With this week’s disappointing release of the new Fire TV Stick HD, Amazon’s second streaming device to run its Vega operating system, the future of Android-based Fire TVs is looking bleak. Now, a new report from Janko Roettgers of Lowpass claims that Amazon is going all in on Vega OS and plans to launch all future Fire TV Sticks with Vega.
Roettgers says multiple sources with knowledge of Amazon’s plans have told him that all future Fire TV Stick releases will run Vega OS. Roettgers has a great track record of insider Fire TV information, as he was the first to report on the existence of Vega OS in 2023 and the first to report that a Vega-powered Fire TV would be released in 2025, months ahead of the Fire TV Stick 4K Select’s announcement.
Unsurprisingly, Amazon has declined to comment on the situation. Instead of proudly celebrating its new in-house operating system, Amazon seems to be going out of its way to hide the existence of Vega OS from Fire TV customers. There is no mention of Vega OS or a new operating system anywhere in Amazon’s press release for the new Fire TV Stick HD or on the device’s product page. Given that it’s meant to be a direct replacement for the previous Android-based model, you’d think it would be at least mentioned once, especially since it has vastly inferior app support.
The only hint that the Fire TV Stick HD runs Vega OS is the warning message at the top of the product page about it not supporting sideloaded apps. However, even that fact is being hidden by Amazon. Only select logged-in accounts are being shown that message. Logged-out shoppers and some logged-in accounts are not being told about the new model’s shortcomings. It’s unclear what account criteria qualify a user for seeing the message, but Amazon seems to want to show it to as few people as possible.
When Amazon first revealed Vega OS on stage at its device launch event last year, it insisted that new Android-based Fire TVs would be released in the future. Amazon touted that it has “always been a multi-OS company” and reassured Fire TV customers by saying it “will continue to launch new devices on Fire OS.” Since Vega’s reveal and those promising statements about new Fire OS devices, there have been several new Android-based Fire TVs released running Fire OS, but they have all been smart TVs. This is likely because no TV manufacturer wants anything to do with Vega OS.
Amazon’s early unwillingness to commit to new Android-based non-television Fire TVs and this new report from multiple sources are pretty telling that there is no future for Android-based Fire TVs. Roettgers’ report only references Fire TV Sticks, so that, technically, it doesn’t include new Fire TV Cubes as being Vega-only devices, but I wouldn’t put much faith in that either. If you’re a fan of Android-based streaming devices and the flexibility, freedom, and openess that they provide, you’ll probably be buying a Google TV device as your next streamer.
