Amazon’s latest Fire TV feature lets you easily cast your content from any device
It takes advantage of Matter Casting, which acts like Chromecast or AirPlay. But it has no specific hardware requirements, so you can cast from any device.
If there’s one major irk when it comes to the top streaming sticks, it’s compatibility. Will your new streaming device play nicely with your phone or other smart home gadgets? Does it have the right casting support for your phone? What if you could easily cast your content to your telly, whatever device you’ve got? That’s what Amazon’s latest Fire TV feature aims to do.
Amazon plans to enable this nifty feature on its Prime Video app to work with your Fire TV and Alexa devices. You can cast streaming from compatible apps, regardless of what device you’re using. To do this, Amazon is using Matter Casting part of the Matter smart home standard. The gist is, you can now control your TVs and streaming devices directly from a connected app.
This Matter Casting business is like Apple AirPlay or Google Chromecast, but better. It’s an open protocol, meaning it’s not tied down to specific hardware or phone operating systems. It’s all about app-to-app communication, giving you the same controls on your phone as you have on your TV app. For example, you could cast from Prime Video on your iPhone directly to your Fire TV Stick.
At first, the feature will only support casting from the Prime Video app. But Amazon is already working with other streaming apps to boost support for the feature. For now, the feature only lets you cast from your device to the Echo Show 15. But as the feature rolls out in the coming months, you’ll be able to cast content to Fire TV devices – including sticks and TVs.
Connor Jewiss