Sling Media has released a Slingplayer app for the Amazon Fire TV. Install the free app and you can use it to stream live or recorded programs from a supported Slingbox device.
That means if you’ve got a Slingbox set up in one room you can stream live shows to another TV in your house as long as it has a $39 Fire TV Stick or $99 Fire TV connected. Or if your Slingbox is connected to a DVR, you can stream recorded programs.
You can also beam content over the internet to keep up with TV when you’re on the road.
Sling Media has been offering Slingbox models and apps for years, but the Fire TV app only supports 3 recent Slingbox devices: the Slingbox 350, Slingbox 500, and Slingbox M1.
Blogger Dave Zatz reports that the Fire TV app also seems a bit buggy, but hopefully issues will be addressed in future updates.
The good news is that Slingplayer for the Fire TV is free and doesn’t require you to pay $15 for a smartphone or tablet app (something you need to do to use Slingplayer on some other platforms). The less good news is that Sling Media seems to have found another way to make money: by launching a pre-roll ad before allowing you to watch your own media.
via Zatz Not Funny and @Arne Hess
This is great. I was really struggling with the sideloaded slingplayer, as it required a mouse and did not respond to keyboard shortcuts. Looking forward to being able to control the slingplayer through the remote- and the fact that it is free is an added bonus. I just hope that Sling puts in the work to iron out the kinks.
The naming gets a little clunky.
“Fire TV Stick” isn’t bad but “Fire TV” is misleading since it isn’t a TV at all. They probably should have just named it “Fire TV Box” or something.
I’m sure nobody has bought an Apple TV, thinking it was an actual television