Amazon Fire TV (stylized as amazon fireTV) is a line of

digital media player A digital media player (also sometimes known as a streaming device or streaming box) is a type of consumer electronics device designed for the storage, playback, or viewing of digital media content. They are typically designed to be integra ...

s and microconsoles developed by Amazon. The devices are small

network appliance A computer appliance is a home appliance with software or firmware that is specifically designed to provide a specific computing resource. Such devices became known as ''appliances'' because of the similarity in role or management to a home a ...

s that deliver digital audio and video content

stream A stream is a continuous body of water, body of surface water Current (stream), flowing within the stream bed, bed and bank (geography), banks of a channel (geography), channel. Depending on its location or certain characteristics, a stream ...

ed via the Internet to a connected high-definition television. They also allow users to access local content and to play video games with the included remote control or another game controller, or by using a mobile app remote control on another device. The device is available in two form factors, set-top box and HDMI plug-in stick with, in general, lesser specifications than the contemporaneous boxes. The current set-top box model is the Fire TV Cube with embedded Amazon Echo smart speaker (which effectively replaced the Fire TV box model), while the stick form factor encompasses four models, the entry-level Fire TV Stick Lite, the standard Fire TV Stick, and the high-end Fire TV Stick 4K and Fire TV Stick 4K Max (the last of which effectively replaced the third-generation Fire TV with 4K Ultra HD "pendant"). The first-generation Fire TV device was unveiled on April 2, 2014. The second-generation version was released in 2015, with additional Fire TV devices released on regular basis since. In March 2016, Amazon began collaborating with television set manufacturers to include the Amazon Fire OS and Fire TV interface built-in with televisions sold to the public, labeled as Fire TV Edition. In September 2018, Amazon extended the use of the Fire TV brand to the Fire TV Recast, an over-the-air television

digital video recorder A digital video recorder (DVR) is an electronic device that records video in a digital format to a disk drive, USB flash drive, SD memory card, SSD or other local or networked mass storage device. The term includes set-top boxes with direct to d ...

exclusively for viewing use with Fire TV and Amazon Echo Show devices, which it discontinued in August 2022.

Fire TV hardware

Original model

First generation

The first Fire TV was made available for purchase in the US on the same day of the April 2014 announcement for US$99 and was launched with a video game called Sev Zero. Codenamed "Bueller", after the eponymous character from '' Ferris Bueller's Day Off,'' it offered HDMI audio, with support for Dolby Digital Plus 7.1 surround sound pass-through, if the user's Internet bandwidth was sufficient. According to Amazon, the Fire TV was designed to outpace competitors like the

Apple TV An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple fruit tree, trees are agriculture, cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, wh ...

and Roku in performance: the 0.72-inch-thick box featured a 1.7 GHz quad-core CPU (

Qualcomm Snapdragon Snapdragon is a suite of system on a chip (SoC) semiconductor products for mobile devices designed and marketed by Qualcomm Technologies Inc. The Snapdragon's central processing unit (CPU) uses the ARM architecture. A single SoC may include mu ...

8064), 2 GB of RAM and 8 GB of internal storage, along with a MIMO dual-band radio for

1080p 1080p (1920×1080 progressively displayed pixels; also known as Full HD or FHD, and BT.709) is a set of HDTV high-definition video modes characterized by 1,920 pixels displayed across the screen horizontally and 1,080 pixels down the screen vert ...

streaming over 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi and a 10/100 Ethernet connection and USB 2.0 port. Included with the box is a Bluetooth remote control with a microphone for voice search. The company said that it did not intend the Fire TV to compete with gaming consoles; instead, its gaming capabilities were geared toward people who did not already own a console but may play games on a smartphone or tablet. It has a dedicated controller accessory.

Second generation

Amazon released a second-generation Fire TV, codenamed "Sloane", after the film love interest of Ferris Bueller, in late 2015. This version had

4K resolution 4K resolution refers to a horizontal display resolution of approximately 4,000 pixels. Digital television and digital cinematography commonly use several different 4K resolutions. In television and consumer media, 38402160 (4K Ultra-high-definitio ...

support, improved processor performance, and a MediaTek 8173C chipset to support H.265 (HEVC), VP8, and VP9 codecs. Wireless hardware upgrades included 4K capable, a dual-band 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi with 2x2 MIMO and Bluetooth 4.1. It was effectively replaced with the Fire TV Cube.

Third generation

The third-generation Fire TV, also known as the Fire TV with 4K Ultra HD and Alexa Voice Remote, was released in 2017. It eschewed the previous set-top box design for a small, diamond-shaped " pendant" reminiscent of the Fire TV Stick, which plugs directly into a television set's HDMI port and can be hung from a short HDMI extender cable. It contained a slower processor but more RAM than the second-generation Fire TV, and also had support for

streaming, Dolby Atmos, and HDR10. Production was discontinued in 2018 in favor of the Fire TV Stick 4K.

Fire TV Cube

First generation

The Fire TV Cube was released in June 2018. It is similar in function to the third-generation Fire TV but also includes embedded Alexa functionality similar to the Amazon Echo smart speaker line and can use

HDMI-CEC Consumer Electronics Control (CEC) is a feature of HDMI designed to control HDMI connected devices by using only one remote control, remote controller; so, individual CEC enabled devices can command and control each other without user intervention, ...

and an

IR blaster An infrared blaster (IR blaster) is a device that relays commands from a remote control to one or more devices that require infra-red remote control. For instance, it may also allow radio-frequency-based (RF) remotes (including those using Bluet ...

to control other devices with voice commands. As its voice functionality is integrated into the device, the Fire TV Cube does not include the voice remote. The device uses a 1.5 GHz quad-core ARM 4xCA53 processor, 2 GB RAM, and 16 GB storage.

Second generation

A second-generation model was unveiled in September 2019, featuring a hexa-core processor, "Local Voice Control" (which allows client-side recognition of common voice commands to improve response time), and support for Dolby Vision and HDR10+. It supports 4K output.

Third generation

A third-generation model of the Fire TV Cube was announced on September 28, 2022 for release on October 25, 2022. Notable upgrades to the 3rd-generation model include an octa-core processor (4x 2.2GHz 4x 2.0GHz), support for 6e Ethernet/Wi-Fi networking, and Bluetooth 5.0+LE.

Fire TV Stick

First generation

On November 19, 2014, Amazon released its Fire TV Stick, a smaller

dongle A dongle is a small piece of computer hardware that connects to a port on another device to provide it with additional functionality, or enable a pass-through to such a device that adds functionality. In computing, the term was initially synonym ...

version of the Fire TV that plugs into an HDMI port. Codenamed "Montoya", it retains much of the functionality of the larger Fire TV. It has 1 GB of RAM, 8 GB of internal storage, weighs , and it uses a Broadcom BCM28155 1.0 GHz Cortex-A9 processor and a Broadcom VideoCore IV GPU. Wireless hardware includes a dual-band 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi with 2x2 MIMO and Bluetooth 3.0 The Fire TV Stick is bundled with a remote control, in either of two variants: one with Alexa voice search and one without Alexa.

Second generation

On October 20, 2016, Amazon released the Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote, codenamed "Tank". Other than the new remote, the updates include MediaTek MT8127D Quad-core ARM 1.3 GHz processor with a

Mali-450 The Mali series of graphics processing units (GPUs) and multimedia processors are semiconductor intellectual property cores produced by Arm Holdings for licensing in various ASIC designs by Arm partners. Mali GPUs were developed by Falanx Micro ...

MP4 GPU, and support for the H.265 ( HEVC) codec. Wireless hardware upgrades includes a dual-band 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi with 2x2 MIMO and Bluetooth 4.1. It retains the 1GB of RAM and 8GB of storage and weighs slightly more at . In January 2019, the second-generation Fire TV Stick was re-issued with the updated remote from the 4K model.

Fire TV Stick 4K

In October 2018, Amazon unveiled the Fire TV Stick 4K, codenamed "Mantis," which "effectively replaces Amazon’s Fire TV pendant." It is upgraded to a 1.7 GHz quad-core processor and supports 4K output, HDR10+ and Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos, and hardware-accelerated

MPEG-2 MPEG-2 (a.k.a. H.222/H.262 as was defined by the ITU) is a standard for "the generic video coding format, coding of moving pictures and associated audio information". It describes a combination of Lossy compression, lossy video compression and ...

decoding. It also includes an updated voice remote that contains an infrared emitter and buttons for controlling TV power and volume (which can also be controlled with voice commands). The remote is backward compatible with previous Fire TV models, and also sold separately as an upgrade.

Third generation

In October 2020, two third-generation Fire TV Stick models were released. The Fire TV Stick model includes a remote with TV control buttons where the Fire TV Stick Lite model's remote does not include TV controls. Both models include similar internal hardware as the Fire TV Stick 4K, except for a maximum output resolution of 1080p and only 1 GB of RAM. In 2021, the third-generation Fire TV Stick was re-issued with an updated remote "3rd Gen Alexa Voice Remote".

Fire TV Stick 4K Max

On October 7, 2021, Amazon released the Fire TV Stick 4K Max. It includes the updated 3rd gen Alexa Voice Remote, and has Wi-Fi 6 support. It has a 1.8 GHz processor, a 750 MHz GPU, and 2 GB of RAM. It also has Dolby Atmos support. This Fire TV is the first in the line with hardware accelerated AV1 support.

Fire TV Edition

Fire TV Edition is the product name applied to smart television sets produced by major television manufacturers that include Amazon Fire OS and the Fire TV interface, licensed from Amazon. They offer basic live television program information and minimal recording capabilities. Fire TV Edition television models are available from

Best Buy Best Buy Co. Inc. is an American multinational consumer electronics retailer headquartered in Richfield, Minnesota. Originally founded by Richard M. Schulze and James Wheeler in 1966 as an audio specialty store called Sound of Music, it was rebra ...

's house brand

Insignia An insignia () is a sign or mark distinguishing a group, grade, rank, or function. It can be a symbol of personal power or that of an official group or governing body. On its own, an insignia is a sign of a specific or general authority and is ...

, Toshiba (in U.S. and Canadian markets), and

JVC JVC (short for Japan Victor Company) is a Japanese brand owned by JVCKenwood corporation. Founded in 1927 as the Victor Talking Machine Company of Japan and later as , the company is best known for introducing Japan's first televisions and for ...

and Grundig (in European markets).

Fire TV Recast

The Fire TV Recast was a

that worked with an over-the-air antenna to record shows for later viewing on a Fire TV or an Amazon Echo Show device. It was designed for use with over-the-air TV services and was a part of the cord-cutting movement. It was announced in September 2018. Content stored on a Recast could not be viewed using other major streaming devices, such as Roku,

, or

Chromecast Chromecast is a line of digital media players developed by Google. The devices, designed as small dongles, can play Internet-streamed audio-visual content on a high-definition television or home audio system. The user can control playback with ...

, limiting its appeal. The Recast also never gained the ability to skip commercials during playback. In August 2022, Amazon confirmed the discontinuation of the Fire TV Recast.

Software

The Fire TV series runs Fire OS, which is derived from Android Open Source Project source code. It supports voice commands via either a remote control with an embedded microphone, or integrated microphones inside the device (as is the case of the Fire TV Cube), and can also be controlled with Alexa via Amazon Echo smart speakers. The devices support various Amazon-owned services, including

Amazon Prime Video Amazon Prime Video, also known simply as Prime Video, is an American Video on demand#Subscription models, subscription video on-demand Over-the-top media service, over-the-top Streaming media, streaming and Renting, rental service of Amazon (c ...

, Twitch, Amazon Freevee, Amazon Music and Amazon Luna, as well as other major third-party services, including Netflix, YouTube, YouTube TV, Curiosity Stream, Mubi, Dekkoo,

Ameba TV Ameba is an independent, subscription-based streaming video (IPTV) service that hosts educational TV shows, children's cartoons, and music videos via the web, mobile, tablet, smart TVs, gaming consoles, and connected smart devices. The privatel ...

, YuppTV,

Chorki Chorki may refer to: *Chorki (OTT), a Bangladeshi streaming service *Chorki (village) Chorki is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Grabów, within Łęczyca County, Łódź Voivodeship, in central Poland. It lies approximately no ...

, Eros Now, the Apple TV app, ZEE5,

Crunchyroll Crunchyroll is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service owned by Sony through a joint venture between Sony Pictures and Sony Music Entertainment Japan's Aniplex. The service primarily distributes films and tel ...

Crackle Crackle or crackling may refer to: Foods * Cracklings, the tissue remaining after lard and tallow have been extracted from animal fats ** Pork rinds in American English, pork scratchings in British English when served in small pieces as a snack ...

, DAZN,

Dailymotion Dailymotion is a French video-sharing technology platform owned by Vivendi. North American launch partners included Vice Media, Bloomberg and Hearst Digital Media. It is among the earliest known platforms to support HD (720p) resolution video. ...

, Peacock,

Hulu Hulu () is an American subscription streaming service majority-owned by The Walt Disney Company, with Comcast's NBCUniversal holding a minority stake. It was launched on October 29, 2007 and it offers a library of films and television serie ...

, Hotstar, Disney+, Tubi, Vimeo, HBO Max, Discovery+, Joyn, Philo, Paramount+, Pluto TV, FuboTV, WOW Presents Plus,

MX Player MX Player is an Indian video streaming and video on demand platform developed by MX Media & Entertainment (formerly J2 Interactive). It has over 280 million users globally. The platform currently operates on an ad-supported model and has a stre ...

, Spotify, TuneIn,

iHeartRadio iHeartRadio (often shortened to just "iHeart") is an American freemium broadcast, podcast and radio streaming Computing platform, platform owned by iHeartMedia. It was founded in August 2008. , iHeartRadio was functioning as the national umbr ...

, Tidal, Audacy,

BBC Sounds BBC Sounds is a Closed platform, walled garden streaming media and audio download service from the BBC that includes live radio broadcasts, audio on demand, and podcasts. The service is available on a wide range of devices, including mobile pho ...

, Qello, Plex,

Emby Emby (formerly Media Browser) is a media server designed to organize, play, and stream audio and video to a variety of devices. Emby's source code was mostly open with some closed-source components as of August 2017, releases of the software p ...

, Jellyfin,

AirConsole AirConsole is a cloud gaming service developed by Zurich-based startup N-Dream. It created the concept in January 2015, with around $1.4 million in initial capital. Soon after, N-Dream conducted a game development competition, where developers w ...

and others via Amazon Appstore. The "X-Ray" feature allows users to view contextual information related to Prime Video content (such as biographies of actors and other trivia), using

face recognition A facial recognition system is a technology capable of matching a human face from a digital image or a video frame against a database of faces. Such a system is typically employed to authenticate users through ID verification services, and wo ...

music recognition Music information retrieval (MIR) is the interdisciplinary science of retrieving information from music. MIR is a small but growing field of research with many real-world applications. Those involved in MIR may have a background in academic musico ...

, and IMDb data.

Models

Reception

Dan Seifert from The Verge reviewed Fire TV on April 4, 2014, giving it an 8.8/10 rating and largely praising its functionality and future potential. Dave Smith from ReadWrite wrote, "Fire TV aims to be the cure for what ails TV set-top boxes." GeekWire editor Andy Liu's review is headlined "Amazon's Fire TV sets a new bar for streaming boxes."

Ars Technica ''Ars Technica'' is a website covering news and opinions in technology, science, politics, and society, created by Ken Fisher and Jon Stokes in 1998. It publishes news, reviews, and guides on issues such as computer hardware and software, sci ...

praised the device for specifications that surpassed competitors, good build quality, and a microphone works very well if you use Amazon content. The reviewer disliked the fact that its media browser puts Amazon content in the front, which makes other applications less convenient to use, limited game selection with many games not optimized, and only 5.16GB of free space, which limits the number of games that can be installed.

Main competitors

Some notable competitors include Roku,

, Nvidia Shield TV and

References

External links

* {{Eighth generation game consoles Fire TV Products introduced in 2014 Streaming media systems Networking hardware Digital media players Microconsoles Android-based video game consoles ARM-based video game consoles Eighth-generation video game consoles Smart TV Operating systems based on the Linux kernel

Fire TV hardware

Original model

First generation

Second generation

Third generation

Fire TV Cube

First generation

Second generation

Third generation

Fire TV Stick

First generation

Second generation

Fire TV Stick 4K

Third generation

Fire TV Stick 4K Max

Fire TV Edition

Fire TV Recast

Software

Models

Reception

Main competitors

See also

References

External links