Amazon set to ditch android for home-grown OS?

Online retail giant Amazon is rumoured to be working on a new web-based operating system to replace Android on Fire TVs, smart displays, other connected devices and IoT.

According to weekly entertainment tech newsletter Lowpass, development of the new operating system, which is internally codenamed Vega, appears to be “fairly advanced” with most of the core development complete and Amazon now focussed on the SDK and developer outreach.

Sources told reporter Janko Roettgers that the system has already been tested on Fire TV streaming adapters, and Amazon has told select partners about its plans to transition to a new application framework in the near future.

One of the issues Amazon has with Fire OS is that it uses the Android Open Source Project, which trails behind versions of Android running on phones and tablets.

Current Fire TVs are effectively running Android 9, whereas Google’s Pixel phones recently got updated to Android 14.

Roettgers also pointed out that, as an OS first developed for mobile, Android comes with significant technical debris. “Essentially, a lot of its code is unnecessary for running many modern smart home devices”.

So, Amazon hopes that Vega will lead to easier app development. Based on “a flavour of Linux” the retailer’s home grown OS uses tpopular JavaScript-based React Naitive as an application framework.

The report claims that, over time, Vega is expected to run on all of Amazon’s hardware products, including in-car entertainment systems.

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