Two new models of Amazon’s Fire TV are in the works, according to a new report, and one of them looks like a cube-shaped version of an Echo, the tech-giant’s signature Alexa-powered device.
AFTVnews reported Monday that a mid-tier model will reportedly be more powerful than the existing Fire TV Stick and take the form of a dongle that looks like a Google Chromecast. It will plug into a TV via an HDMI cable and also feature a mini-USB port for power. The device will be priced in the $60 to $80 range, according to the report, and be released in October.
These are the two new Amazon Fire TV models being released in 2017 (Exclusive) https://t.co/na1Tpp7Ftn pic.twitter.com/QhfwzW70om
— AFTVnews (@AFTVnews) September 11, 2017
The premium device, with built-in Alexa, “has a series of holes on top to accommodate its array of far-field microphones,” as a well as an integrated speaker, AFTVnews reports. Users will be able to speak to the voice assistant without using the regular Fire TV voice remote. The speculation is that this model is likely to have additional ports and functionality like Ethernet and expandable storage.
The top of the device features the same buttons found on an Echo Dot and there is a blue LED light bar familiar to Alexa-enabled devices. AFTV said the device, which “should be released sometime this year but might be delayed into early next year” is expected to be somewhere above $100.
Both new models will support 4K and HDR content streamed through Amazon’s Fire TV software.
How purely coincidental that this would leak out of Amazon the day before a new Apple TV gets unveiled… https://t.co/WX2V4q4Pji
— Andrew Wallenstein (@awallenstein) September 11, 2017
