Thursday, September 9, 2021

Fire TV Omni and 4-Series

Chris Welch:

Amazon is officially in the TV business. The company has announced its first lineup of Amazon-branded 4K Fire TVs, which will begin shipping in October. This is a major expansion from the company’s “Fire TV Edition” collaborations, where its popular streaming software comes preloaded on sets manufactured by other TV makers. But with its new Omni and 4-Series, Amazon is describing these as “Amazon-built TVs.”

The Omni series is the higher-end of the two, and beyond offering better picture quality, its other key selling point is hands-free voice control. Amazon includes far-field microphones in each model of the Omni series, which comes in 43, 50, 55, 65, and 75 inches.

[…]

The Fire TV Omni sets also include picture-in-picture for checking your smart home cameras, and you’ll see your Ring doorbell feed whenever someone is at the door. Amazon says it will be adding a “smart home dashboard” later this year for more comprehensive controls over your connected home gadgets.

You can get a 43-inch 4K smart TV for about double the price of an Apple TV 4K box with no screen. Amazon has more details here.

John Gruber:

This privacy report focuses on streaming services, not hardware platforms, but related to the previous post re: Amazon’s new Fire TV Omni Series, it’s also the case that Apple TV is the only platform that makes privacy a priority and doesn’t put ads on your screen.

Except for ads for Apple services.

Previously:

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Kevin Schumacher

> Amazon includes far-field microphones in each model of the Omni series

Because that's what my TV needs is a microphone. It's not enough that Amazon will presumably be doing pixel tracking to see what you're watching. Now they want to record your room, too.

> Except for ads for Apple services.

While I've definitely seen ads in various places for Apple services on my iPhone (most notably the full-screen popup that appears nearly every time I open the Music app) I've never seen an ad from Apple on Apple TV. Then again, I don't use the TV app, so maybe that's where they all are?

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