Amazon has introduced a slate of new smart television sets and at least one streaming stick that will operate on its new operating system Vega OS.
The smart TVs include new Fire TV-branded devices that start at $160 for a 32-inch model and go up from there. A new streaming stick called Fire TV 4K Select will cost $40 and offer the same experience as Amazon’s new Fire TVs.
While branded as Fire TV devices, the new hardware won’t run Fire TV OS, which is derived from Android. Instead, they’ll operate on Vega OS, the new streaming operating system that Amazon began developing two years ago.
The decision to move from Fire TV OS to Vega OS means popular apps like YouTube, Netflix, HBO Max, Peacock, Prime Video, Starz, Britbox, Fubo and Disney Plus will be supported, Amazon said. But some smaller and niche services might not work with the new devices right away — at least not until developers update their apps to be compatible with Vega OS.
The new devices also incorporate Alexa Plus (stylized as Alexa+), Amazon’s premium smart assistant. Alexa Plus gives streamers more-personalized responses using conversational language, similar to Google Gemini and other artificial intelligence-powered assistants.
Members of Amazon Prime have access to Alexa Plus for free, while those who don’t subscribe to Prime have to pay $20 per month for the assistant.
Amazon is leaning into personalization as a way to differentiate Vega OS from the rest. In addition to “continue watching” and “now playing” menus that have become common on streaming home screens, Fire TV devices will now monitor the live channels that a person watches the most, and surface up to 10 channel recommendations in an enhanced electronic program guide (EPG).
Amazon is also debuting a new integrated watch list that will allow streamers to save movies and TV shows from other services into a single list, rather than having to juggle different watch lists across separate apps. It wasn’t clear from Amazon’s announcement if all apps supported by Vega OS will also work with the universal watch list feature.
In addition to the new TV devices, Amazon also released new Echo smart speakers and Echo Show smart screens, along with refreshed versions of its Ring doorbell and surveillance cameras.
