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Amazon may drop Android and build its own next-gen smart home OS
- Amazon may be working on an in-house operating system called Vega.
- Sources say Amazon plans to eventually step away completely from Android and implement Vega across all of its products.
- Amazon could start shipping Fire TVs with Vega sometime next year.
Amazon tends to rely on a forked version of Android for its smart displays, TVs, and other smart home products. But the corporation could soon ditch Google’s OS in favor of its own. And the switch to Amazon’s new OS may start as soon as next year.
According to Janko Roettgers of Lowpass, Amazon is working on an alternative to Android for its hardware. Internally known as Vega, the OS has reportedly been tested on Fire TV streaming adapters, and Amazon has told partners about its plan to transition to the new OS. Sources close to the matter claim Amazon could start shipping Fire TV’s with Vega sometime in 2024.
Roettgers points out that there are a few reasons why Amazon would want to separate itself from Google’s solution. For example, Android has a lot of code that’s unnecessary for running a smart home device. Fire OS has always lagged behind Google’s stock offering because it relies on Android Open Source Project. And Google has tried to prevent some manufacturers from building Amazon-powered TVs.
It appears that Vega is based on Linux and app developers are being told to use React Native. This would allow developers to cast a wider net, catering to more devices and OS’s when building apps. This is important because it would enable the developers to create apps that run on Amazon’s new device and old hardware still running on Android.
Amazon is allegedly preparing to ditch Android completely across all of its products sometime down the road. As it does with Fire OS, it’s possible Amazon also sees having its own OS as an opportunity to serve ads to more eyes, one of the reasons its devices are so cheap.