Amazon Launches Refreshed Fire TV Omni Televisions, Says Dual Audio Hearing Aid Functionality ‘Coming Soon’

Amazon on Thursday announced two significant hardware-oriented updates to its venerable Fire TV product line. The company’s blog post, written by vice president of Alexa and Fire TV Daniel Rausch, details an all-new Fire TV Omni Mini-LED television along with a modular Fire TV Soundbar Plus. Both products are available to order starting today.

The Fire TV Omni news is most interesting from an accessibility standpoint in a couple ways. First, the Mini-LED display technology should prove to be a significant upgrade in terms of visual fidelity. As Rausch notes, the new television can produce 1,400 nits of peak brightness and contains “up to” 1,344 dimming zones. While not quite as good a display technology as the OLED screens on my iPhone, iPad Pro, and Apple Watch, the Mini-LED display on my 2020 TCL 6-Series (the 65-inch model) in my living room gives me a mighty fine picture. Blacks are black, colors pop, and—most crucially for someone with low vision—gets extremely bright. The brightness especially makes watching TV more accessible—and thus more enjoyable. In an ideal scenario, I’d love to upgrade my home theater setup someday to feature an OLED TV. Even a few years into its life, though, the TV still sparkles every time I turn it on. Put another way, I can literally see why the 2020 6-Series garnered such critical acclaim from reviewers. It’s a terrific TV.

Secondly, Rausch makes note in the post about Fire TV’s “industry-leading” support for the Audio Streaming for Hearing Aids (ASHA) protocol in the new Omni TVs. A forthcoming accessibility feature, which Amazon is calling Dual Audio, will enable customers who use ASHA-compatible hearing aids will have access to “high-quality audio delivered directly to their hearing aids while others simultaneously listen through the TV’s speakers,” Rausch said. Furthermore, he added Dual Audio builds on the work Amazon has done with leading hearing aid manufacturers such as Starkey and Cochlear. Dual Audio will help customers integrate Fire TV’s audio system with their assistive devices.

Panos Panay, the longtime ex-Microsoft executive who now leads devices and services at Amazon, wrote today in a LinkedIn post that Dual Audio is “close to my heart.” He added the software “lets customers who use ASHA-enabled hearing aids to hear TV audio directly in their ear, while others listen through the TV speakers so everyone can enjoy content.”

No word from Amazon as to exactly when Dual Audio will ship.

The new Fire TV Omni TV comes in four sizes, 55-, 65-, 75-, and 85-inches, with prices beginning at $820. For TVs of these sizes, that’s an attractive floor in terms of cost—and an accessibility feature unto itself. For many disabled people, Fire TV appeals not only for cost, but for hands-free interaction via Alexa and the aforementioned Dual Audio feature. Whatever one feels for Amazon’s ad-heavy interface and push towards unabated consumerism, the myriad accessibility benefits of its smart TV platform aren’t trivial in the slightest and shouldn’t be ignored.