The Amazon Fire TV has had some supply instability recently, which is likely an indication that new hardware is on the horizon. The Fire TV went out of stock as a result of the Prime Day sale in July. It didn’t come back in stock until earlier this week. All of Amazon’s other devices that went out of stock after Prime Day were back in stock within 2 weeks. Today, the Fire TV Voice Remote just went out of stock, for the first time ever, with an expected return date of Spetember 16th. The Fire TV’s long hiatus, and the Voice Remote’s sudden shortage, is a good indicator that both will likely be replaced soon. What’s most surprising though, is the Fire TV Stick’s supply stability.
The Fire TV Stick is Amazon’s oldest Fire TV hardware. Given that it was released nearly 2 years ago, I exepcted it to definitely be replaced soon, but I’m not so sure anymore. After selling out on Prime Day, the Fire TV Stick was back in stock within a couple weeks, indicating Amazon’s factories are still churning new ones out.
Given that the Fire TV Stick is still Amazon’s best selling Fire TV model, it might be kept around as an inexpensive entry product for the Fire TV line of devices. While the Fire TV Stick no longer holds the title of fastest streaming stick, a title the new Roku Stick claimed, it still has the most RAM of any streaming stick and is perfectly sufficient for streaming 1080p content.
Amazon has been much better at controlling leaks this year than in the past, so all I can do is speculate. If I had to throw out a guess, I’d say the 2016-2017 Fire TV lineup will consist of: the current non-voice Fire TV Stick, possibly at a lower price, an all-new Fire TV Stick bundled with an all-new voice remote, and a new Fire TV 3, with the same new voice remote used by the new Stick. Sprinkle in some gaming bundles here and there for good measure.
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If I had to guess, I’d go
– The Fire TV Stick with the non-voice remote gets phased out. Leaving the Fire TV Stick with voice remote. No changes. Maybe a slight price drop to compensate.
– Refreshed Fire TV. Better CPU/GPU/HDMI 2.0
– Gaming edition will still be available. Same controller and pack-in games.
– A premium edition. OTA tuner, either built in or USB. 16 GB of storage. $149.99-179.99. Possibly $200 if they decide to bundle in an antenna with it.
I hope not. I just purchased one two days ago
Send them an email explaining your plight. I’m sure they will delay a global launch until you feel your hardware needs refreshing.
Would be nice to see a fire stick with 2 Gb of RAM and a new processor with a lower power envelope…
one of my Voice Remotes stopped connecting and amazon credited my account so that I could buy another remote without having to return the firetv stick. I placed the order while on the phone with amazon to make sure the credit was there.
then i noticed that the remote was scheduled to ship Sept. 16 and deliver on Sept.22
WTF! I wasn’t too happy that I’m stuck with a worthless firetv stick for three weeks!
luckily I have drawers full of media streamers to get me by, but still…
I have 2 firesticks, 1 firestick with voice remote, two old fireTVs and one 4K fireTV. I’m obviously a fan. I have several old chromecasts and rokus that I’ve tried to give away and nobody will take them. I also have a nexus player, which is nice but would be much, much better if I could install the amazon prime video app on it.
I think the next streamer I buy will be the Xiaomi one, but only if there is a way to install the Amazon Video app. I’m not holding my breath.
You can get the remote app on your phone. Easier to use anyway.
Hi all.. my friend lost fire tv box remote. He ordered new 1 and it will not pair w box! Help… is there any way to update remote software only on foretv box? Its rooted.