, failing to get more specific. It turns out that "sometime in fall" is today, with Alexa voice commands rolling out to Hulu users now.

While many things that operate with Alexa voice commands simply need an Alexa device like the Echo or Echo Dot to work, Hulu integration requires another piece of hardware. You'll also need to be using an Amazon Fire TV device to use Alexa, though if you have a newer Fire TV model that comes with an Alexa voice remote, that should cut it as well.

Assuming you're all set on hardware, you can use Alexa to control playback and navigation within Hulu. This includes actions like having Alexa pause, resume, rewind, and fast-forward through the show you're currently watching. You can also use Alexa to begin watching a specific show by simply saying things like "Alexa, watch The Handmaid's Tale" or "Alexa, watch Bob's Burgers."

If you happen to have a subscription to Hulu with Live TV, your Alexa options open up further. Live TV subscribers can tell Alexa to tune to a specific channel through voice commands like "Alexa, watch EPSN." All in all, it's pretty straightforward integration that will be familiar to anyone who already uses Alexa regularly.

Hulu fancies itself as first third-party platform of its kind to integrate Alexa. Of course, it isn't the first video service to use Alexa, as that distinction unsurprisingly belongs to Amazon Video. Still, it's nice to see Alexa support expanding beyond Amazon's services, so hopefully more streaming services follow Hulu's lead.