Echo Show 15 now also a Fire TV: update available in Italy!

It kicked off in the past few hours also in Italy the long-awaited update of Echo Show 15 which in fact turns it into a Fire TV greatly expanding its usefulness and the possibilities of use. The notification of the availability of the upgrade arrived on our unit late yesterday evening and should gradually extend to all models on the market.

Specifically, after completing the installation procedure, you will notice on the main screen of Echo Show 15 – the one to the left of the space reserved for widgets – the small icon with the Fire TV logo which you can immediately recall with a simple touch . After doing so, the typical screen of Fire TV devices with appears tons of apps that you couldn’t access before on Eco Show 15 – there are all the major streaming apps like Now, Dazn, Disney+, Paramount+ (Netflix was there before but now you can use the same app as Fire TV) – and you can launch the appstore to download many more.

Interacting with the new Fire TV section of Echo Show 15 can be done via touchbut it is Highly recommended to pair an Alexa remote because several applications designed for the Fire TV do not support touch. If you don’t want to buy one right away (or snatch it from another Fire TV you have at home) you can use the virtual remote control (touch) that can be called up on the screen – a transitory solution, not as convenient as the physical remote control, but still able to make all the apps for Fire TV usable.

Along with the update also comes a new widget dedicated to Fire TV which displays recently called apps and content. To download the update, all you have to do is start the download using the button in the notification that signals its availability (it appears on the right side of the screen).

We’ve been using the revamped Echo Show 15 with Fire TV recently and it’s the objective fact is that the gain in terms of functionality is very remarkable. Now Echo Show 15 can even more rightfully occupy a corner of your kitchen or bedroom because it is actually able to replace (almost completely) a traditional TV. The speed of use is good, without particular lag that negatively affect the user experience, and the use in combination with the remote control is definitely recommended.

There are however some aspects to point out – the first in particular aimed at more geek users. Not to exclude that they will be resolved with a corrective update.

• Kodi chapter: our attempts to install it with the aim of viewing all (but really all) digital terrestrial channels at the moment have not been successful because – at least with this first version of the software – the operating system does not allow the installation of apps from unknown sources (unlike the other Fire TVs we have in the house). You can download the APK using the app downloader but not finalize the installation.
• RaiPlay app: at the moment it can be identified by automatic search but cannot be installed – we don’t know if for some particular restriction or just for a temporary problem
• Some unexplained crashes: paradoxically, the app that doesn’t work at the moment is Prime Video. Starting the playback of a content takes you back to the main interface and streaming does not start. On the contrary, we have not encountered any problems using the Netflix, Dazn, Disney + and Timvision apps.

Some deficiencies can be remedied by using other apps: for example, we were still able to stream the programs of La7 and some Mediaset networks in real time even without installing Kodi using the TV section of the Timvision app. We hope that the aspects for improvement listed above will be corrected, but already in this way we can look with different eyes at what until a few hours ago was an object that was so useful for certain activities, but not so comfortable for others (just think, for example, that for certain broadcasts in streaming – let’s go back to quoting La7 – we accessed through convoluted passages through the Silk browser).

Finally, keep in mind that the update enriches the functions of Echo Show 15, while leaving the previous ones unchanged. When you are not using the Fire TV section you can simply call up the home of the device (now also via the home button on the remote control) which is similar in all respects to the pre-update ones.

Update at 10.15

One more point to upgrading to Fire TV. A few hours were enough to have thePrime Video app working perfectly. Now the start of streaming content no longer crashes and you can access the entire catalog without problems. Apparently the update was done on the server side.