Amazon confirms that Fire TV is dropping Android-based Fire OS!! #amazonos #firetv #vegaos

A report last year claimed that Amazon was working on an operating system, called Vega OS, as a replacement for the Android-based operating system it has been using on Echo and Fire TV devices for years. Shortly after, the new operating system was all but confirmed to already be running on Amazon’s new Echo Show 8 but whether or not it would be coming to Fire TV devices was still up in the air. Now, a new job listing from Amazon has confirmed that Fire TVs are transitioning away from Android and Fire OS.

A new job listing (mirror) was posted yesterday for a Fire TV Experience Software Development Engineer that leaves little doubt that Amazon will be switching Fire TV devices away from Android. Under the listings “A day in the life” section, it states that the hired individual will “Implement and deliver features on the Fire TV client codebase as it transitions from FOS/Android to native/Rust and React Native.”

While the name Vega OS is not explicitly mentioned in this job listing, the initial report about Amazon’s in-house operating system stated it would use the React Native software framework, as mentioned in the new listing. Regardless of the new operating system’s name, the job listing confirms that Fire TVs will be transitioning away “from FOS/Android,” where FOS stands for Fire OS, to something else that is, presumably, not based on Android.

What does this mean for the millions of Fire TV devices currently in use? Probably very little. As it is, Amazon doesn’t bother updating Fire TV devices from one major version of Fire OS to another (e.g., Fire OS 7 to Fire OS 8) so it seems extremely unlikely that any existing Fire TV device will be updated from Fire OS to Amazon’s new non-Android operating system. Instead, Amazon will most likely release a future new Fire TV model that runs only its new operating system.

Thankfully, Amazon has a long history of continuing to support and update older Fire TV models, so, even if the new non-Android operating system works out for Amazon, existing Android-based Fire TV devices should continue working for a long time to come. While Amazon is now up to Fire OS 8, there are Fire TV models running Fire OS 5, which was released in 2015, that are still being updated by Amazon. The vast majority of Fire TV apps, from both Amazon and 3rd parties, also continue to support the older versions of Fire OS. For those reasons and others, there’s little reason to avoid the existing Android-based Fire TV models, especially because the first Fire TVs running the new operating system will very likely be limited in features and app support, compared to the existing models.