14 ms·

Amazon Vega OS and Vega Developer Tools

62 points by luismedel 1y ago

kotaKat 1y ago
I'm assuming they've basically replaced the walled garden with a greenhouse with these changes to Vega OS? At least it (hopefully) means no more stupid "cracked fire TV sticks" on the local market. The end-user-support experience is downright awful and I'm sick of having to explain to people I can't help with them.
- benbristow 1y ago
  They'll find another Android based device to use instead. The main reason, at least around the people I know, people buy Fire Sticks is to watch football/soccer at 3pm on a Saturday (there's a UK wide blackout to encourage fans to go to their local game, albeit if you're a fan of a club far away or a Premier League team you're going to struggle to get there, games are still aired abroad, IPTV services skirt round this) and to save money on multiple media subscriptions (IYKYK). I can only imagine after this change people will stop buying them as they're close to useless as people have Smart TVs for the legal stuff.
  - kotaKat 1y ago
    Yeah I know saying that in hindsight it's just going to go to the ONN sticks instead and stay within Google TV - but it solves the problem Amazon wanted which is to quickly and smartly move the problem away from themselves and onto someone else's loss leader. (And Walmart already has started doing regionlocking to try to crack down on that, too! Taking an ONN box out of the US will error out in setup and complain it's only for sale in US/PR.)
    - benbristow 1y ago
      They may as well stop selling them. I doubt many people are going to buy a Fire Stick to watch Prime and Netflix when you already can on any standard Smart TV. It's harder to buy a dumb TV now than it is a smart one. Never mind if you also have a game console connected which can run the same apps. Or a set top box like Virgin Media which run apps too.
      - cebert 1y ago
        The nice thing about sticks is when you go on trips or vacation. You’re authenticated into all of your subscriptions already and don’t have to sign in. The convenience of using sticks they eliminate the need to sign in at hotels or other places, which is why I love them.
        la_oveja 1y ago
        id say is a fairly niche use case, people tend to disconnect outside when going on vacation not watch netflix from the hotel.
        tracker1 1y ago
        I like to travel, in particular road trips and disconnecting is often part of that. Even then, I'm not much of a nightlife person so will often still watch TV for a couple hours at night before bed.
        shermantanktop 1y ago
        +1, that’s what I do. Only problem is that the HDMI port can be hard to get to.
        benbristow 1y ago
        A lot of hotels I've been to recently have a HDMI port baked into the row of plugs and switches above the desk. Handy. Might be worth getting a male to female HDMI extension cable to make it easier to plug in.
        alias_neo 1y ago
        Presumably some services have issues with locale? Does anyone run a VPN to home on these devices? I'd never considered taking my Firestick on holiday but I'll definitely consider that for the future.
        benbristow 1y ago
  - alias_neo 1y ago
    > people will stop buying them as they're close to useless as people have Smart TVs for the legal stuff I don't know if by "people" you mean specifically the people who use them for illegal streams, but there are others of us who buy them. I have a perfectly good high-end LG OLED TV that's now ~7-8 years old, and I wanted something with better performance (and newer WiFi standards) for streaming apps in 4K, I've used a couple of different boxes/dongles in that time and am currently using a Firestick 4K Max, it sort of does the job but of course it's advert-ridden and has AV sync issues, overall performance is ok, but the Prime Video app is still appallingly slow, Netflix runs great, Disney is ok, and the others are a variety of acceptable to poor.
    - benbristow 1y ago
      If you go into any pub in the UK and say fire stick, people assume it's not legit content you're using one for. They're infamous for allowing people to watch football (soccer!) games illegally on Saturday at 3pm when the TV blackout is on, as people outside the country can watch the games.
      - alias_neo 1y ago
        I've certainly heard of the dodgy usage of fire stick for streams but I've never been into football, what's this blackout all about?
        benbristow 1y ago
        The idea is that between around 3pm and 6pm every Saturday, outwith international breaks when international teams play (e.g. World Cup), no TV station in the UK is allowed to air live football. 3pm is the main kick off time. The idea is that this encourages people to go to their local football team instead of watching the game on TV. For a small island, there are massive amount of football teams. If you're American you're probably only familiar with the 'Premier League' with teams like Manchester United/City, Arsenal, Chelsea etc. and maybe the Scottish Premier League with Celtic and Rangers, and maybe Championship thanks to 'Welcome to Wrexham' but there are leagues and leagues below, it goes very deep until you get to teams literally just playing on a bit of grass behind a church in a small village and the local gym teacher being the referee. The blackout is supposed to mean you go to whatever team is nearest or easiest to get to for you, going to big team Premier League games is very expensive if not impossible unless you have silly money to spend or wait years (I mean like 10+ years for a season ticket). But it doesn't really work for a lot of people. If you moved away for university etc. you might still want to watch your team but the only local team is your team's rival. Or you would end up watching the village football team game. Most games are aired abroad for expats and foreign fans, but UK residents are unable to watch those legally, hence the growth in fire sticks.
  - tracker1 1y ago
    I won't use my "smart" features in my TVs... I'd get rid of them if I could... The tracking is generally worse than Apple, Google or Roku on them. I know some are using Google or Roku software, but even then, just not a fan. I've been pretty happy with Shield TV boxes for around a decade now.
znpy 1y ago
What is this Vega OS ? Is it a custom OS (custom kernel and everything) ? Is it a linux distribution? https://developer.amazon.com/docs/vega/0.21/vega-overview.html https://developer.amazon.com/docs/vega/0.21/vega-overview.ht... does not say much...
- laveur 1y ago
  This is exactly what I've been wondering... The developer page doesn't really provide much insight into things either. Other than their development environment is based on React Native...
- nguyenkien 1y ago
  From last year announcement, this is custom linux.
- supriyo-biswas 1y ago
  (Deleted)
  - nguyenkien 1y ago
    This docs for FireOS, don't confuse with new Vega OS
- mrandish 1y ago
  After skimming TFA, I came here wondering the same thing... what is it and how is it different than Android, Linux or other alternatives. I realize marketing writers think they must always lead with the usual vaguely positive puffery but it has no concrete meaning and contains no actionable information.
- bsimpson 1y ago
  And if it runs APKs from the Amazon Appstore on non-Android Linux, what tech are they using to do it?
  - yapfrog 1y ago
diggan 1y ago
I'm wondering if this is what they themselves use for developing the Prime Video app? At least on LG, it's by far the slowest, laggiest and most broken app our family sometimes use.
- drcongo 1y ago
  It's so bad on iOS that I unsubscribed.
- benbristow 1y ago
  All Amazon apps are buggy and broken. The Amazon shopping app is awful, a bunch of put together web pages hanging on for dear life. Amazon optimise for sales and metrics over anything else.
  - ignoramous 1y ago
    > optimise for sales and metrics I take you have some insider knowledge... if the app is hanging for dear life, how is that helping optimize the sales pipeline?
    - benbristow 1y ago
      It's a mess but the main flows just about function so it makes money.
  - appleaday1 1y ago
    I learned my lesson to not trust amazon after sagemaker, some of their core services are good and well done.
    - 2dvisio 1y ago
      Curious about the sagemaker experience. What specifically was that broke?
  - ranger_danger 1y ago
    > All Amazon apps are buggy and broken Baseless conjecture. > Amazon optimise for sales and metrics over anything else. But healthy sales requires an app that works.
JCM9 1y ago
I find Amazon’s software for streaming much slower and buggier than other providers. The streams too also seem to have more issues.
- pwarner 1y ago
  What's better? I'm not in the Apple ecosystem. My key criteria would be UX and video quality. Thanks
  - mosburger 1y ago
    The UI looks a little dated, but I've been happy with 4K Roku. The UX is more functional if uglier than AppleTV.
  - bl4ckm0r3 1y ago
    imo basic android tv os works better, i have a nvidia shield and it's good too (despite being old now).
  - lillecarl 1y ago
    "Google TV Streamer" is Googles official one, it's very streaming focused, any Android TV device of a reputable brand is good. NVIDIA Shields being the best. I can recommend the app "Stremio" which has an extensive add-on ecosystem you can explore, works on Android, Android TV, Linux, MacOS and Windows!
    - baggachipz 1y ago
      It's the current official one, until it's killed and bricked for the next official one.
      - lillecarl 1y ago
        There is nothing wrong with the older devices either, they've kept compatibility as far as the hardware is concerned. Ragebait belongs elsewhere, thanks.
brodouevencode 1y ago
Reminds me of the Sony Wega televisions.
donperignon 1y ago
Looking at the sample apps… I think I pass, not liking much what I see, either generated by LLM or by an intern
AmazingTurtle 1y ago
I bet thats gonna last for a couple years until amazon abandons it again.
appleaday1 1y ago
I read that as AMD Vega OS and Vega developer tools.
pjmlp 1y ago
So bye Android fork?
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
mrandish 1y ago
Amazon rolling their own OS for TV add-on devices instead of the re-skinned Android TV OS they've been using until now basically means I won't consider their devices any more. The last thing I need is yet another non-standard moving target to support in my house. Which is unfortunate because I bought their catchily-named "Fire TV Stick 4k Max (2nd Gen)" and, once you de-cruft the advertising riddled OS and sideload standard Android TV apps (eg SmartTube, Plex), the hardware is decent at a fair price (~$50). IMHO, all the broadly available TV streaming devices from major manufacturers are under-powered but the more recent, higher-end ones like the Fire TV 4K Max and Google Chromecast (aka "4K Streamer") can be basically usable once de-crufted. Unfortunately, the only more powerful alternatives are from offshore manufacturers and thus have spotty Android TV support and may not be "authorized" (ie whitelisted) by all encrypted streaming apps (Netflix, Amazon, Disney+, etc). It's bizarre that the most powerful dedicated TV streaming device available today is by far still the NVidia Shield which is essentially a 2015 era design (it got a very minor refresh in 2019 https://androidtvnews.com/nvidia-shield-differences/ https://androidtvnews.com/nvidia-shield-differences/). It sucks because there are a lot of useful things a TV streaming device could do if it had a little more CPU/GPU headroom (AI upscaling, de-mosaicing, casual and retro-gaming).

62 points by luismedel 1y ago

I'm assuming they've basically replaced the walled garden with a greenhouse with these changes to Vega OS? At least it (hopefully) means no more stupid "cracked fire TV sticks" on the local market. The end-user-support experience is downright awful and I'm sick of having to explain to people I can't help with them.

benbristow 1y ago
They'll find another Android based device to use instead. The main reason, at least around the people I know, people buy Fire Sticks is to watch football/soccer at 3pm on a Saturday (there's a UK wide blackout to encourage fans to go to their local game, albeit if you're a fan of a club far away or a Premier League team you're going to struggle to get there, games are still aired abroad, IPTV services skirt round this) and to save money on multiple media subscriptions (IYKYK). I can only imagine after this change people will stop buying them as they're close to useless as people have Smart TVs for the legal stuff.
- kotaKat 1y ago
  Yeah I know saying that in hindsight it's just going to go to the ONN sticks instead and stay within Google TV - but it solves the problem Amazon wanted which is to quickly and smartly move the problem away from themselves and onto someone else's loss leader. (And Walmart already has started doing regionlocking to try to crack down on that, too! Taking an ONN box out of the US will error out in setup and complain it's only for sale in US/PR.)
  - benbristow 1y ago
    They may as well stop selling them. I doubt many people are going to buy a Fire Stick to watch Prime and Netflix when you already can on any standard Smart TV. It's harder to buy a dumb TV now than it is a smart one. Never mind if you also have a game console connected which can run the same apps. Or a set top box like Virgin Media which run apps too.
    - cebert 1y ago
      The nice thing about sticks is when you go on trips or vacation. You’re authenticated into all of your subscriptions already and don’t have to sign in. The convenience of using sticks they eliminate the need to sign in at hotels or other places, which is why I love them.
      - la_oveja 1y ago
        id say is a fairly niche use case, people tend to disconnect outside when going on vacation not watch netflix from the hotel.
        tracker1 1y ago
        I like to travel, in particular road trips and disconnecting is often part of that. Even then, I'm not much of a nightlife person so will often still watch TV for a couple hours at night before bed.
      - shermantanktop 1y ago
        +1, that’s what I do. Only problem is that the HDMI port can be hard to get to.
        benbristow 1y ago
        A lot of hotels I've been to recently have a HDMI port baked into the row of plugs and switches above the desk. Handy. Might be worth getting a male to female HDMI extension cable to make it easier to plug in.
      - alias_neo 1y ago
        Presumably some services have issues with locale? Does anyone run a VPN to home on these devices? I'd never considered taking my Firestick on holiday but I'll definitely consider that for the future.
        benbristow 1y ago
- alias_neo 1y ago
  > people will stop buying them as they're close to useless as people have Smart TVs for the legal stuff I don't know if by "people" you mean specifically the people who use them for illegal streams, but there are others of us who buy them. I have a perfectly good high-end LG OLED TV that's now ~7-8 years old, and I wanted something with better performance (and newer WiFi standards) for streaming apps in 4K, I've used a couple of different boxes/dongles in that time and am currently using a Firestick 4K Max, it sort of does the job but of course it's advert-ridden and has AV sync issues, overall performance is ok, but the Prime Video app is still appallingly slow, Netflix runs great, Disney is ok, and the others are a variety of acceptable to poor.
  - benbristow 1y ago
    If you go into any pub in the UK and say fire stick, people assume it's not legit content you're using one for. They're infamous for allowing people to watch football (soccer!) games illegally on Saturday at 3pm when the TV blackout is on, as people outside the country can watch the games.
    - alias_neo 1y ago
      I've certainly heard of the dodgy usage of fire stick for streams but I've never been into football, what's this blackout all about?
      - benbristow 1y ago
        The idea is that between around 3pm and 6pm every Saturday, outwith international breaks when international teams play (e.g. World Cup), no TV station in the UK is allowed to air live football. 3pm is the main kick off time. The idea is that this encourages people to go to their local football team instead of watching the game on TV. For a small island, there are massive amount of football teams. If you're American you're probably only familiar with the 'Premier League' with teams like Manchester United/City, Arsenal, Chelsea etc. and maybe the Scottish Premier League with Celtic and Rangers, and maybe Championship thanks to 'Welcome to Wrexham' but there are leagues and leagues below, it goes very deep until you get to teams literally just playing on a bit of grass behind a church in a small village and the local gym teacher being the referee. The blackout is supposed to mean you go to whatever team is nearest or easiest to get to for you, going to big team Premier League games is very expensive if not impossible unless you have silly money to spend or wait years (I mean like 10+ years for a season ticket). But it doesn't really work for a lot of people. If you moved away for university etc. you might still want to watch your team but the only local team is your team's rival. Or you would end up watching the village football team game. Most games are aired abroad for expats and foreign fans, but UK residents are unable to watch those legally, hence the growth in fire sticks.
- tracker1 1y ago
  I won't use my "smart" features in my TVs... I'd get rid of them if I could... The tracking is generally worse than Apple, Google or Roku on them. I know some are using Google or Roku software, but even then, just not a fan. I've been pretty happy with Shield TV boxes for around a decade now.

znpy 1y ago

What is this Vega OS ? Is it a custom OS (custom kernel and everything) ? Is it a linux distribution? https://developer.amazon.com/docs/vega/0.21/vega-overview.html https://developer.amazon.com/docs/vega/0.21/vega-overview.ht... does not say much...

laveur 1y ago
This is exactly what I've been wondering... The developer page doesn't really provide much insight into things either. Other than their development environment is based on React Native...
nguyenkien 1y ago
From last year announcement, this is custom linux.
supriyo-biswas 1y ago
(Deleted)
- nguyenkien 1y ago
  This docs for FireOS, don't confuse with new Vega OS
mrandish 1y ago
After skimming TFA, I came here wondering the same thing... what is it and how is it different than Android, Linux or other alternatives. I realize marketing writers think they must always lead with the usual vaguely positive puffery but it has no concrete meaning and contains no actionable information.
bsimpson 1y ago
And if it runs APKs from the Amazon Appstore on non-Android Linux, what tech are they using to do it?
- yapfrog 1y ago

diggan 1y ago

I'm wondering if this is what they themselves use for developing the Prime Video app? At least on LG, it's by far the slowest, laggiest and most broken app our family sometimes use.

drcongo 1y ago
It's so bad on iOS that I unsubscribed.
benbristow 1y ago
All Amazon apps are buggy and broken. The Amazon shopping app is awful, a bunch of put together web pages hanging on for dear life. Amazon optimise for sales and metrics over anything else.
- ignoramous 1y ago
  > optimise for sales and metrics I take you have some insider knowledge... if the app is hanging for dear life, how is that helping optimize the sales pipeline?
  - benbristow 1y ago
    It's a mess but the main flows just about function so it makes money.
- appleaday1 1y ago
  I learned my lesson to not trust amazon after sagemaker, some of their core services are good and well done.
  - 2dvisio 1y ago
    Curious about the sagemaker experience. What specifically was that broke?
- ranger_danger 1y ago
  > All Amazon apps are buggy and broken Baseless conjecture. > Amazon optimise for sales and metrics over anything else. But healthy sales requires an app that works.

JCM9 1y ago

I find Amazon’s software for streaming much slower and buggier than other providers. The streams too also seem to have more issues.

pwarner 1y ago
What's better? I'm not in the Apple ecosystem. My key criteria would be UX and video quality. Thanks
- mosburger 1y ago
  The UI looks a little dated, but I've been happy with 4K Roku. The UX is more functional if uglier than AppleTV.
- bl4ckm0r3 1y ago
  imo basic android tv os works better, i have a nvidia shield and it's good too (despite being old now).
- lillecarl 1y ago
  "Google TV Streamer" is Googles official one, it's very streaming focused, any Android TV device of a reputable brand is good. NVIDIA Shields being the best. I can recommend the app "Stremio" which has an extensive add-on ecosystem you can explore, works on Android, Android TV, Linux, MacOS and Windows!
  - baggachipz 1y ago
    It's the current official one, until it's killed and bricked for the next official one.
    - lillecarl 1y ago
      There is nothing wrong with the older devices either, they've kept compatibility as far as the hardware is concerned. Ragebait belongs elsewhere, thanks.

brodouevencode 1y ago

Reminds me of the Sony Wega televisions.

donperignon 1y ago

Looking at the sample apps… I think I pass, not liking much what I see, either generated by LLM or by an intern

AmazingTurtle 1y ago

I bet thats gonna last for a couple years until amazon abandons it again.

appleaday1 1y ago

I read that as AMD Vega OS and Vega developer tools.

pjmlp 1y ago

So bye Android fork?

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

mrandish 1y ago

Amazon rolling their own OS for TV add-on devices instead of the re-skinned Android TV OS they've been using until now basically means I won't consider their devices any more. The last thing I need is yet another non-standard moving target to support in my house. Which is unfortunate because I bought their catchily-named "Fire TV Stick 4k Max (2nd Gen)" and, once you de-cruft the advertising riddled OS and sideload standard Android TV apps (eg SmartTube, Plex), the hardware is decent at a fair price (~$50). IMHO, all the broadly available TV streaming devices from major manufacturers are under-powered but the more recent, higher-end ones like the Fire TV 4K Max and Google Chromecast (aka "4K Streamer") can be basically usable once de-crufted. Unfortunately, the only more powerful alternatives are from offshore manufacturers and thus have spotty Android TV support and may not be "authorized" (ie whitelisted) by all encrypted streaming apps (Netflix, Amazon, Disney+, etc). It's bizarre that the most powerful dedicated TV streaming device available today is by far still the NVidia Shield which is essentially a 2015 era design (it got a very minor refresh in 2019 https://androidtvnews.com/nvidia-shield-differences/ https://androidtvnews.com/nvidia-shield-differences/). It sucks because there are a lot of useful things a TV streaming device could do if it had a little more CPU/GPU headroom (AI upscaling, de-mosaicing, casual and retro-gaming).