Amazon is releasing a slew of new Fire TV devices including a faster and more capable Fire TV Cube, an Anker soundbar and OLED Fire TV Edition television set for the European market.
News of a bumper crop of Fire TV devices appeared online (via Engadget) before Amazon’s event at the IFA tech show in Berlin, Germany, which started at 7pm UK time. Now official word is upon us.
The Grundig Fire TV Edition OLED TV sets will start at 1,200 Euros for the base model, while hands-free control starts at 1,300 Euros. News of the launch in the UK may become apparent during the IFA event, which we’ll be updating as it happens.
Elsewhere, Fire TV Edition sets are coming to the United Kingdom, manufactured by JVC and sold by Curry’s. The 4K LED with HDR10 and Dolby Vision sets start at just £349.
Related: IFA 2019 latest
So what else did Amazon reveal during the event? Well among the 20-some devices on the way (most of them Fire TV Edition sets), there’s an upgraded Fire TV Cube with an upgraded 6-core processor. The media hub / smart speaker also supports Dolby Vision, 4K and 60fps visuals, so it’s quite the upgrade.
There’s also improved far-field voice recognition, which means you won’t have to shout over the television set to make yourself heard. Interestingly, Amazon is making Alexa less reliant on the cloud for this device with some popular commands now stored on the device. That means if you ask Alexa to open a Prime Video, for example, it’ll do so much faster than before.It’s going to cost £110/$120 when it lands on October 10 in the UK, US and Canada.
As far as third-party devices are concerned, there’s a Fire TV Edition soundbar built by Anker’s Nebula offering Alexa voice control, Dolby Vision passthrough and a Fire TV interface. So if you’re hoping to make your TV smarter and upgrade your sound, this is the device for you. That device will cost $230 in the UK and £180 in the UK.
Another nice tidbit from the event is Eurosport coming to Fire TV devices, ahead of the Winter Olympics in Tokyo next year.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
