How to use voice remote to play a program on DVR

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@dwwicks wrote:

This seems like a really dumb question to ask, but how do you use an X1 DVR remote with voice control to directly play a recorded program?  I would like to be able to say something like "watch myprogram", where "myprogram" is the name of a recording in my recent recordings list, and just have it start playing.  With everything I've tried so far it seems like I have to wrestle with the remote to force it to cooperate.  My greatest success so far is this sequence of events:

1. I say "watch MyProgram".   A reasonable expectation is that the requested program should start to play.  Instead, it takes me to a program screen that has "Episodes" and "Watch Now" on it.  It's good that it at least recognized the program name, but it is not playing that program.
2. A reasonable expectation at this point would be to say "watch" or "play" to start it up.  But no, saying "watch" takes me to the "available/free/upcoming" screen.  But if I say "watch now", it selects the watch now button - moving a cursor box to that button, but I am still on this screen and I am still not watching my program.
3. I say "watch" for the third time and finally it plays the program.

It really should not be this hard for something that should be the most common feature of all with X1 remotes.  Also, allowing for the possibility of having multiple episodes of the program being asked for, I would also expect to be able to ask "watch most recent myprogram" in order to bypass an episode selection screen.  Is there some trick that I am missing or is this remote software really this bad?

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say 'recordings' then select what you wish to play.

Saying "recordings myprogramname" does exactly the same thing as "watch myprogramname".  It takes me to a program watch options screen.  Then I need to keep issuing voice commands until I finally get to a specific episode even if there is only 1 episode.

A little more background here.  If I can't use voice with an X1 remote to directly play a recording, I figure there is no way that combination of Google Home/Nest, Harmony Hub, and X1 will be able to either.  So far there seems to be no way to tell X1 to play a recording and actually have it just play that recording without going through a series of subsequent questions.

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@dwwicks wrote:

Saying "recordings myprogramname" does exactly the same thing as "watch myprogramname".  It takes me to a program watch options screen.  Then I need to keep issuing voice commands until I finally get to a specific episode even if there is only 1 episode.

 

A little more background here.  If I can't use voice with an X1 remote to directly play a recording, I figure there is no way that combination of Google Home/Nest, Harmony Hub, and X1 will be able to either.  So far there seems to be no way to tell X1 to play a recording and actually have it just play that recording without going through a series of subsequent questions.

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you can use the Xfinity TV Remote app to play a recording directly on any of your x1 set top box connected TVs.

I have the xfinity remote app.  I don't think that is going to help either.  Let me try to be a bit more explicit in my end objective.   I want to be able to say to my Google Nest "Hey Google - play latest The Simpsons from DVR", and have my selection just play without having to touch any remote, tablet, or smart phone.  But I don't think I can get that to happen if X1 can't even do that to begin with.  At best I can give a voice command to get to recordings.  Then give another voice command to select the one I want.  Then give another voice command to select the "Watch now" button.  Then give another voice command to press the currently selected button.

While I think I may be able to get Google/Harmony/X1 to work together to do each of these steps, it is sort of a slow and ugly way to do things.  On the other hand if X1 could just play what I am asking it to play with a single command, there is hope that the Google/Harmony/X1 scheme will also be able to do so as well.

Let me add that I also have Roku and Chromecast.  I can tell my Google Nest to ask Roku to play a program on Netflix and it performs the necessary magic to do that.  X1 needs to join the linked-in world.

Hi dwwicks, I'm having the exact same problem. Have spoken to the accessibility department at Xfinity and they say it can't be done. In my case, my mom is legally blind. She can say "recordings" but then cannot use the voice command to tell it which recording to "choose". She has to use the arrow down key to go thru the list of recordings. Even then .... she would have to use the right/left arrows to choose from that sub-menu and THEN she can voice "play".

It's just too much for and 87 year old to try and do when they can't see. I have put in my suggestions and hope that Xfinity comes up with something better.

Still, I am grateful that she can at least listen to live TV and be able to change to those channels using her voice remote.