A new Amazon Fire TV Stick looks like it’s on its way, according to images leaked by WinFuture ahead of an Amazon hardware event on Thursday.
The publication claimed the images show the “Amazon Fire TV Stick Lite,” that's likely to be a successor to the $35 second-generation FIre TV Stick that has been discontinued. The most interesting part of this leak is the remote, which has a dedicated TV button on it.
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The TV button would suggest Amazon could be making a bigger play into connecting live TV to its Fire services. Currently, you can stream Sling TV and YouTube TV, with Hulu + Live TV “coming soon,” according to an Amazon blog post back in July.
As such, Amazon could build upon those live TV options, bringing more live TV broadcasts into the Fire user interface to make finding things such as live sports a much easier process. That being said, the TV button could just be a way to flip from the Fire interface to normal TV broadcasts if you’re using the Amazon Fire TV Stick Lite with a normal TV.
More access to live TV broadcasts would certainly give the Amazon Fire TV Stick Lite the means to better challenge Google's Chromecast. But the Google Chromecast 4 Sabrina is on the horizon and could deliver a suite of capabilities taken from the Android TV platform, presenting another rival for Amazon to take on.
Otherwise, we suspect the Amazon Fire TV Stick Lite will be a lower-end version of the 4K TV Stick, supporting streaming in 1080p and lacking a few features, such as HDR support. But it’ll likely be sold at a lower price than the $50 4K model, which should help it challenge the cheap Google Chromecast dongles.
We’re almost certainly likely to hear more about the Amazon Fire TV Stick Lite on Amazon's Sept. 24 event, which kicks off at 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET. Until then, why not check out Amazon Prime Video’s The Boys season 2 to see if it lives up to the hype?
