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

microconsole A microconsole is a home video game console that is typically powered by low-cost computing hardware, making the console lower-priced compared to other home consoles on the market. The majority of microconsoles, with a few exceptions such as t ...

s developed by

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology c ...

. 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 High-definition television (HD or HDTV) describes a television system which provides a substantially higher image resolution than the previous generation of technologies. The term has been used since 1936; in more recent times, it refers to the g ...

. They also allow users to access local content and to play

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

s with the included

remote control In electronics, a remote control (also known as a remote or clicker) is an electronic device used to operate another device from a distance, usually wirelessly. In consumer electronics, a remote control can be used to operate devices such as ...

or another

game controller A game controller, gaming controller, or simply controller, is an input device used with video games or entertainment systems to provide input to a video game, typically to control an object or character in the game. Before the seventh generation ...

, or by using a

mobile app A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on d ...

remote control on another device. The device is available in two form factors,

set-top box A set-top box (STB), also colloquially known as a cable box and historically television decoder, is an information appliance device that generally contains a TV-tuner input and displays output to a television set and an external source of sign ...

and

HDMI High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) is a proprietary audio/video interface for transmitting uncompressed video data and compressed or uncompressed digital audio data from an HDMI-compliant source device, such as a display controller, ...

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 Amazon Echo, often shortened to Echo, is an American brand of smart speakers developed by Amazon. Echo devices connect to the voice-controlled intelligent personal assistant service ''Alexa'', which will respond when a user says "Alexa". Users m ...

smart speaker A smart speaker is a type of loudspeaker and voice command device with an integrated virtual assistant that offers interactive actions and hands-free activation with the help of one "hot word" (or several "hot words"). Some smart speakers can al ...

(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 Fire OS is a mobile operating system based on the Android Open Source Project, it is developed by Amazon for their devices. Fire OS includes proprietary software, a customized user interface primarily centered on content consumption, and heavy ...

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 Terrestrial television or over-the-air television (OTA) is a type of television broadcasting in which the signal transmission occurs via radio waves from the terrestrial (Earth-based) transmitter of a TV station to a TV receiver having an anten ...

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 Amazon Echo Show is a smart speaker that is part of the Amazon Echo line of products. Similarly to other devices in the family, it is designed around Amazon's virtual assistant Alexa, but additionally features a touchscreen display that can be ...

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 ''Ferris Bueller's Day Off'' is a 1986 American teen comedy film written, co-produced, and directed by John Hughes and co-produced by Tom Jacobson. The film stars Matthew Broderick, Mia Sara, and Alan Ruck with supporting roles by Jennifer Grey ...

,'' it offered HDMI audio, with support for

Dolby Digital Plus Dolby Digital Plus, also known as Enhanced AC-3 (and commonly abbreviated as DDP, DD+, E-AC-3 or EC-3) is a data compression, digital audio compression scheme developed by Dolby Labs for transport and storage of multi-channel digital audio. It is ...

7.1 surround sound 7.1 surround sound is the common name for an eight-channel surround audio system commonly used in home theatre configurations. It adds two additional speakers to the more conventional six-channel (5.1) audio configuration. As with 5.1 surround sou ...

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 Roku ( ) is a brand of hardware digital media players manufactured by American company Roku, Inc. They offer access to streaming media content from online services. The first Roku model, developed in collaboration with Netflix, was introduce ...

in performance: the 0.72-inch-thick box featured a 1.7 GHz

quad-core A multi-core processor is a microprocessor on a single integrated circuit with two or more separate processing units, called cores, each of which reads and executes program instructions. The instructions are ordinary CPU instructions (such a ...

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 In radio, multiple-input and multiple-output, or MIMO (), is a method for multiplying the capacity of a radio link using multiple transmission and receiving antennas to exploit multipath propagation. MIMO has become an essential element of wir ...

dual-band In telecommunications, a multi-band device (including (2) dual-band, (3) tri-band, (4) quad-band and (5) penta-band devices) is a communication device (especially a mobile phone) that supports multiple radio frequency bands. All devices which ha ...

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 Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wave ...

and a 10/100

Ethernet Ethernet () is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 198 ...

connection and USB 2.0 port. Included with the box is a

Bluetooth Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is limi ...

with a microphone for

voice search Voice search, also called voice-enabled, allows the user to use a voice command to search the Internet, a website, or an app. In a broader definition, voice search includes open-domain keyword query on any information on the Internet, for example i ...

. 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 MediaTek Inc. () is a Taiwanese fabless semiconductor company that provides chips for wireless communications, high-definition television, handheld mobile devices like smartphones and tablet computers, navigation systems, consumer multimedia pr ...

8173C chipset to support

H.265 H is the eighth letter of the Latin alphabet. H may also refer to: Musical symbols * H number, Harry Halbreich reference mechanism for music by Honegger and Martinů * H, B (musical note) * H, B major People * H. (noble) (died after 12 ...

(HEVC), VP8, and

VP9 VP9 is an open and royalty-free video coding format developed by Google. VP9 is the successor to VP8 and competes mainly with MPEG's High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC/H.265). At first, VP9 was mainly used on Google's video platform YouTube. ...

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 A pendant is a loose-hanging piece of jewellery, generally attached by a small loop to a necklace, which may be known as a "pendant necklace". A pendant earring is an earring with a piece hanging down. Its name stems from the Latin word ...

" 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 Dolby Atmos is a surround sound technology developed by Dolby Laboratories. It expands on existing surround sound systems by adding height channels, allowing sounds to be interpreted as three-dimensional objects with neither horizontal, nor verti ...

, and

HDR10 HDR10 Media Profile, more commonly known as HDR10, is an open high-dynamic-range video (HDR) standard announced on 27 August 2015 by the Consumer Technology Association. It is the most widespread of the HDR formats. HDR10 is not backward compati ...

. 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 Alexa may refer to: Technology *Amazon Alexa, a virtual assistant developed by Amazon * Alexa Internet, a defunct website ranking and traffic analysis service * Arri Alexa, a digital motion picture camera People *Alexa (name), a given name and ...

functionality similar to the

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 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 Dolby Vision is a set of technologies developed by Dolby Laboratories for high dynamic range (HDR) video. It covers content creation, distribution, and playback. It includes dynamic metadata that are used to adjust and optimize each frame of the ...

and

HDR10+ HDR10+ is a high dynamic range (HDR) video technology that adds dynamic metadata to HDR10 source files. The dynamic metadata are used to adjust and optimize each frame of the HDR video to the consumer display's capabilities in a way based on the ...

. 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 Broadcom Inc. is an American designer, developer, manufacturer and global supplier of a wide range of semiconductor and infrastructure software products. Broadcom's product offerings serve the data center, networking, software, broadband, wirel ...

BCM28155 1.0 GHz Cortex-A9 processor and a Broadcom

VideoCore VideoCore is a low-power mobile multimedia processor originally developed by Alphamosaic Ltd and now owned by Broadcom. Its two-dimensional DSP architecture makes it flexible and efficient enough to decode (as well as encode) a number of multime ...

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

MT8127D Quad-core ARM 1.3 GHz processor with a Mali-450 MP4 GPU, and support for the

(

HEVC High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), also known as H.265 and MPEG-H Part 2, is a video compression standard designed as part of the MPEG-H project as a successor to the widely used Advanced Video Coding (AVC, H.264, or MPEG-4 Part 10). In compari ...

) 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,

and

, 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 A smart TV, also known as a connected TV (CTV), is a traditional television set with integrated Internet and interactive Web 2.0 features, which allows users to stream music and videos, browse the internet, and view photos. Smart TVs are a techno ...

sets produced by major television manufacturers that include Amazon

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 , commonly known as Toshiba and stylized as TOSHIBA, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Its diversified products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure system ...

(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 Grundig (; ) is a German consumer electronics manufacturer owned by the Turkish Arçelik A.Ş., the white goods (major appliance) manufacturer of Turkish conglomerate Koç Holding. The company made domestic appliances and personal-care produ ...

(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

device. It was designed for use with over-the-air TV services and was a part of the

cord-cutting In broadcast television, cord-cutting refers to the pattern of viewers, referred to as cord-cutters, cancelling their subscriptions to multichannel television services available over cable or satellite, dropping pay television channels or reduc ...

movement. It was announced in September 2018. Content stored on a Recast could not be viewed using other major streaming devices, such as

, 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

, which is

derived Derive may refer to: * Derive (computer algebra system), a commercial system made by Texas Instruments * ''Dérive'' (magazine), an Austrian science magazine on urbanism *Dérive, a psychogeographical concept See also * *Derivation (disambiguatio ...

from

Android Open Source Project Android is a mobile operating system based on a modified version of the Linux kernel and other open-source software, designed primarily for touchscreen mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Android is developed by a consortium of ...

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

via

s. 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 Twitch may refer to: Biology * Muscle contraction ** Convulsion, rapid and repeated muscle contraction and relaxation ** Fasciculation, a small, local, involuntary muscle contraction ** Myoclonic twitch, a jerk usually caused by sudden muscle con ...

Amazon Freevee Amazon Freevee is an American ad-supported video-on-demand (VOD) streaming service owned by Amazon, with original and licensed programming. History Amazon Freevee launched as a free, ad-supported video channel by the Amazon-owned online data ...

Amazon Music Amazon Music (previously Amazon MP3) is a music streaming platform and online music store operated by Amazon. Launched in public beta on September 25, 2007, in January 2008 it became the first music store to sell music without digital rights man ...

and

Amazon Luna Amazon Luna is a cloud gaming platform developed and operated by Amazon. Luna was announced on September 24, 2020, with early access available to subscribers by invitation beginning on October 20, 2020. In its early access state, Amazon Luna ...

, as well as other major third-party services, including

Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

YouTube TV YouTube TV is an American streaming television service operated by YouTube, a wholly owned subsidiary of Google. Announced on February 28, 2017, the virtual multichannel video programming distributor offers a selection of live linear channel f ...

Curiosity Stream Curiosity Stream also know as (Curiosity Channel) is an American media company and subscription video streaming service that offers documentary programming including films, series, and TV shows. It was launched in 2015 by the founder of the Disc ...

Mubi Mubi (; stylized as MUBI; The Auteurs before 2010) is a global curated film streaming platform, production company and film distributor. Mubi produces and theatrically distributes films by emerging and established filmmakers, which are exclusivel ...

Dekkoo Dekkoo is a Philadelphia-based subscription streaming service with a focus on LGBT+ related content, particularly by and for gay men. It features a mixture of programs from other sources and original content, and derives its income from subscript ...

, Ameba TV,

YuppTV YuppTV is an over-the-top (OTT) content provider for South Asian content including live television and films with recording and storage features. YuppTV allows broadcasters and content providers to reach an audience, and allows consumers to view ...

, Chorki,

Eros Now Eros Now is an Indian subscription-based over-the-top, video on-demand entertainment and media platform, launched in 2012. It is owned and controlled by Eros Digital, the Indian digital media management arm of the Indian-American multinational ...

, the

Apple TV app The Apple TV app (also known as Apple TV, TV, and the TV app) is a line of media player software programs developed by Apple Inc. for viewing television shows and films delivered by Apple to consumer electronic devices. It can stream content fr ...

ZEE5 ZEE5 is an Indian subscription video on-demand and over-the-top streaming service, run by Zee Entertainment Enterprises. It was launched in India on 14 February 2018 with content in 12 languages. The ZEE5 mobile app is available on Web, Androi ...

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 snac ...

DAZN DAZN ( "da zone") is a global sports entertainment platform. Different to traditional linear and satellite broadcasting, DAZN is an over-the-top (OTT) streaming service meaning that it is delivered directly to viewers via the internet. The ...

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 Peafowl is a common name for three bird species in the genera ''Pavo (genus), Pavo'' and ''Afropavo'' within the tribe Pavonini of the family Phasianidae, the pheasants and their allies. Male peafowl are referred to as peacocks, and female pea ...

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+ Hotstar (also known as Hotstar) is an Indian brand of subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service owned by Novi Digital Entertainment of Disney Star and operated by Disney Media and Entertainment Distribution, both di ...

Disney+ The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and interest of an audience or gives pleasure and deligh ...

Tubi Tubi is an American over-the-top content platform and ad-supported streaming service owned by Fox Corporation. The service was launched on April 1, 2014, and is based in Los Angeles, California. In January 2021, Tubi reached 33 million monthly ...

Vimeo Vimeo, Inc. () is an American video hosting, sharing, and services platform provider headquartered in New York City. Vimeo focuses on the delivery of high-definition video across a range of devices. Vimeo's business model is through software as ...

HBO Max HBO Max is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Launched in the United States on May 27, 2020, the service is built around the libraries of HBO, Warner Bros., Cartoon Netw ...

Discovery+ Discovery may refer to: * Discovery (observation), observing or finding something unknown * Discovery (fiction), a character's learning something unknown * Discovery (law), a process in courts of law relating to evidence Discovery, The Discover ...

, Joyn,

Philo Philo of Alexandria (; grc, Φίλων, Phílōn; he, יְדִידְיָה, Yəḏīḏyāh (Jedediah); ), also called Philo Judaeus, was a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher who lived in Alexandria, in the Roman province of Egypt. Philo's deplo ...

Paramount+ Paramount (from the word ''paramount'' meaning "above all others") may refer to: Entertainment and music companies * Paramount Global, also known simply as Paramount, an American mass media company formerly known as ViacomCBS. The following busin ...

Pluto TV Pluto TV is a free, ad-supported video streaming service owned and operated by the Paramount Streaming division of Paramount Global. Co-founded by Tom Ryan, Ilya Pozin and Nick Grouf in 2013 and based in Los Angeles, California, in the United Sta ...

FuboTV FuboTV Inc. (stylized as fuboTV) is an American streaming television service serving customers in the United States, Canada, and Spain that focuses primarily on channels that distribute live sports. Depending on country, channels offered by Fubo ...

WOW Presents Plus WOW Presents Plus (also called World of Wonder Presents Plus or WOWPresents+) is a subscription-based streaming service owned by production company, World of Wonder. The subscription service is founded in November 2017, by Randy Barbato and F ...

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 Spotify (; ) is a proprietary Swedish audio streaming and media services provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. It is one of the largest music streaming service providers, with over 456 million monthly active us ...

TuneIn TuneIn is a global audio streaming service delivering live news, radio, sports, music, and podcasts to over 75 million monthly active users. TuneIn is operated by the company TuneIn Inc. which is based in San Francisco, California. The company ...

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 Tidal is the adjectival form of tide. Tidal may also refer to: * ''Tidal'' (album), a 1996 album by Fiona Apple * Tidal (king), a king involved in the Battle of the Vale of Siddim * TidalCycles, a live coding environment for music * Tidal (servic ...

Audacy Audacy, previously known as Radio.com, is a free broadcast and Internet radio platform owned by the namesake company Audacy, Inc. (formerly known as Entercom). The Audacy platform functions as a music recommender system and is the national um ...

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 Qello Holdings (also known as Qello) is an American-based entertainment company founded in 2010, in New York, by Brian Lisi, Bob Frank, and Richard Johnson. Qello is the parent company of digital streaming service Qello Concerts, and over-the-t ...

, Plex, Emby,

Jellyfin Jellyfin is a free and open-source media server and suite of multimedia applications designed to organize, manage, and share digital media files to networked devices. Jellyfin consists of a server application installed on a machine running ...

, AirConsole and others via

Amazon Appstore Amazon Appstore is an app store for Android-compatible platforms operated by Amazon.com Services, LLC, a subsidiary of Amazon. The store is primarily used as the storefront for Amazon's Android-based Fire OS. including Amazon Fire tablets, a ...

. 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, and IMDb data.

Models

Reception

Dan Seifert from

The Verge ''The Verge'' is an American technology news website operated by Vox Media, publishing news, feature stories, guidebooks, product reviews, consumer electronics news, and podcasts. The website launched on November 1, 2011, and uses Vox Media' ...

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 ReadWrite (originally ReadWriteWeb or RWW) is a Web technology blog launched in 2003. RW covers Web 2.0 and Web technology in general, and provides industry news, reviews, and analysis. Founded by Richard MacManus, Technorati ranked ReadWriteWe ...

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

Nvidia Shield TV The Nvidia Shield TV (Shield Android TV or just Nvidia Shield) is an Android TV-based digital media player produced by Nvidia as part of its Shield brand of Android devices. First released in May 2015, the Shield was initially marketed by Nvidi ...

and

References

External links

* {{Eighth generation game consoles

Fire TV Amazon Fire TV (stylized as amazon fireTV) is a line of digital media players and microconsoles developed by Amazon. The devices are small network appliances that deliver digital audio and video content streamed via the Internet to a connected ...

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