Amazon turns the Fire tablet into a smart home hub with the latest update

The Amazon Fire is probably the cheapest Android tablet that you can get in the United States. Starting this week, Amazon is turning many of its Fire tablets into real smart home hubs from where users will be able to control their smart appliances and other similar devices.

Yesterday, Amazon kicked off the rollout of a new update to a handful of Fire tablets that will add a Smart Home button to Device Dashboard, ZDNet reports. Unfortunately, not all Amazon Fire tablets are compatible with the new update, at least not initially. To benefit from the new features, you'll have to own one of these four tablets: Amazon Fire 7 (2019), Amazon Fire HD 8 (2018), Amazon Fire HD 8 (2020), or Amazon Fire HD 10 (2019).

Once you install the update, you should notice there's a new Smart Home button on the left corner of the navigation bar. More importantly, the button is accessible from any screen, which means you'll be just one tap away from controlling your compatible Alexa-enabled smart home device.

You'll be able to control just about any smart speaker, smart lights, cameras, thermostats, switches, or plugs that support Amazon Alexa, and most of them surely do. It's a small nifty feature that makes controlling smart devices more convenient if you own an Amazon Fire tablet.