Amazon Fire TV makes surfing live channels less of a headache
What you need to know
- Amazon has announced a new feature for customizing live channels on Fire TV.
- The update makes it easier to add live channels to the Live tab from both free and subscription services.
- All live TV channels can be accessed via a dedicated guide button on all new Alexa Voice remotes.
Amazon Fire TV's current search and discovery feature may cause you to lose hours browsing your favorite live channels on the platform. But that changes now as Amazon announced a handy customization feature for its live channel guide.
The update allows you to add live channels to the main menu's Live tab, making it easier to revisit your favorites the next time you want to watch live programming. You can select live channels from both your free and paid services.
Prior to this update, the live channels were tucked away under different content rows such as Live Sports and Breaking News.
To customize your live channel guide, simply choose the "guide" section within Fire TV's Live tab or just press the dedicated guide button on the Alexa Voice remote. After that, bring up the new "Add Channels" option by pressing the menu button on your remote.
You can then start populating your guide with more live channels to your heart's content. There are more than 20 live TV channels in the United States that support Fire TV, including:
- YouTube TV
- Prime Video Channels
- IMDb TV
- Hulu + Live
- Discovery+
- Pluto TV
- Sling TV
- FOX Now
- Tubi
- Philo
- Red Bull TV
- Plex
- ESPN
- Haystack News
- Xumo
The new update demonstrates TV OS providers' growing commitment to live content offerings as well as improving consumers' live TV experiences. For example, Google TV now offers more than 300 live TV channels for free thanks to its partnership with Pluto TV.
Fire TV's linear grid experience is a welcome addition, as it makes browsing live channels on the best Amazon Fire TV built-in televisions less of a chore.
Get the top Black Friday deals right in your inbox: Sign up now!
Receive the hottest deals and product recommendations alongside the biggest tech news from the Android Central team straight to your inbox!
Have you listened to this week's Android Central Podcast?
Every week, the Android Central Podcast brings you the latest tech news, analysis and hot takes, with familiar co-hosts and special guests.
Jay Bonggolto always keeps a nose for news. He has been writing about consumer tech and apps for as long as he can remember, and he has used a variety of Android phones since falling in love with Jelly Bean. Send him a direct message via Twitter or LinkedIn.