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Amazon just revealed the Ember Artline TV at CES 2026. This is a lifestyle TV that displays art, putting it in direct competition with Samsung's The Frame. The 4K QLED screen is extremely thin, at 1.5-inches, so it'll likely fit just about anywhere. It also features a glare-reducing matte screen that has been "designed to make your art and photos look great." The Artline integrates with Amazon Photos and offers access to 2,000 pieces of free art to display. For those worried about electricity usage, the TV includes proprietary technology that senses when someone has entered or left the room and turns on or off accordingly. The display comes with Amazon's new smart assistant Alexa+, allowing it to double as a smart TV. This is helped along by the inclusion of far-field microphones. Alexa+ is a beefier version of the company's long-standing digital assistant. You can talk to it like a person, if that's your bag. There's even a new use case in which Alexa+ analyzes the aesthetics of a room and recommends art to throw on the screen. Amazon This is also a standard TV. It features support for Dolby Vision, HDR10+ and Wi-Fi 6 and will operate on the Fire TV platform. Customers can choose from 10 magnetic frames in a wide variety of colorways, further diversifying the aesthetics. We don't have a release date yet, other than "later this spring." Amazon has released pricing, however, as this TV starts at $899 for the 55-inch version.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/home-theater/ember-artline-is-amazons-answer-to-samsungs-the-frame-150015104.html?src=rss
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Marketing and Advertising
Amazon is kicking off the new year by announcing a redesign of its Fire TV UI at CES 2026. The new UI is designed to make finding things to watch on the platform faster, while making it easier to access more of Fire TV's features straight from the home screen.On first blush, the biggest difference in the new Fire TV UI is that everything is rounder. Shows, movies and apps have rounded corners, and Amazon's changed the spacing in the interface to give everything more room to breathe. Tweaks to typography and color gradients also give the UI a more modern feel, and Amazon says it's rebuilt the code of the Fire TV software to make everything faster, too, in some cases demonstrating "up to 20-30 percent gains in speed."The fundamentals haven't changed all that much, however. There's a menu bar of different tabs at the top of the interface that separates the Home page from things like Movies, TV Shows and Sports. Each page shows content in carousels, and Amazon still lets you pin streaming apps like Netflix or Apple TV underneath recommended content, with the biggest difference being you can now pin more apps at once (20 rather than six). Amazon is also changing up how the Fire TV Remote works. Pressing the Menu button now lets you quickly access Fire TV's Art & Photos, Games and Ambient Experience features, and a long press of the Home button pulls up a shortcut panel with access to things like settings and connected Ring cameras. Alexa+, Amazon's rebuilt AI assistant, is also available directly inside of the Fire TV interface for adding things to your watchlist, recommending content and controlling your smart home.The new Fire TV mobile app can act as a remote and a way to search Amazon's library of content.AmazonAmazon offers the Fire TV mobile app as a way to control its streaming devices and TVs with a smartphone, but alongside this redesign, the company is also expanding what the app can do. The new Fire TV app lets you browse content, edit your watchlist and start playing things on your TV, in much the same way Roku and Google's streaming apps do.Both the new Fire TV mobile app and redesigned Fire TV UI will be available for free for all users, Amazon says. The new Fire TV UI will launch in February on the Fire TV Stick 4K Plus, the second-generation Fire TV Stick 4K Max and Fire TV Omni Mini-LED series. Later in the spring, Amazon says it will bring the redesign to more countries and devices, including the latest Fire TV 4K streaming devices, TVs like the Fire TV 2-series, 4-series and Fire TV Omni QLED series and TVs from third-party partners like Hisense, Insignia, Panasonic and TCL.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/home-theater/amazon-is-redesigning-its-fire-tv-ui-for-streaming-sticks-and-tvs-150000622.html?src=rss
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Marketing and Advertising
CES 2026 is still a day away from officially opening, but Sunday, January 4, delivered the first real wave of news. As has become tradition, the pre-show slate set the tone for the week ahead, anchored by Samsungs annual First Look press conference and CES Unveiled, the latter of which where hundreds of companies previewed products before the show floor opens on January 6.Samsung once again dominated the early conversation with its First Look event, using the stage to outline how it sees AI shaping everything from TVs to home appliances in the year ahead. Rather than focusing on individual specs, Samsung framed its 2026 lineup around adaptive experiences, with screens and devices designed to respond more intelligently to their environment and the people using them. TVs remained the centerpiece, with updates like the new 130-inch Micro RGB model aimed at improving picture quality, content discovery and personalization through AI-driven tools.Among the more concrete pieces of tech tied to Samsungs CES run was The Freestyle+, a successor to the companys portable projector that doubles down on AI-powered picture optimization, brighter output and smarter calibration for different surfaces. The unit also supports immersive audio features and syncs with Samsungs soundbars for a more complete entertainment package. The company further bolstered its audio portfolio with the new Music Studio wireless speakers, which offer an eye-catching design.Samsungs broader display strategy was also on show: Samsung Display revealed next-generation QD-OLED panels capable of peak brightness up to 4,500 nits, which are expected to be used in TVs and monitors that debut on the show floor, and introduced new concepts illustrating how OLED tech can blend into future AI-enhanced lifestyles.Software also played a role in Samsungs early messaging. The company confirmed that Google Photos will be coming to Samsung TVs later this year, bringing photo libraries and Memories directly into the living room. Its the kind of addition that doesnt grab headlines in the same way as new hardware, but its exactly the type of update that quietly shapes how people actually use their TVs regularly.Outside of Samsungs event, CES Unveiled the conventions kickoff mini-show offered an early look at what smaller companies and startups are bringing to Las Vegas this year. The show floor was packed with a familiar mix of near-ready consumer products and more experimental ideas, spanning robotics, smart home gear, health tech and personal electronics. Companion-style robots, updated AR glasses and AI-powered household gadgets were common sights, reflecting broader trends that are likely to show up repeatedly across the main halls this week.Unveiled is rarely about big-name launches, but it often reveals where the industrys attention is drifting. This year, that meant a noticeable emphasis on AI-assisted hardware that blends into everyday routines, whether thats home devices designed to act more autonomously or personal tech that prioritizes context and convenience over raw performance.LG also kicked off its pre-show efforts with some notable display news thats certain to shape conversations on the CES floor. The company reintroduced its ultra-thin Wallpaper OLED evo W6 TV, a panel that sits just 9mm deep and can be mounted flush against a wall, boasting improvements in brightness and color accuracy with Hyper Radiant Color Technology and support for FreeSync and G-Sync.LG's 2026 Wallpaper wireless OLED TVDevindra Hardawar for EngadgetLGs display lineup extends into the PC space too, where the division plans to debut a 27-inch OLED gaming panel hitting a 720Hz refresh rate and response times as low as 0.02 ms. On the lifestyle front, the Gallery TV aims to compete more directly with Samsungs art-style screens by combining a specialized anti-glare panel with an expanding Gallery+ service that brings thousands of artworks to the living room.Some CES-related announcements also landed ahead of Sunday, underscoring how stretched the shows news cycle has become. Samsung and LG both shared display and ecosystem updates in the days leading up to January 4, ensuring their products were already part of the CES conversation before pre-show events even began.Sundays announcements served as a clear warm-up for whats coming next. Monday, January 5, marks the start of press day, when major companies will take the stage for individual conferences and a large number of embargoes are expected to lift. Then, on Tuesday, January 6, CES officially opens its doors, shifting the focus from presentations to hands-on demos and real-world impressions.Well be updating this recap as more news breaks, but if Sunday was any indication, CES 2026 is already moving fast and the show hasnt even started yet.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/home-theater/ces-2026-opening-night-recap-all-the-early-news-you-missed-from-samsung-and-lg-142611832.html?src=rss
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