This is Lowpass by Janko Roettgers, a newsletter on the ever-evolving intersection of tech and entertainment, syndicated just for The Verge subscribers once a week.
Amazon is moving ahead with plans to replace Android with its custom-built Vega operating system on Fire TV devices: The new Linux-based system will launch on TV streaming hardware before the end of the year, according to a newly published job listing for a software development manager for the company’s Prime Video service.
“The Prime Video Fire TV organization is seeking an engineering leader that will help in building a Vega OS product that will delight customers worldwide,” the job listing states. “With the app launching in 2025, you will get to shape the future of this product as well as the culture of the team.”
Amazon changed the wording of the job listing to remove references to Vega after being contacted for this story, and declined to comment.
An official announcement could happen as early as next Tuesday, when Amazon is scheduled to unveil its fall devices lineup at a press event in New York, according to two sources with knowledge of the company’s plans.
Amazon has been using a forked version of Android for its Fire TV Sticks and smart TVs running Fire TV OS since launching the first Fire TV device in 2014. However, the company has been working on a transition away from Android for several years, as I was first to report two years ago.
Vega, the OS to replace Android, has been built in-house and is based on Linux. It’s designed to run across a wide variety of devices and relies on React Native as its application framework. This allows developers to build native apps with JavaScript, with the added benefit that these apps run across a variety of other TV operating systems as well.
Amazon has yet to officially acknowledge the existence of Vega OS, but the company has already launched three devices running the system: The latest versions of the Echo Show 5 and Echo Hub smart displays both run Vega, as does the Echo Spot smart clock. The company also has plans to bring Vega to some Fire tablets, Reuters reported last month.
There have been multiple Vega-related leaks over the years. In April, the company posted a job listing for a “Software Development Engineer, Vega OS” who was supposed to help to get Vega up and running on “a range of devices, including Multimodal, TV, and Automotive.”
This week’s job listing is the most concrete evidence yet that a launch of TV devices is imminent. In addition to a planned 2025 launch, the listing also noted that “the team is responsible for the dedicated Prime Video app on Vega OS, as well as all [Prime Video] experiences on the Vega Launcher.”
This suggests that Vega, much like the existing Fire TV OS, will feature what’s known in the smart TV industry as a content-first homescreen experience. Instead of just presenting a list of apps to launch, it will likely feature and deep-link to individual shows and movies from those apps.
Amazon has been working with a number of high-profile app developers to get their apps ported to the new OS, and in recent months encouraged its partners to get their apps launch-ready.
However, I’ve been told that enthusiasm for the project has been muted. Smart TV app developers are already forced to build a number of different apps for platforms including Google TV / Android, LG webOS, Roku, and Samsung’s Tizen OS. Amazon doesn’t plan to bring Vega to existing Fire TV devices, and is also going to let TV makers launch Android-based Fire TVs for some time to come. This means that anyone building Fire TV apps effectively has to target two operating systems for the foreseeable future.
Amazon developer advocate Giovanni Laquidara released a project a few days ago that aims help with the transition to the new OS: TVChameleon is meant to be “comprehensive demonstration of converting native Android TV applications to React Native TV,” according to a description posted to GitHub.
We may get additional details on Vega at Amazon’s fall devices event in New York next Tuesday. An invite sent to the media featured an image teasing new Kindles, smart speakers, and TV hardware, among other things. The two aforementioned sources told me the company will use the event to launch or announce Vega as a TV OS. However, one of those sources cautioned that the announcement is likely going to be “low key.” Neither source had additional details about the specific hardware Vega may launch on.
I was told by multiple sources earlier this year that Amazon planned to first launch Vega on a lower-powered Fire TV Stick, but haven’t been able to confirm whether that is still the case. Amazon initially planned to launch such a device last year, but ended up postponing public announcements of Vega multiple times. There is still a chance that the company could do so again, and at the last minute decide to push a launch to 2026.
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