Rivals Best Buy And Amazon Partner To Offer Fire TV Edition Smart TVs With Alexa Integration
The two companies inked a multi-year partnership that will see Best Buy as the exclusive retailer for Insignia- and Toshiba-branded Fire TV Edition smart TVs. These sets will be sold at both Best Buy's brick and mortar and online stores. In addition, the TVs will be sold via the Amazon Marketplace with Best Buy as the third-party seller. There will be nearly a dozen Fire TV Edition smart TVs from Insignia and Toshiba offered by Best Buy, in both Full HD and 4K flavors.
Amazon first introduced the world to Fire TV Edition smart TVs back in May 2017, when it announced a partnership with budget television maker Element. Like the smart TVs from Element, the new Insignia and Toshiba counterparts will run Amazon’s FireOS and will have full Alexa integration (courtesy of an Alexa voice remote). Built-in apps will give you access to popular services including Prime Video (of course), Netflix, Hulu, HBO, and PlayStation Vue (among others).
“Amazon and Best Buy have a long history of working together, and today we take our partnership to a new level,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO. “Our partnership with Amazon is exciting because we believe Fire TV Edition delivers an incredible user experience and further strengthens the growing connection between home theater, home automation and voice control," added Best Buy chairman and CEO Hubert Joly.
Neither company is providing any additional details on model specifics of pricing, but we do know that the first Fire TV Edition smart TVs will be available this summer in the United States. Retail availability will extend to Canada "later this year".
