Amazon unveils way to cast video to Fire TV and Echo Show 15
Move over Apple AirPlay. Amazon has announced its own video casting option designed to let you watch videos from your phones and tablets directly on supported Amazon devices. Introduced on Tuesday at CES, the new Matter Casting feature will stream video from certain apps on iOS and Android devices to Fire TV and Echo Show 15 devices. This means you'll able to start watching a movie or TV show on your smartphone and finish it on your supported Amazon device.
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Now available worldwide, Matter Casting currently can cast only Prime Video content to the Echo Show 15. Support for Fire TV devices, including Panasonic smart TVs with Fire TV built in, will roll out in the next few months. Amazon also said that it's working with such streaming services as Plex, Pluto TV, Sling TV, STARZ, and ZDF to add Matter Casting support later in the year.
With the new feature, Amazon joins Apple and Google is offering a way to stream videos and other content from mobile devices to TVs and other appliances. However, Apple's AirPlay and Google's Cast are closed systems that work only with certain products.
In contrast, the new Matter Casting feature is part of an open technology standard known as Matter, created by the Connectivity Standards Alliance. With Matter, Amazon and other members of the CSA are looking to ease the challenges of smart home connectivity and resolve the interoperability problems that often beset smart devices. The ultimate goal is to offer a type of plug-and-play process for smart home devices through which products from different companies can all work with each other more seamlessly.
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Though currently using different technologies for content streaming and connectivity, Amazon, Apple, and Google are all members of the CSA and all already support the Matter standard. Amazon has been supporting Matter through its Echo devices, Google through its Google Home and Nest products, and Apple through iOS. But Amazon called its Matter Casting feature the first demo of implementing the new technology.