This week on TechHive: Battle of the hands-free remote controls
Let’s be honest: Reaching for the remote while watching TV isn’t a major inconvenience. But sometimes, after a long day, it’s nice to expend as little energy as possible. If you can control your TV by voice instead, why wouldn’t you?

To that end, Google and Amazon now offer hands-free TV controls through their respective connected speakers. Amazon added Fire TV voice controls to the Echo speaker and other Alexa devices a couple weeks ago, while Google has offered similar voice controls for Chromecast through its own Google Home speaker since last December. Both combos allow you to launch videos, pause, play, rewind, and fast forward without ever touching a remote control. To see how these hands-free remotes compare, read the full column on TechHive.

Weekly Rewind

Rise of the mediocre sports streaming services: This week, Turner announced plans for a sports streaming service in 2018, anchored by coverage of UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League football. It’s unclear how much the service will cost, or what other sports it will include, but it sounds like the service won’t be a complete solution even for UEFA soccer fans; Turner says the semifinals, finals, and UEFA Super Cup match will only air on TBS and TNT.

That plan sounds a bit similar to ESPN’s upcoming streaming service, which will offer a mish-mash of baseball, soccer, hockey, and college sports, but none of the coverage from the ESPN cable channel. Rather than offer complete coverage of a particular sport, fans can expect to be shut out of important matches and playoff games. (This is also essentially how MLB TV, NHL TV, and NBA League Pass work today.)

I understand streaming rights can be complicated for sports, and it’s nice that streaming video affords more viewing options than cable did. But at some point the broad patchwork of incomplete coverage starts to seem counterproductive.

YouTube TV covers nearly two thirds of the country: Google’s streaming TV bundle has been steadily expanding to more areas since it launched in April, and this week it added 14 more markets. Another 17 markets are coming soon, at which point YouTube TV will cover 64 percent of U.S. households. YouTube also says it will support more streaming TV boxes–beyond just Chromecast–this fall. Unlike other bundles,YouTube TV has only launched in markets where it can offer live feeds from at least three out of the four major broadcast stations.

And hey, one of those cities is Cincinnati, which means I’ll finally be able to write a YouTube TV review. Look for that in the next couple weeks or so.

More Catch-Up

Save More Money
AT&T has revived its deal for a free Apple TV with three months of prepaid DirecTV Now service, with one catch: Now you must go to an AT&T store or call AT&T by phone to get the deal. The 32 GB Apple TV normally retails for $150, but with the DirecTV Now deal you pay as little as $105 and get free TV to boot. Just be aware that new 4K HDR Apple TV is probably coming in the next month or two.

Thanks for reading!

My apologies for being slightly late on this week’s newsletter, as I got held up working on some other projects yesterday. I also apologize if last week’s “Save more money” deal wasn’t available by the time the newsletter went out. As one reader put it, “Things don’t last long on QVC.” Life lesson learned.

As always, you can support this newsletter through my Patreon page (for recurring donations) and my Ko-Fi page (for one-time donations), and send feedback by replying to this email or finding me on Twitter.

Until next week,
Jared