What Is Amazon Fire TV? a Guide to the Streaming Device

Amazon Fire TV is a streaming video device created by Amazon: It connects to a TV or monitor and lets you watch TV shows and movies streamed through apps like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and thousands of others.

amazon released its first version of fire tv in 2014 and has since developed several different models.

what is fire tv?

fire tv works like other media players (such as roku, google chromecast and apple tv). It is a device that connects to a TV or monitor through an HDMI port and behaves like the TV’s operating system.

has its own home page and library of free and subscription streaming apps that you can use to watch videos and listen to music. In that way, Fire TV turns any ordinary TV into a “smart” TV, or can be used as a replacement for the built-in operating system in a smart TV.

Amazon currently offers five versions of Fire TV, from the inexpensive Fire TV Stick Lite to the Fire TV Cube Premium. Between those two, Amazon offers three other models: Fire TV Stick, Fire TV Stick 4K, and Fire TV Stick 4K Max. Overall, all five devices work essentially the same way and offer the same variety of streaming apps, streaming music, and gaming.

the difference between models is mainly a matter of image quality, sound quality and connectivity. Fire TV Stick Lite and Fire TV Stick only display HD, for example, while the other models offer 4K video. likewise, all but the lite output sound in dolby atmos, and you need at least the fire tv stick 4k max to connect to the new wifi 6 wireless standard.

what can you do with a fire tv?

Like any streaming media player, Fire TV is an entertainment device that gives you access to a wide range of content (free and subscription movies and TV shows, as well as music and games) through a Internet connection.

Fire TV’s main focus, and certainly the main reason most people buy one, is for streaming TV shows and movies. That means you can connect to countless streaming apps like Netflix, YouTube, Hulu, HBO Max, Disney+, and many others, including, of course, Amazon’s own Prime Video.

However, Fire TV does much more than stream TV and movies. can also stream audio. With apps like Spotify, Pandora, iHeartRadio, and Sirius XM, you can listen to music on demand, as well as radio stations and podcasts.

It’s also a game system, in a way. You can use Fire TV to play a wide variety of games. Titles range from mobile classics like Candy Crush to a modern take on Pac-Man and GTA Street Fighter. Some games can be played with the Fire TV remote, though for a more satisfying gaming experience, you’ll need to add an optional game controller.

how fire tv differs from its competitors

The field of streaming media players is quite crowded; You can choose from Fire TV, Roku, Chromecast, and Apple TV, and that’s not including several less popular models. Most of these devices have many basic features and capabilities in common, such as access to a vast library of streaming content and a range of products at all price points. Although Apple TV is an outlier, with no low-end product to compete with the cheap Fire TV Stick Lite.

fire tv distinguishes itself from competing products in several important ways:

• fire tv is based on the android operating system, but amazon has substantially modified the software, so it cannot run android applications. That’s in contrast to Chromecast with Google TV, which has access to the entire Android app library, including Android mobile games.
• because fire tv is an amazon product, it emphasizes amazon services. You certainly have full access to other channels and apps, but Amazon emphasizes its own services, like prime video and prime music, by default when you search for content.
• while other streaming players may or may not include voice control, fire tv has voice control built into every fire tv model using alexa, the same personal assistant found in echo smart speakers.