Looking to upgrade TV - Any suggestions on the most accessible platform?

I may be a little biased here, but I would say go for the FireTV. Granted, I use a FireStick myself, but if I was in need of a new TV set, I would definitely go for a FireTV model. I personally think the FireTV systems are pretty great, for what they offer. Plus, I am a fan of Alexa, especially if you have any home automation features running through Alexa, because then you can manipulate them via your TV set. 😆

There are all sorts of news and talkshow channels you can get, as well as sports and entertainment channels, etc. etc. I am not really big on TV, so I don't really pay attention to the channels I have, but trust me when I say I have, "a lot",. Between "Prime Video channels", "Tubi channels", and "News by FireTV", I have about 698 channels.

No. That is not a typo.

There are other TV apps you can get, for even more channels. There are also premium channels you can get, like ESPN, NFL, etc.

I cannot speak on audio descriptions, because as I said I don't really watch too much TV these days, so I just don't pay attention. I mainly watch the news on my TV, or stream movies and/or shows either on Netflix, or prime video.

Hope this answers your questions at least a little bit.

*Edit: forgot to mention you can also get Apple Music and Apple TV on the fire TV.*

I forgot to put this in my post above, but there's also a Guide button on the FireTV remote, it will display a TV Guide, like popular television cable boxes do, and VoiceView (FireTV's screen reader), will read the times and channels And titles of the scheduled programs as you navigate through each item.

We have a fire tv and it is great and fully voiced. Seems to cover most things and easy to swap out to say Sky Q if needed which itself is some what voiced.

How does the Fire TV compare with accessibility to that of the Roku TV? Can anyone answer that? Thanks.

I've heard that the roku tvs' tts voice is terrible so I'd personally stay away from it.

Unfortunately, I have never used a RokuTV or device before, so I cannot say if one is better than the other. I have, however, had multiple years experience with both AppleTV devices and FireTV devices.
Out of those experiences, I will always choose FireTV over AppleTV.
Sorry, not sorry.

Regarding BBC channels, I do not know how many I personally get, although I did find myself watching BBC Earth the other day. I think I was more fascinated with the speakers accent, then I was the actual information. Does that make me a bad person? 😃

Brad is indeed correct, the tts on Roku is terrible. Will it get you by in a pinch, yes. But is it like nails on a chalk board? Also, yes. lol
I have used both a fire tv stick, roku, as well as Apple tv. I will always go with the Apple tv. Though, Fire TV, if it is pretty much like the fire stick, is just fine, and if you are looking for an accessible all in one solution, that's probably your best bet.

A couple quick notes:

• Unfortunately, all of these will have the issue of whether or not a particular company has done the accessibility work for their app on that platform
• I spend most of my time on a connected device, rather than the TV itself, but I've experimented with quite a number of these options through work

My favorite, personally is probably the Sony TV. I find it easier to navigate the interface, it uses a version of Talkback, so more traditional screen reader behaviors and announcements compared to forced text to speech, more customization and settings, and the interface tends to be laid out in lists and grids, where as some of the other platforms don't give you a lot in the way of information about the page structure, so it's easy to get lost when you jump from different sized container to container which is easy to see visually but not so much if all you're getting is item names. I also found the set up process to be quite accessible and user friendly. Finally, the remotes for the Sony I like for not having a ton of buttons, so learning the functions doesn't take long, and there's a remote shortcut to toggle the screen reader.

My second choice would be LG. Though it is a TTS driven platform, they have high quality voices and, while the interface can be confusing in some areas, the platform itself is quite feature rich. They even have nice tactile indicators and some braille on the remotes that I've seen to designate power, volume, channel and such.

My third pick would be Fire TV. Mostly because it has more screen reader functionality, though I am not personally a fan of the user interface, or wasn't last I used a Firestick, which was, ad mittedly at least a year ago.

I won't recommend Roku. As noted in a previous post, the TTS voice is, indeed, quite terrible. I have heard it described as, "the drunken robot", by other blind people.

Good luck with your purchase!

A tip I wanted to share with everyone regarding the FireTV remotes. They come programmed with a laundry list of pre-defined shortcuts or hotkeys to access features. Some accessibility ones, for example are:

1. Hold Back + Menu buttons for several seconds to toggle VoiceView (screen reader).
2. Hold Back + Fast Forward to toggle Screen Magnifier. Note the Fast Forward button is just below the Menu button.
3. Hold Menu to enter Review Mode, gaining the ability to navigate by Characters, Words, Sentences, and Elements.
4. Hold Play/Pause, wait for voice view to begin speaking, then press Select to enable Explore Your Remote. This makes VoiceView speak the buttons as you press them.

Just thought I'd share with everyone. 😇

It isn't accessible with fire tv. However, I googled why and as far as I can tell Iplayer doesn't really work with any 3rd party tvs etc. Something to do with layouts messing it up. So all a bit odd as netflix in the main works fine.

What is going on with Netflix?

Netflix, prime, youtube and amazon for example basically work on my fire tv. BBC Iplayer does not work at all. So I don't really get why the BBC don't make this accessible on fire tv as obviously other apps work fine. As I say Google has some very poor excuse as to why this probably doesn't work. Pathetic to be honest. in 2025 no reason why most if not all apps shouldn't at least partly work. Sky Q in the UK only half works some of the menu items work fine others don't work at all like in settings updating software or getting info is silent. Yet catchup tv and on demand works fine. All very strange.

Hi,

Looking for TVs with Fire TV, I can't find any on Amazon. Is it because they're not available in Europe?

Thanks,
Alex

Oh I hear you. Yeah YouTube and Netflix were great on my FireTV. I have never tried any of the BBC apps on there, but I do agree with you, these days, everything should be accessible. Adding aria labels to things so screen readers can pick them up is so ridiculously easy, I have no idea why developers don't do this automatically.

The link below is for amazon.co.uk. It is search results for fire TV models. Hope this helps you out.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=FireTV&ref=nav_bb_sb

Bingo Towers is firmly embedded in the Sky system. Love the darts. Love the cricket. Love the rugby (TNT sports) and love the football. Mrs Bingo also enjoys the Sky film channels. I know folk moan about SkyQ but we are where we are and SkyQ is in a pretty good place. I'm not in the market for a new TV at the moment but if I were, I'd be very curious how the Fire TV intervfaces with SkyQ. Only one contribution thus far has hinted at that. I'd love further and better particulars.

and, and, and, I've got way more than 698 channels...699 at the very least, probably more like 2000. So stick that in yer pipe and smoke it. still can't help feeling that the quality of telly was somewhat higher when we only had four channels back in my youth. Kavanagh QC, Hornblower, A Touch of Frost, Martin Chuzzlewit, all creatures Great and Small, One Foot in the Grave, to say nothing of Flog It...they don't make 'em like that anymore.

Hey Bingo,

How many of those channels do you pay for? Or are they all free? Because, mine are all free.
So, smoke that! 🤪

Anyone remember wayback win, when changing the channel on television set meant finding a pair of needle nose pliers?

Let's take brian first, so in reversological order as Taj from Little Britain Come Fly With Me might have it: you've got me there, mate. A lot of the channels are paid for channels - Freeview only has a limited selection of dear old channels. the rest are paid for, one way or another...but who care? In fact, who care if they go unwatched? I've never watched Horse and Country TV, Teachers TV, Quest, France24 or the Islam Channel but hey...I could if I wanted! I do not want. One might say such channels are in want of Bingo's patronage, in the same way that David Willetts once told the Parliamentary Committee on Standards and Privileges that they were in want of his advice. Of course, if that happened now it could be watched on BBC Parliament, channel 81 on Freeview and channel 504 on Sky.

Olly, question begging is an interesting one. there's no philosophical uncertainty involved here, so I think the scenario poses or prompts the question rather than begging it. as I'm not in the market for a new TV, however, it does not behove me to address that question, prompted, posed or begged, at this juncture. I may welll come back to it later, to paraphrase what I was able to view Kemi Badenoch saying in the House of Commons this afternoon on Sky Channel 504 and later again on sky Channel 515 (GB News). Mrs Bingo is currently watching something on sky channel 110 (Gold) and I'll shortly be checking in with Iain dale on LBC (I think Sky Channel 0124 though I don't normally get LBC through sky as can ask dear old alexa to play it). LBC, incidentally, has its transmission to Bingo Towers blocked when Mr James O'Brien is on.

I have found that Samsung TVs are extremely accessible, at least in my case. It was the first smart TV I had and the most easy to set up and use. Could someone please list the screen reader start Shortcuts for all the televisions. The one for Samsung is hold down the volume mute button. Basically the volume rocker, but you hold it down for a good few seconds.

My TV is a "Sceptre". I believe they are sold at Walmart. I am unsure because my TV was a housewarming gift, when I first moved in to my current residence. It's not really a smart TV, per se. It does however have voice guidance. The remote is like a remote you would see with a premium cable provider. It has like 1000 buttons on it, but at the bottom there are four buttons labeled A, B, C, D. The "B" button, when held, toggles voice guidance.
So, I'm thankful for that at least. It does have 4K capabilities though, and paired with my fire stick, is why my friends like to watch Netflix over at my place.

Go figure ...
I intend my next TV to be an actual FireTV. Not sure if I will be able to find one as large as my current TV, but I really like the concept of an all-in-one device.

Whilst our new tv has most if not all menus accessible there is something slightly odd going on. We have Sky Q main box plugged in and on the old Samsung tv which is why we stuck with that brand you could enable what speech was available on the sky box. For some reason I cannot get sky to speak now on the new tv. So I can change inputs from say youtube on the smart tv to sky and then silence. Everything is enabled to allow speech and audio description does still work just no speech from the system. I think but can't work out how to alter this it maybe something to do with a soundbar as in speech coming from that source but who knows.

I've set up my own LG TV and one for a family member. Both have come up talking, which I thought was really cool. At that point, you have the option to either keep speech enabled or disable it. The first time, I thought it was a fluke, until it happened again. I've never experienced a device talking right out of the box, without having to enable using an accessibility shortcut.

love my tcl roku tv's. the audio guide may not be as clear as the apple tv and firestick, but it's still good to get the job done. plus it's easy to turn on and off the guide and audio description with the roku remote. I also have the roku tv's paired with the roku tv wireless speakers. very easy to set up. plus i've added the latest fire tv sticks to my HDmMI's on my tv's. so have the best of both worlds. whenever I update my tv's, I'll probably get the roku brand tv's. yep. a blind user here. yep.

love my tcl roku tv's. the audio guide may not be as clear as the apple tv and firestick, but it's still good to get the job done. plus it's easy to turn on and off the guide and audio description with the roku remote. I also have the roku tv's paired with the roku tv wireless speakers. very easy to set up. plus i've added the latest fire tv sticks to my HDmMI's on my tv's. so have the best of both worlds. whenever I update my tv's, I'll probably get the roku brand tv's. yep. a blind user here. yep.

Lee, I endorse what Oliver says. sometimes SkyQ can get a bit confused if you have a soundbar in but rebooting should sort out the speech for you. Indeed, occasionally our SkyQ will stop talking for no particular reason and a reboot is necessary. Our old one used to freeze completely from time to time and a reboot used to sort that out until one day...it didn't. sky had to replace the box. Incidentally, should that ever happen to you, don't leave your flippin' viewing card in the old one! I made that mistake - didn't have Sky for a month as a result.

Ok for Oli and Bingo. Unplugging the sound bar did the trick. However, I think there is more to it than that. On the old Samsung from 2015 the sound bar connected via a wire think it was called a audio/visual cable. Basically, it had a little square end that plugged into the tv. On the new tv from 2024 still Samsung there wasn't the same square fitting so had to connect via USB. So it seems that using USB causes the issue or as far as I can work out.

We have an Android TV at home, an old TCL model. It doesn't get OS updates and is now stuck at Android 12. There's no bluetooth remote and no shortcut to start talkback. You must take sighted help and go to settings>Accessibility>Talkback and turn it on manually. Even after turning on talkback, TV strugles to deal with navigating through the apps. App crashes and slowness is allot.
In conclusion, Avoid Android TV like hell.
Note: Google TV is slightly different than Android TV, but it's backend software is still Android TV. Google TV is just a Google approved skin/Launcher on top of Android TV. In terms of software updates, I believe even these TVs won't get lot of updates.
I've never tried a Fire TV experience, but have heard great things about it.

I am enjoying this thread, as I have only ever had experience with AppleTV devices and FireTV/stick devices, it's nice to hear from others who have other kinds of smart TV devices. For example, I have a friend who has a Roku TV. She swears by it. Swears it is the best TV she's ever owned in her life. However, she has only ever owned Roku TVs and/or devices.
I got another friend who has both a Chromecast device, and a Fire Stick. She loves her Fire Stick, but I think she used to enjoy the Chromecast because it would sync with her android phone, if I am not mistaken.

Personally, I just find too much use for a FireTV device to ever want to try anything else. 😅

Yes HDMI no idea why I said USB. Still doesn't explain why it should stop Sky from speaking though.

i thought this would be there. Otherwise casting content from my phone to Fire TV would be damn difficult. And I prefer to cast content rather than mess with thousand apps on TV with a remote.

I can see why you would rather have an all-in-one device, because economically speaking, it's just easier to deal with. However what you said above about friends with low vision, made me think that you might want to consider a stick device and a larger display. For example, I have a FireStick 4K and a 50 inch 4K smart TV.
I kind of get the best of both worlds with this set up, although it does mean that I have two separate remotes to deal with. Lol

Ok just found this via Google which explains it.
Voice guidance on Sky Q typically doesn't come through a soundbar because Sky Q boxes only output audio through the HDMI connection to your TV, meaning the voice guidance is sent to your TV speakers by default, and not directly to your soundbar unless you've specifically configured your TV audio settings to route all sound through the HDMI ARC (Audio Return Channel) connection to your soundbar; check your TV and soundbar settings to ensure the correct audio output is selected.

Yup. My Fire Remote powers on/off the tv, changes volume, toggles mute. There is actually a way to have the Fire Remote change input sources, which I need for my Xbox, and is about the only thing I ever use the default tv remote for.
I really should look into the instructions on changing input.

I cannot remember if the Fire Remote can change channels like the default remote, but since FireOS doesn't really work that way, I suppose it doesn't matter.

I have a 4k apple tv, third generation I sm in the market for a t v with dolbey vision and dolbey atmos. what do you reccamend?

https://www.amazon.com/hisense-fire-tv-55-inch-class-A7NF-series-qled-smart-tv/dp/B0DN6V77CM/ref=asc_df_B0DN6V77CM?mcid=bd52ced7b4c9373088464e88af35944a&tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=717529319988&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=9006942576089767273&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1026036&hvtargid=pla-2397404321697&psc=1

Its a bit pricy, but has both Dolby Vision and Atmos. Is also a FireTV. :D

thanks. i'll take a look

acually, that is whatbI was planning to spend anyway. can you provide an amazon.ca canadian link?