One of the best reasons why you might buy an Amazon Fire TV Soundbar is that it's one of the cheapest ways to give your TV set access to Dolby Atmos, improving the sound of your movies and TV shows.
Dolby Atmos is an immersive sound experience which makes it sound like the audio of your chosen video is surrounding you, to the left and right and up and down, instead of coming at you straight from the TV's speakers. It replicates a theater where the speakers are all around you... except Dolby Atmos works from a single soundbar placed under your speaker!
Amazon's Fire TV Soundbar is one of the most affordable ways you can use Dolby Atmos at home, and whether you've bought the gadget for this feature or just to improve your movie and TV audio in general, you'll want to know how to get Dolby Atmos working. Here's how.
1. Setting up the soundbar to support Dolby Atmos
Firstly, you're going to need to make sure that your Amazon Fire TV Soundbar will be able to play Dolby Atmos audio in the first place, and this will depend on whether you have an Amazon Fire TV Stick or Cube which supports this kind of audio output, as well as whether you've set up your Soundbar in the right way.
First, you'll need to make sure that your Fire TV Soundbar is set up right to allow Dolby Atmos. You'll need to plug it in with a HDMI cable, not Optical, and connect your Fire TV device straight to the soundbar's HDMI input using another such cable.
This will only work with the right Fire TV device though:
The recent Fire TV Stick, Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K (and its Max equivalent) as well as the Fire TV Cube allow it, while the Fire TV Stick Lite and older models of the Stick, 4K and Cube, don't. If you don't know which you have go into the device then Settings > Display & Audio > Audio Diagnostics which will tell you if you have Dolby Atmos supported. You can also use this page to test whether the surround sound is working fine.
2. Finding a streaming service that allows Dolby Atmos
Once your Amazon Fire TV Soundbar is set up to support Dolby Atmos streaming, you'll still only be able to do it on supported content.
If you're using a Fire TV it's presumably because you're a regular streaming service user, and you might not know this but only certain tiers of most streaming services will allow Dolby Atmos streaming.
| Streaming service | Dolby Atmos? | Plan required | Price |
| Netflix | Yes | Premium | $22.99 / £17.99 |
| Prime Video | Yes | Ad-free | $17.98 / £11.98 |
| Disney Plus | Yes | Premium | $19.99 / £10.99 |
| Apple TV Plus | Yes | Standard | $9.99 / £8.99 |
| Paramount Plus | Yes (*No in UK) | Showtime | $12.99 |
| Hulu | No | NA | NA |
| Peacock | Yes | Standard | $7.99 |
| Max | Yes | Ultimate Ad-Free | $20.99 |
| ESPN Plus | No | NA | NA |
| Sky TV | Yes | Sky Entertainment, Sky Cinema & Sky Sports | £28 |
To use Dolby Atmos, you'll need to be signed up for the correct tier of the streaming service you want to watch from. In most cases, it's the top tier that offers it.
You won't need to 'switch on' Dolby Atmos, as if you've got a supporting plan and your tech is in place, the sound will automatically come out as Dolby Atmos.
