• << Fire OS Developer Docs
• Overview
  • Get Started with Fire TV
  • Fire TV Development Versus Android TV Development
  • TV App Design UX Guidelines
  • Submitting Your Fire TV App to the Appstore
  • Promote Your App On Fire TV
  • Glossary
  • Amazon Fire TV FAQs
  • Smart TV FAQ
  • What's New in Fire TV Development
• Fire OS for Fire TV
  • Fire OS Overview
  • Developing for Amazon Fire TV Devices Running Fire OS 16
  • Developing for Amazon Fire TV Devices Running Fire OS 14
  • Developing for Amazon Fire TV Devices Running Fire OS 8
  • Developing for Amazon Fire TV Devices Running Fire OS 7
  • Developing for Amazon Fire TV Devices Running Fire OS 6
• Set Up Your Development Environment
  • Set Up Your Development Environment
  • Connect to Fire TV through ADB
  • Install and Run Your App
• Controllers in Android Apps
  • Remote Control Input
  • Game Controller Input
  • Controller Input with Unity
  • Identify Controllers
  • Controller Behavior Guidelines
  • Controller Image Assets
• Voice
  • Overview for Voice-enabling Your App and Content
  • Voice-enabling Transport Controls with Media Session API
  • In-App Voice Scrolling and Selection
• Multimedia
  • Managing Audio Focus
  • Testing Audio Focus
  • Dolby Integration
  • Requirements for Multimedia Apps
  • AV Synchronization in Android Applications
  • APIs for HDMI Mode Switch
  • Tunnel Mode Playback
• Automotive
  • Automotive UX Guidelines
  • Add touch to Fire TV
  • Automotive Developer Reference
• Fire TV Integration SDK
  • Get Started with the Fire TV Integration SDK
  • Developer Tools
    • Setup the Sample Fire TV App
  • Content Personalization
    • Introduction to Content Personalization
    • Data Types
      • Watch Activity
      • Watchlist
    • Data Type Reference
    • Summary Reference Table
  • Fire TV Integration SDK General Troubleshooting
  • Test Cases for Validating Integration
  • Release Notes
• Live TV Integrations
  • Linear Integration
    • Introduction to Linear Television Integration
    • TV Input Framework on Fire TV
    • Step-by-step Integration Guide
      • Linear TV Integration Guide Overview
      • Step 1: Set Up Project Dependencies
      • Step 2: Set Up TvInputService
      • Step 3: Insert Your First Channel
      • Step 4: Playback in Fire TV UI
      • Test Cases for Linear Apps
    • Live TV Resources
  • Events Integration
    • Events Integration on Fire TV
    • Test Cases for Events Apps
• How to Build an Android App for Fire TV
  • Step 1: Create a Media Streaming App
  • Step 2: Understand the Anatomy of a Leanback-Enabled Android App for Amazon Fire TV
  • Step 3: Browse the Content of a Leanback-Enabled Android App
  • Step 4: Edit the User Interface Through Presenters
  • Step 5: Provide the Details of the App Content Through the DetailsFragment
  • Step 6: Play Video Content with the PlaybackOverlayFragment
• Developer Tools and System X-ray
  • Developer Tools Menu
  • System X-Ray
  • Customizing System X-Ray
  • Network Proxy
• Development Best Practices
  • Mouse Pointers
  • Display and Layout
  • Media Players
  • HDMI Events
  • Android Menu and ActionBar widgets
  • DIAL Integration
  • Matter Casting
    • Overview of Matter Casting
    • Matter Casting Integration
    • App Attestation
  • Search
  • Notifications
  • App Installation Location
  • Advertising ID
  • Deep Linking to Featured Content from the Fire TV UI
  • Resources for International Locales
• Web Apps for Fire TV
  • Get Started with Web Apps
  • Web App Controllers
  • Customize Your App
  • User Agent Strings
  • Migrate Your Existing Web App
  • Cordova plugin for Amazon Catalog Integration
  • Web App FAQ
  • HTTP Caching
  • Protect Your Web App
  • Install and Use the Amazon Web App Tester
  • Use the Debug APK to Test Your App
  • Install and Run the Debug APK to Test Your App
  • HTML5 Hybrid Apps
  • Build and Test Your HTML5 Hybrid App
  • HTML5 Hybrid App FAQs
• React Native for Fire TV
  • Get Started with React Native (Fire TV)
  • Add TV Support to an Existing React Native Project (Fire TV)
  • Supported React Native Libraries (Fire TV)
• Accessibility
  • Assistive Technologies for Fire OS
  • Implement Accessibility in Fire OS
  • Accessibility Features
    • Implement Reading and Subscribing to AD/CC Settings
    • Implement VoiceView Accessibility Features

Implementing Search (Fire TV)

Implementing search in Amazon Fire TV requires you to understand some key differences with text search and voice search.

• Text Search in Apps
• Global Text Search
• Voice Search
• Avoiding Speech Recognition Errors from Leanback
• Alexa Skills and Apps

Text Search in Apps

Text search within an app refers to any specific text-search features you have coded within your app. Text search for your app is not available by default on Amazon Fire TV.

Global Text Search

Amazon Fire TV provides a global text search available from the Fire TV home screen. The global text search returns results from the Amazon Catalog. For your media to appear in global text search results, you must integrate your app's media into the Amazon Catalog.

Voice Search

Amazon Fire TV also provides voice capabilities through the voice-enabled remote control. In addition to the Alexa voice capabilities on Fire TV, users can also use natural language to search for TV shows, movies, and other media.

Regardless of where users are in Fire TV, when they press the microphone button on a voice-enabled remote and say the TV show or Alexa actions they want, this action initiates a global search using the Alexa cloud service instead of the Leanback library.

Media requests through voice always return content from the Amazon Catalog. If you want your app's media to appear in these results, you must integrate your app's media into the Amazon Catalog.

If the user already has your app installed, your app's content can appear directly in the catalog results. If a user doesn't have your app, a "More Ways to Watch" option appears for users to get your app and view the content. (Catalog integration is only recommended as an option for apps whose content is the same for all customers.)

Avoiding Speech Recognition Errors from Leanback

Because Alexa is used for voice interactivity on Amazon Fire TV instead of the Leanback library, you must disable any speech recognition with the Leanback library’s SearchFragment class for your Fire TV app. If you don't disable speech recognition, your app will potentially return errors when users perform searches.

In Leanback's SearchFragment class, the startActivityForResult method looks for the speech recognizer. Because Fire TV does not support this speech recognizer, this action produces an error. To avoid the error, override the onCreate() method and comment out the speech recognition callback so that the method does not run. Here's an example:

setSpeechRecognitionCallback(() -> {
    if (DEBUG) Log.v(TAG, "recognizeSpeech");
    try {
        //startActivityForResult(getRecognizerIntent(), REQUEST_SPEECH);
    }
    catch (ActivityNotFoundException e) {
        Log.e(TAG, "Cannot find activity for speech recognizer", e);
    }

Here the startActivityForResult method is commented out, so the speech recognition feature will not run and no error will result.

Alexa Skills and Apps

You cannot create an Alexa-powered voice search specific to your app, returning media results from your app only. You can access any Alexa skill on Fire TV, but the skills are voice-only experiences. The voice skills do not interact with native apps on Fire TV. As such, there are no ways for an Alexa skill you create to control your app.

Last updated: May 27, 2026