Tested on:
- Fire HD 10 (11th Generation)
- Fire 7
Amazon Fire tablets are cheap, yet they look and feel like a far more expensive tablet. In fact they are the best cheap tablet we have tried using by a wide margin. The screen is high resolution and its responsive, and the battery life is excellent.
So what’s the catch? The tablet is basically an Amazon ad delivery platform. It has a special version of the Android operating system and it has a lot of built in junk that you can’t delete. It also has it’s own version of an app store called the Amazon App Store. It does not come with the google play store, so you can’t load most of the apps that you are used to having. Unless, of course you hack it!
(We have not tested our app on older generations of Fire tablet hardware. If you encounter an incompatible device please let us know.)
Method 1: Sideload the Google Play Store APKs
We followed this guide on Howtogeek.com and successfully loaded the Google play store on our Fire HD 10 tablet. (Here’s a PDF of the instructions, in case the link breaks in the future) It’s a bit of a PITA because you have to identify 4 different APKs that match your hardware version and sideload them on the tablet. It’s worth the effort though, because then you can install any Play Store app normally, including the Overkill Solar BMS Mobile app. When tested on the Fire HD 10, the app performed flawlessly. You still need a google account to use the play store
Method 2: Sideload the Overkill Solar APK
The Overkill Solar BMS Mobile App can be sideloaded from the .APK file on Fire tablets just like any other Android device. Grab the latest release from our Github, enable permissions for installing 3rd party apps on your device, and install. HowtoGeek.com also has a helpful guide for sideloading apps. (click here for PDF copy)