Let’s face it, television setups are complicated these days. We have broadcast, cable, satellite, and a plethora of streaming services. Getting said streaming services on to your TV might mean having an AppleTV, Roku, Chromecast or some other solution. The problem is that most of those solutions are complicated or at least involve multiple steps dealing with technology. That’s fine for techies, but for every person who wants to set up a Plex Media Server, there are a hundred who just want to watch their stories. Amazon thinks the solution is called Fire TV.
A tiny solution to big problems.
To start with, Fire TV is visually interesting. It’s a bit too small to call a set top “box”, but obviously more substantial than a stick device like Chromecast. Sporting a dual-core processor, an unnamed dedicated video chip and dual band wireless, the Fire TV packs a lot of power into a tiny frame. In fact, Amazon claims the device is three times more powerful than the (unspecified) competition. The operating system is largely Android based, and Amazon expect to see ports of top apps soon. Fire TV also has a tiny remote and features a microphone for voice search, which appears to work well in the demo. There’s more than just Amazon Prime to watch; Fire TV will ship with Hulu installed, and you can expect Netflix, Plex, and other apps to be offered soon.
Of course, people do more than watch shows on their TVs these days. Fire TV has multitasking so you can listen to Pandora other major services for audio streaming while you look at your photo collection from Amazon Cloud. WhisperSync comes with the device so you can start on one Fire and take it to another, be it TV to Kindle, Kindle to Kindle, etc. There’s a version of the Kindle’s X-Ray solution for finding more information on what you’re watching on another device and even a Free Time kid-safe interface, which is great for when you want to make sure your toddler isn’t watching Dexter behind your back.
They confused it with another show, but the sister is just as annoying.
Amazon is also pushing gaming capabilities with Fire TV hard. There’s a real undercurrent of disdain for the cost of dedicated game solutions and the screen mirroring options. Amazon offerS an optional $40 controller that will come with Amazon Coins to use for purchases (Yes, we foresee the same complaints about Coins that happened with Xbox’s Microsoft Points). Game prices are said to average at $1.85. The first announced games are the juggernaut Minecraft, featuring a version specifically made for the Fire TV, a Monsters Inc. running game, and the Asphalt 8 racing game. Amazon will also develop games from the ground up, just like how the company has been making first run shows for Amazon Prime.
The Fire TV is priced at an affordable $99. Sure, it’s more than a Roku or a Chromecast, but it does a lot more and from the looks of things, it does it smoother and faster. If you want to try one out, they’re available from Amazon as of later today.
“There’s more than just Amazon Prime to watch; Fire TV will ship with Hulu installed, and you can expect Netflix, Plex, and other apps to be offered soon.”
No Netflix on launch? That’s not exactly starting off on the right foot…
It’s possible that it’ll be there, but I’m not seeing anything that says it’s done yet.
But yes, disappointing.
In the examples of the odd forms of competition and collaboration that the Internet generates: at the moment, if you do a search for “Chromecast” on Google, the top ad results returned is an add from Amazon, comparing their newly-announced FireTV to the Google-manufactured Chromecast.
The fight for who controls the set-top box is proving interesting. At the moment, we can get Netflix on the main TV through either the Chromecast or the Blu-ray player; on the playroom TV, through the Roku or the Wii. Things are being built into TVs. Everyone seems to have an interest in being that connection… and the continued absence of Amazon Prime from what Chromecast supports may well be a sign of folks trying to spin what succeeds through limiting cooperation.