Manufacturers integrate Amazon’s Fire TV into televisions

Three US manufacturers have moved to provide versions of their UHDTVs with Amazon’s Fire TV platform. Viewers can therefore access streaming content via the Fire TV interface and control the TV with their voice via the Alexa assistant.

The three American manufacturers release their UHDTVs with the designation ‘Amazon Fire TV Edition’. It concerns Seiki, which is a subsidiary of the Chinese Tsinghua Tongfang Company, Westinghouse Electronics and Element Electronics. These are not well-known names in Europe, but it marks the first time that manufacturers are integrating Amazon’s TV platform into smart TVs, giving platforms such as Android TV a competitor.

The integration allows the TVs to access 7000 channels, apps and the Alexa assistant for voice control via the Fire TV interface. Previously, Amazon had to rely on its Fire TV HDMI stick and set-top box to bring its platform to TVs. Fire TV runs on Fire OS, which is based on Android. Among other things, the platform offers the possibility to receive Amazon’s own Prime Video streaming service, but also competing services such as Netflix.