You’ll be able to control your Dish Hopper DVR with Alexa soon

If you own a Hopper DVR and an Amazon Echo, your TV-watching experience is about to get a lot more fun. Dish has announced that its Hopper DVR will be fully compatible with Amazon Alexa in the next few months, allowing users to control their DVR entirely with their voice.

Dish says the new feature will be available on every generation of the Hopper DVR, and will allow users to navigate, search, and play TV content without the need for a remote. Alexa will be able to answer a number of queries including phrases like “go to ESPN,” “play the Warriors game,” or “watch Game of Thrones season 1, episode 2.” It can also search for specific actors or genres with commands like “find Matt Damon movies” or “find comedy movies.”

Dish says the Alexa compatibility will be available in the “first half of this year” which leaves a rather large window, but given that no other cable or satellite provider has announced a similar integration with Alexa, it looks like Dish may still end up being the first to market.