Earlier this year, we announced a multi-year collaboration with Best Buy to bring the next generation of Fire TV Edition smart TVs to customers in the United States and Canada. The first one, the Toshiba 4K Ultra HD - Fire TV Edition 2018, started shipping in June.

This September we added three additional Smart TVs to the family: the Fire TV Edition - Toshiba HD (2018), the Fire TV Edition - Insignia 4K (2018), and the the Fire TV Edition - Insignia HD (2018).

• The Fire TV Edition - Toshiba HD (2018) delivers stunning picture resolution with vibrant colors and detailed contrast in HD and is available in 32”, 43”, and 49” sizes. Combining true-to-life picture quality with the Fire TV experience built in, it seamlessly integrates your favorite content on the home screen, including live over-the-air TV broadcasts, and streaming apps and channels. The Fire TV Edition - Toshiba HD (2018) is available exclusively online at BestBuy.com and Amazon.com, and at Best Buy retail locations.
• The Fire TV Edition - Insignia 4K (2018) is built for speed and performance, powered by a quad-core CPU/Multi-core GPU for instant search results and fast and fluid responsiveness. More than 8 million pixels create stunning clarity, deep contrast, and vivid colors. The Fire TV Edition - Insignia 4K (2018) comes in 43”, 50”, and 55” sizes and is available exclusively online at BestBuy.com and Amazon.com, and at Best Buy retail locations.
• The Fire TV Edition - Insignia HD (2018) provides high-quality 2K streaming at a low cost. As with other Fire TV Edition smart TVs, the Insignia HD ships with Fire OS 6 (based on Android N). The Fire TV Edition - Insignia HD (2018) come in 24”, 32”, and 39” sizes and is available exclusively online at BestBuy.com and Amazon.com, and at Best Buy retail locations.

For developers, these new smart TVs add yet another way to reach potential customers. When you publish on the Amazon Appstore and target Fire TV, your apps and games will be available on these devices.

Bring your apps to life with voice control

With more customers incorporating smart devices in their daily lives, these devices offer a new, convenient way for developers to engage their users. With the included Voice Remote with Alexa, your customers can use speech to interact with their living room environment. They can browse, navigate, launch apps, and switch inputs, or pair their TV with an Echo device to enable voice control.

Want to create a voice-forward experience for your customers? Here are three steps to enable voice control in your apps:

1. First, check to see if you have already implemented the Media Sessions API. If you have, all you need to do is add the permission to the manifest file and implement voice commands for transport controls like play, pause, resume, rewind, fast-forward, and skip content. If you haven't, click here to get started with Media Session and click here to view the Media Session tech docs.
2. Integrate your media catalog with Amazon Fire TV so your content can be included in universal browse and search results. Users will be able to find your content in the Fire TV interface and play it directly without needing to open your app first. If your titles are indexed on IMDb or Amazon Video, you are eligible for catalog integration.
3. Once your app has gone through catalog integration, you can use the Video Skill API to allow customers to launch content, search within your app, change the channel, and use transport controls with their voice.

Get your Fire TV app ready

If you currently have apps or games on Fire TV, be sure to upgrade them to Fire OS 6 so that they are compatible with the new smart TVs. Notable changes from Fire OS 5 to Fire OS 6 include checking permissions at runtime and linking to private libraries. To learn more about upgrading to Fire OS 6, click here.

If you’ve never released an app or game for Fire TV, head over to Getting Started Developing Apps (Amazon Fire TV) for a quick intro. You’ll learn about development options (for example, native versus web apps), device and media specifications, and APIs that are available to you. You can also drag and drop your Android APK into our app testing tool to see if your app is already compatible for Fire TV with no additional coding required.

Visit the tech docs for more information.