Amazon’s New Vega OS Will Reportedly Power All Future Fire TV Sticks

Amazon announced earlier this week a new $34.99 Fire TV Stick HD model that’s 30% slimmer and more than 30% faster than the previous generation. The new streaming stick will start shipping later this month, and Amazon has now confirmed to Lowpass’s Janko Roettgers that it will run the same Vega OS platform as the Fire TV Stick 4K Select that launched last fall.

Vega OS is Amazon’s new in-house platform designed to look similar to the Android-based Fire OS, but it’s apparently less demanding: Last year’s Fire TV Stick 4K Select came with just 1GB of RAM compared to 2GB on the regular 4K model running Fire OS. However, both the new Fire TV Stick HD and the Fire TV Stick 4K Select dropped support for Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos audio, which may be a deal breaker for some people.

Amazon’s new Vega OS also doesn’t have as many apps as the Android-based Fire OS, and it also doesn’t support app sideloading. That’s why early reviews for the Fire TV Stick 4K Select were pretty bad, even though the device now has a 4.1 rating on Amazon.

Well, despite Vega OS’s current limitations, Amazon is reportedly pushing forward with its new platform: Roettgers is reporting that Amazon plans to use Vega OS on all future Fire TV Stick models.

To fill the app gap, the company is also streaming some Android-based Fire OS apps in the cloud on Vega OS. All essential streaming apps, including Netflix, YouTube, Disney+, Apple TV, HBO Max, Hulu, Peacock, Paramount+, and Xbox Cloud Gaming, are already available on the new platform.