How to Get Amazon Prime Video on Your Android TV
Some set-top boxes support all the services you need, but when you have one that runs Android, there is usually a workaround. One of the most annoying omissions in the Android TV app catalog is Amazon Prime Video, but you can change that with just a few simple steps and no rooting required.
Amazon usually hosts its apps on all platforms, but with Prime Video, the company is clearly selective. You must own one of their devices to get all the features, or just solve this problem. This is what we are going to do right now. You actually have several options to choose from, so go for:
Chromecast it
If you have a computer with a browser, you can stream a tab filled with Amazon Prime Video straight to your Android TV. It might not sound perfect, but if you have a nearby laptop with reasonable processing power, you can simply play the video in the tab and leave it in the background. When you set a video to full screen while streaming, Chrome knows you don’t want full screen on your computer. The video will be displayed in the browser in the window, but will be fully displayed on your Android TV.
So how does it all work? Follow these simple steps:
- Open Google Chrome on your computer.
- Install the Google Cast extension and follow the installation instructions.
- Click the Google Cast icon in the browser bar (as shown in the image above) and select the Android TV device you want to cast the cast to. (If it doesn’t appear, click Options to choose an option to search for new devices.)
- Play the Amazon Prime video you’ve chosen to stream and hit the full screen button.
- Enjoy!
That’s all. There is a slight delay, but you won’t notice anything as you are going to pretty much ignore the video on your computer and just watch it on TV. Luckily, you won’t hear audio from the computer either, but you can see the video in the broadcast tab so you can pause, fast forward, rewind, etc. With this setting you can limit the quality of the video stream, but in my experience, it looks pretty good all things considered, and it is the fastest and easiest way to get any video you want on your Android TV.
Install Amazon Prime Video Launcher
If you want to watch Amazon Prime Video without the help of an additional computer, you can download an app that gives you the same experience as Fire TV. Here’s how to do it:
- Surprise Surprise! Head over to the XDA Forums and download Prime Video Launcher . (You may also need to download the Amazon Prime Video APK, but more on that later.)
- On Android TV, open Settings and go to the Security & Restrictions section. First of all, you should select “Unknown sources”. Turn it on. (Amazon Prime Video won’t work without it.)
- You can download the APK in another way if you like, but I quickly installed it on my device using ES File Explorer . If you don’t have this on your Android TV, download it now .
- Open ES File Explorer and find the cloud or network service you are using. I used (cloud service) Dropbox and put the APK in a folder in my Dropbox account. Whether you have Dropbox, Google Drive, or whatever else you prefer, link it with ES File Explorer. If you sync the APK to your account, when you download the folder where you put it in ES File Explorer, you can simply select it and open it.
- When you open Prime Video Launcher, you will be prompted to confirm its installation, but after a few seconds it will open. You will be asked if you want to install the Amazon Prime VOD that you need to actually watch anything. Confirm that you want to install the latest version and wait for the installation to complete. In some cases, it may not load and you will have to install it manually. Just repeat this process, but download one of the APK VODs found in this XDA forum thread .
- After installing Amazon Prime VOD successfully, open it and log into your Amazon account.
That’s all! Now you can watch Amazon Prime Video on your Android TV as if it really was meant to be there. Hopefully someday Amazon will let us install the app anywhere without the extra effort, but at least you have some easy ways to get the job done right now.