Report: Amazon is Developing New OS for Fire TV, Other Devices

A new report by Janko Roettgers at Lowpass claims that Amazon is gearing up to replace Android with a new OS of its own making in its Fire TV, Echo Show smart displays, and other devices.

The report cites multiple sources, job listings, and other materials that reference this effort, which goes by the codename Vega and is apparently pretty far along in development. OS development is allegedly pretty much done, and Amazon has already tested Vega on existing Fire TV hardware. It’s also told select partners about its plans, which include a new application framework for developers, and is now focusing on those efforts. The first Vega-based Fire TV devices could ship as soon as next year.

Roettgers said he first heard of Vega in 2019, and that the project—to create an “iOS/Android competitor for all devices and IoT”—dates back to 2017. The system is web-based based, and among the hundreds of employees working on the project is former Mozilla engineer and JavaScript expert Zibi Braniecki, who joined Amazon in 2022, announcing on LinkedIn that he was “working on a next generation Operating System for Smart Home, Automotive, and other Amazon Devices product lines.”

The move to web technologies is interesting and it could parallel Google’s move away from Android (and to Fuchsia) on its own smart displays and other non-phone devices. Unlike Fuchsia, Vega is based on a stripped-down version of Linux, and its app model could be based on React Native, which is cross-platform compatible and could enable developers to create a single app that runs across multiple Amazon device types.

Even more interesting, this report claims that Amazon plans to drop Android all together at some point across all of its devices. So some future version of Vega will eventually power “in-car entertainment systems and other future hardware products” too. What’s not clear is whether this Android exodus includes products like its Fire HD tablets, or Kindle e-readers. But detaching itself from the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) could solve some problems, too, as Amazon’s devices always lag behind other Android offerings.