In our blog, we regularly write about tests that we are doing on hardware from third-party producers in order to find out about how to ‘missuse’ this hardware (that was obviously never made for this purpose) to match it with our special needs for digital signage use. In particular we do this test, because hardware for the consumer market is usually much cheaper (caused to a higher production quantity) in comparison but not always much worse than any pro-stuff, which will cost you at least three times more.
Digital Signage Player starting from 39 Euro
Amazon Prime customers will already know about Fire-TV by now.
With these Players, customers are able to watch movies, series or even download other Apps ‘on demand’ and right from the couch. Because Amazon’s Fire TV is running on Android operation system, we did a test on it, to see, if it is usable for digital signage, too. Currently there are two different types offered by Amazon: (1.) The low-coast Fire TV Stick for 39,- Euro, which you can plug in into the HDMI-input at the backside of your TV (the same way as our viewneo Stick works) and (2.) the external Player Amazon Fire TV for 99 Euro.
A digital signage player for only 39 Euro? We check Amazon’s Fire TV Stick and …
… Amazon Fire TV to find out, if we can use them as digital signage players.
Installation
By the time when we did our tests, the viewneo App was not yet available in the Amazon App Store. Due to that fact, we had to install our app with Android Debug Bridge instead, which I do not want to describe in detail now. Usually, the viewneo App is available in Amazon’s App Store for free, like any other app is, too.
After installing, the viewneo App will be startable via remote control.
Start screen of Amazon Fire TV
With viewneo App, Amazon Fire TV Player is ready for digital signage usage
In Use
The viewneo App works fine and really fast. The operating system ‘Fire OS’ is a sleaker and more efficient extra version based on Android. Any superfluous function in Android’s basic operating system, that will not be used for Amazon Fire TV, has already been removed, which is good for the performance of our viewneo App on these devices, too. You might already have expected that neither displaying images nor videos won’t be a huge challenge for those devices. But we were surprised that even complex templates run without any problems. Before we tested Amazon Fire TV, we had the chance to make a lot of experience with many other digital signage players, too. And we have to state that even some professional devices did not completely support important state-of-the-art techniques like CSS3, for example. In some cases, the layout and design of the displayed templates made with our integrated template designer were completely messy. Very often we had problems with common CSS3 shadow effects.
Summary
To sum it up, we made really good experiences with both types of Amazon Fire TV without any doubt! Both players – Fire TV Stick as well as Amazon Fire TV – are suitable for digital signage usage. We were surprised by the performance of the tested devices while displaying different media and data files. If you plan to establish up a really cheap in price digital signage system, you won’t make a mistake choosing Amazon Fire TV Stick or Player. Of course you will miss various options and functions which are only offered by professional digital signage hardware – but a wider range of possibilities will also have a different (higher) pricing than consumer devices. But speaking to all of you do-it-yourselfers out there: Digital signage with Amazon Fire TV works!
You can order it here:
Create extraordinary Digital Signage with your Amazon FireTV. Just download the viewneo App, register for free and start in a few seconds.
Recommended Video:
This is a videos about the issue of Amazon Fire TV and Amazon Fire TV Stick while you are reading these lines. We will add these videos as soon as they are ready to publish at this place. Have Fun!
