If you know what you’re doing, you can turn your Fire tablet into a dedicated smart home hub — making it more straightforward to control smart light bulbs, switches, plugs, thermostats, and more.

But there are ways — simple, as well as technical — that can help you get over some of the core Fire OS limitations and make the tablet feel more like a stock Android slate.

Amazon's Fire tablets are more capable than you might think. Here are a few pointers to help you make the most of Amazon's latest tablets.

Thorin Klosowski It's now possible to install a full custom version of Android on your Kindle Fire using CyanogenMod 7, which gives you access to the Android Marketplace and other unofficial apps.

Personalize your experience easily with Fire tablets by linking to your Amazon account. Setting up a Fire tablet includes language selection, Wi-Fi connection, and Amazon account registration.

An early build of Google Android 4.0 is now available for the Amazon Kindle Fire tablet. If you didn’t get the picture from our recent video, it’s still very much a work in progress.