Fire TV has been updated for a minute, a very long minute. With its latest experience review, Fire TV finally offers a user interface that adapts to that of rival streaming devices.
When Chromecast with Google TV came to the scene this year, Google gave other $ 50 streaming devices their money. It’s well-designed, fast, and offers clean, organized recommendations with a design that only works. At the time, the Roku and Fire TV experiences seemed baffling in comparison. But the new Fire TV update offers a much better experience for the Alexa set that prefers it to other streaming devices, with new navigation tools to find content, adding user profiles for a more personalized viewing and a much improved home screen. Fire TV Stick Lite and third generation Fire TV Stick users will get it first, and Amazon has said other devices will receive the update in early 2021.
The first thing existing Fire TV users will notice is a reorganization of apps, menus, and content. Instead of placing the main navigation features at the top of the home screen, they now appear closer to the center under a focus banner for content and feature promotion. This new menu is also where you’ll find icons for your main apps, with a “more” button on the next right that will show the rest. I really liked this design, as I find that I usually only jump between four or five main apps at a time, depending on what I’ve been watching. Below this row, on the home screen, you’ll find categories for the next, recently used apps, Prime originals, live and upcoming events, recommendations for IMDb TV advertising content (owned by Amazon, and that appears everywhere on Fire TV), as well as genre- and application-specific content suggestions.
The main navigation menu has been reduced from its previous iteration. To the left of the home tab, you will now see a library tab. This is where Fire TV will file selections, rentals, and purchases from the watch list. To the right of the home tab, you’ll see the new “search” and “live” options. Amazon destroyed its TV chips and movies from the old experience and nested them on the “find” discovery screen. This is where you can search for apps, TV shows, movies, and free content, as well as content by genre category. This, to me, was one of the best decisions Amazon made regarding content discovery, although ads and content promoted by Amazon continue to appear in these categories, which I hated from previous experience. which I managed to convey here. Is it unbearable? No, but it is still a big differentiator between the experience you get with Fire TV and, for example, Apple TV.
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Meanwhile, the tab dedicated to live TV is a welcome addition to the Fire TV experience for anyone who has officially cut the cord. The live tab will appear here in the latest sports news and tips, or, if you prefer the old-school, linear feel of the channel, you can use the channel guide feature to find something to watch. I loved this tool for browsing Sling TV to see something, but I was able to see some possibilities for improvement. When I used the guide for this app, I could browse channel, but they didn’t show me real-time teasers of the show itself. Instead, the guide only showed me what part of the show was left to watch with a thumbnail of the series or movie. Again, it’s not a break from the offerings, but a live stream of the series as you navigate would be a big improvement here.
A big advantage of the new Fire TV, however, is the addition of individual user profiles. Fire TV will support up to six profiles, offering homes with multiple users a more personalized viewing experience. Specific settings, viewing history, playlists, live TV, and recommended content will be tailored to each individual profile, meaning you no longer need to view suggestions from Botched if the disturbing reality of reality is not yours, even if someone in your household is an avid spectator. In addition, profiles allow parents to restrict age content with Amazon Kids profiles that filter out things that may be right for you, but not for your 5-year-olds.
Voice support is no longer a particularly interesting feature, as it is present in almost all recent streaming devices. But it was a welcome addition to a Vizio M-Series quantum unit I’ve been reviewing. Also, I have been using a fourth generation LED Echo Dot to try out the new Fire TV experience, and I have to admit, having a totally hands-free option to turn on the TV and launch content seemed like a luxury to me, mostly because I kept losing the slim Fire TV remote control under a mountain of blankets and pillows. To be honest, I prefer the Google Assistant to Alexa for most things, but Alexa did a good job managing commands for things like turning on my TV, opening apps, and showing me content. Sometimes, Alexa was surprised by the Hulu user screen when I asked her to show me content in the app, but it was often resolved by repeating the command again.
Ultimately, I think Amazon got a home run with its Fire TV redesign. Navigation makes more sense, user profiles offer better customization, and content search is easier here than in the past. There is room for improvement, of course. As mentioned, real-time live TV teasers would be a great update on the experience, as well as fewer recommendations on Amazon’s own content and features (though somehow they felt less ubiquitous as they did in the previous version of the interface). Amazon didn’t appeal to me at all with the Google TV experience I love, but Alexa enthusiasts and streamers looking for a good-priced device won’t be disappointed.
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- The new Fire TV offers up to six user profiles for better personalization and content recommendations, including kids.
- Alexa voice control allows you to navigate hands-free by genre, title, or category, either with a compatible Fire TV remote control or a connected smart home device.
- An enhanced home tab and navigation menu make discovery easy and fairly straightforward.
- Expect to continue to see ads and promotional banners for content owned by Amazon everywhere.