Amazon announces faster and smarter streaming sticks as well as a new Fire TV Soundbar. The company is additionally promising a much more helpful Alexa voice experience on Fire TV, and better search is also coming this very fall.
Amazon Announces Faster Streaming Sticks
Amazon today is reportedly introducing its latest streaming players, which are the upgraded Fire TV Stick 4K (for $49.99) and Fire TV Stick 4K Max (for $59.99). During the fall hardware event of the company, Daniel Rausch of Amazon said that both devices in question feature upgraded processors for faster performance when compared to their predecessors.
The standard Fire TV Stick 4K as you should know is 30 percent more powerful than the previous model, offering Wi-Fi 6, as well as 4K streaming along with broad HDR support for Dolby Vision, HDR10, and HDR10 Plus. The Max on the other hand builds on top of that with Wi-Fi 6E and also twice the storage (now 16GB) than the prior version. For a difference of just $10, I’m really not sure as to who wouldn’t go for the Max over the regular stick, but not everyone however needs those frills for all of their TVs, I suppose.
New $119.99 Fire TV Soundbar
Rausch also announced a new $119.99 Fire TV Soundbar that will reportedly be compatible with the existing streamers and Fire TV-branded televisions of the company. He however didn’t make any big claims regarding sound quality, so it really sounds like this is just being positioned as quite a simple solution for anyone who just and really wants to step up from the built-in speakers of their TV. The Fire TV Soundbar as you should know is available beginning today.
Rausch during his presentation reportedly demoed a smarter and more comprehensive Alexa voice experience that is coming to Fire TV products that are based on the new LLM Alexa model of Amazon. And once the software update in question is released in the latter parts of this year, the search will in question get more powerful, with Alexa on its own end able to whittle down recommendations that are based on your conversation. A new “continue watching” row will reportedly aggregate content from Amazon Freevee, Disney Plus, Hulu, Max, MGM Plus, Peacock, Starz, and Tubi, thus putting recently watched shows as well as movies both front and center.
Specs And Features Of The New Fire TV Stick 4K Max
The new Fire TV Stick 4K Max in question will also be getting the “ambient experience” that was first seen on the Fire TV televisions of the company, which reportedly displays artwork as well as widgets and basically converts the TV screen into a smart display whenever it is that you are not actively making use of it. Customers in the later parts of this year will be able to create generative backgrounds with the help of AI:
“Customers can also create artwork using just their voice with AI Art. This free feature, which will begin rolling out to customers in the U.S. by the end of this year, allows customers to easily generate a personalized background by giving Alexa an imagination-driven prompt, such as, “Alexa, create an image of cherry blossoms in the snow,” and watch as that prompt is translated into a unique display on the Fire TV screen.”
Signs Of A Pending Fire TV 4K Stick Refresh
If you have noticed, there have been signs of a pending Fire TV 4K Stick refresh over the last couple of weeks, with dwindling stock of the previous Fire TV Stick 4K Max at several retailers and even from Amazon itself.
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