The new Fire TV Edition remote for Toshiba and Insignia televisions is now available to order for $29.99. While this is the new remote that you get with the new 2020 Fire TV Edition televisions, it is also compatible with all older 2018 and 2019 Fire TV Edition televisions made by Toshiba and Insignia, regardless of model, year, or screen size. If you have a TV made by either Toshiba or Insignia that runs the Fire TV OS, this remote will work with your TV and it comes with several advantages over the older remote.

It appears as though the older 2018/2019 remote is no longer being manufactured/sold and this new remote is meant to serve as a complete replacement for the older remote. That is sure to confusion a lot of people looking to replace a lost or broken 2018/2019 remote and are expecting to find an identical replacement. Best Buy, which Amazon has partnered with for the Toshiba and Insignia Fire TV Edition televisions, has been busy reassuring customers in the Q&A sections of the remote’s product page that this remote will work with all Toshiba and Insignia branded Fire TV Edition televisions.

The only US Fire TV Edition televisions that this remote will not work with are the 2017 models made by Element and Westinghouse. Also, even though there is only a listing for an Insignia branded remote, the Insignia remote will work perfectly fine with Toshiba televisions. If you’re not sure which TV model you have, your best bet is to install my Informer app and it will tell you which model and year TV you have. You can also find the model number printed on the back of your TV and use this guide to determine which TV you have.

Some advantages of the new remote over the old one, as I see them, are:

• Dedicated ‘Channel Up/Down’ Buttons: If you connect the TV to an over-the-air antenna, you’ll be able to relive your youth and channel surf with the new channel buttons. I don’t know if the channel buttons will work with apps, but I don’t expect them to.
• Dedicated ‘Recents’ Button: The button in the bottom right, with an icon of 2 overlapping squares, is supposed to bring up a row overlay of recently accessed apps and channels. From my understanding, this interface is new to Fire TV Edition televisions and can’t even be accessed without this new remote. More on that in a future post, once I get my hands on one of these new remotes.
• Dedicated ‘Settings’ Button: If you’re often jumping in and out of Settings to tweak some options, the new dedicated Settings button (gear icon) will get you there a little quicker than using the main navigation menu.
• Back/Home/Menu buttons moved down, WHERE THEY BELONG!: It might just be me, but I can’t stand the placement of the Back/Home/Menu buttons above the navigation circle, like it was on the old 2018/2019 remote and 2017 remote. If you’re used to using a Fire TV, Fire TV Stick, or Fire TV Cube remote, with all of those buttons below the circle, you’ll constantly be pressing the play button on the old Fire TV Edition remote when you meant to press the Home button. This new remote thankfully unifies the button placement across all Fire TV devices so that your muscle memory stays intact when switching between Fire TV Edition televisions and Fire TV streaming media players. Even if you’ve never used a Fire TV remote before, it just makes more sense to not split the Back/Home/Menu buttons up from the RWD/Play/FWD buttons.
• Power Button on the Left: I expect left-handed people will disagree, but having the power button on the left is a small improvement for most people. Since most people are right-handed and will pick up the remote with their right hand most of the time, the power button placement on the left makes more sense because it’s where your thumb naturally lands when grabbing the remote with your right hand.

If you’ve lost or broken your old Fire TV Edition television remote, getting this new remote, over trying to find a second-hand old remote, is a no brainer to me. Even if your current remote is working fine, you might want to upgrade to the new remote for the new buttons and button layout. Plus, you can have both the new remote and the old remote paired simultaneously to a Fire TV Edition television, giving you a quick fallback when you inevitably can’t find the main remote.

Toshiba and Insignia TV Models compatible with the new remote (may not bee all-inclusive): 32LF221U19, 32LF221U21, TF-32A710U21, 43LF421U21, 43LF421U19, 43LF621U19, 43LF621U21, 43LF711U20, TF-43A810U21, 49LF421U19, 50LF621U19, 50LF621U21, 50LF711U20, TF-50A810U19, 55LF621U19, 55LF621U19, 55LF711U20, 55LF711U20, 65LF711U20, NS-58DF620NA20, NS-55DF710NA21, NS-55DF710NA19, NS-50DF710NA19, NS-50DF711SE21, NS-50DF710NA21, NS-43DF710NA21, NS-43DF710NA19, NS-39DF510NA19, NS-39DF310NA21, NS-32DF310NA19, NS-24DF310NA19, NS-24DF311SE21, and NS-24DF310NA21.