Amazon Announces New UI for Fire TV

Amazon today announced that it will soon roll out what it calls its most significant experience update for the Fire TV line of products yet.

“We’re always looking for ways to enhance, evolve, and reimagine the experience to usher in the future of TV,” a new post to the Amazon Fire TV blog reads. “The all-new Fire TV experience makes it even easier to find what you want to watch, with a redesigned Main Menu and a more personalized way to discover new entertainment.”

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I was of the opinion that Fire TV already had the best UI among the various living room set-top boxes, so I’m a bit surprised to see that Amazon felt the need to change it this much. But the new look is certainly clean enough. If anything, it looks a bit inspired by the Google TV interface.

According to Amazon, there’s an all-new Home screen with a new Main menu that makes it easy to get into your most recently-accessed content and apps. A new Find experience that helps you search and browse by popular categories. And new personalized streaming profiles that let you create up to six profiles, each with personalized recommendations, viewing history, watch lists, preferred settings, and more.

As you should expect, the new Fire TV UI was designed with Alexa in mind, and it provides new and improved voice controls and offers to create an optional Alexa Voice Profile so that Fire TV will recognize your voice and automatically switch to your customized profile when asked.

The new Fire TV experience will be available globally on the next generation Fire TV Stick and all-new Fire TV Stick Lite later this year. Previous Fire TV devices will get the upgrade “through early next year.”

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Conversation 10 comments

  • oscar90

    09 December, 2020 - 2:54 pm

    <p>All hail to our Amazon overlords.</p>

    • SvenJ

      09 December, 2020 - 4:09 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#598916"><em>In reply to oscar90:</em></a><em> </em>Speak for yourself. I'm a follower of Apple.</blockquote><p><br></p>

  • krusador

    Premium Member
    09 December, 2020 - 4:59 pm

    <p>Funny, I always thought Amazon Fire Stick had the worse interface.</p>

  • sherlockholmes

    Premium Member
    09 December, 2020 - 11:48 pm

    <p>A little lesser ads would be all I ask for …..</p>

  • wright_is

    Premium Member
    10 December, 2020 - 6:26 am

    <p>Oh, no, not again! Every time they change the interface, my other half moans that it has changed and she can't find anything.</p><p>To be honest, it used to be much better and easier to navigate about 3 – 4 years ago.</p>

    • sherlockholmes

      Premium Member
      10 December, 2020 - 3:25 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#599039">In reply to wright_is:</a></em></blockquote><p>I am thinking of getting a Google Chromecast with Google TV. I know, this option is as bad as Amazon Fire TV, but the interface is cleaner. </p>

  • silenthero117

    Premium Member
    10 December, 2020 - 11:25 am

    <p>I gave up on my Fire TV stick just a month ago as it seems to get more sluggish with each update. I just hope for existing Fire TV users that this doesn't make it worse than it is now.</p><p><br></p><p>I moved on to an NVIDIA Shield based on a recommendation from a friend and boy, is it FAST!!!! I read the reviews on it, but I honestly didn't expect to be blown away by how quick this little thing is in comparison to Fire TV and Roku. The upscaling quality of this little device is remarkable and it is simply worth every penny (yes, it costs more than Fire TV and Roku). Best of all, the remote is a pure delight to use (looking at my Apple TV remote) and more importantly, my wife LOVES it! </p>

  • murray judy

    10 December, 2020 - 1:46 pm

    <p>The best thing about the UI is the remote. It's the only one I can operate in the dark by touch.</p>

  • crunchyfrog

    10 December, 2020 - 4:39 pm

    <p>I stopped using the Fire branded devices and went all in on Roku some time ago. I find that the Fire UI is clunky, slow and hard to use at times. The idea of having what I want up front sounds much better. Now if I could only get Alexa to launch the channel on the app I tell it to would be great…</p>

  • crunchyfrog

    10 December, 2020 - 4:39 pm

    <p>Now if only Netflix would follow suit on their terrible UI…</p>

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