I realize this is the Fire stick thread, but are there any other similar devices being prepped for release somewhat soon? Judging from what you guys have to say and other things I've come across, I've got the most defective Fire stick (that works) of all time. Trying to decide what to get to replace it, because I'm at wit's end with it.

4/21/2015 2:43:42 PM

roku

4/21/2015 2:49:40 PM

^^That sucks. Ever since they patched the wifi connectivity bug I haven't had a single issue with my Fire Stick. I don't think I can remember a single time anything went wrong in the last few months. It's been a very solid device. Maybe you can somehow do a factory reset on it?

4/21/2015 3:57:49 PM

Amazon has one of the easiest customer services to deal with. do an online chat and tell them your issues. they'll probably have a new one sent out to you in two days.

4/21/2015 4:58:03 PM

I second that. Whenever I had an issue with my Kindle Keyboard they'd send me a new one asap. All their customer service is in house as well.

4/21/2015 5:16:32 PM

Thanks, I'll give it a shot.

I don't have high hopes, though. I get the feeling they're going to lay blame on third party apps since, other than it occasionally deciding I'm clicking the fuck out of the remote a few dozen times a second no matter what app I'm using, that's where most of the issues present. I can't imagine every third party app has the exact same issues, though. But whatevs.

[Edited on April 21, 2015 at 5:18 PM. Reason : ]

4/21/2015 5:18:21 PM

No dice

And today I come home and the plex app no longer wants to connect to my plex server. Plex's fault or not, COME ON.

4/22/2015 9:55:57 PM

having worked with this device very intricately, you are much better served getting a firetv on sale than a fire stick, especially if you are using kodi or watching interlaced video.

if you want the top device out, go for the new shield console. it's $200 though. at that price, i'd rather have an intel NUC with windows and windows media center, like this
http://slickdeals.net/f/7793067-hp-stream-mini-desktop-celeron-2957u-2gb-ddr3-32gb-ssd-win-8-1-165-free-shipping

I have an intel nuc like that that I use as a dvr and media center with windows media center. the only shitty part is the windows media center is no one is building new plugins for new services like slingtv, but I just use the slingtv app


[Edited on April 22, 2015 at 10:40 PM. Reason : and use kodi on my firetv in my bedroom to connect to WMC]

4/22/2015 10:31:26 PM

Yeah I use it primarily for Netflix and Amazon Prime so it works perfectly. For any local content I still use XBMC on my htpc.

4/22/2015 11:57:39 PM

If I go the slingtv route at some point is the stick fine for that or should i look into the full firetv?

4/23/2015 3:42:16 PM

Roku seems to be the best IMO...especially when paired with Plex.

4/23/2015 9:54:00 PM

I've tried everything out there and the Roku is, by miles, my least favorite media streaming device. I just don't get why it's so popular. Any time somebody recommends it I just assume that that person simply hasn't tried any other device.

But then again, I can't fucking stand Plex either. Supposedly Roku does have the best front end for that, so I guess if you use it, your view could be swayed by that. Don't know why you wouldn't rather use Kodi though.

4/29/2015 2:24:46 PM

Does Plex on Roku stream surround from MVK files? Currently why I'm not using Plex on the Fire Stick/TV. It only streams stereo. It's fine for traveling as I rarely have a surround sound system at a hotel and at home I just useX XBMC.

4/29/2015 2:31:28 PM

The 3:2 pulldown and jitter on this thing is bugging the hell out of me. Apparently no streaming devices can output 24p correctly and they all stutter. At least from what I'm seeing online. I see the same thing on Rokus, Apple TVs, etc. None of them can smoothly play a movie or TV show. Kind of frustrating.

5/31/2015 3:54:27 PM

first time use - working great. watchin state lose in hi def!

5/31/2015 9:25:33 PM

yep, we had mine at the lake all weekend watching nothing but college baseball via watch ESPN. sometimes the WatchESPN app is frustrating, but for the most part it worked without issue.

6/1/2015 8:20:56 AM

off topic as hell, but I'm a child.

While I was finding more reasons to think this thing is a piece of shit (attempting to miracast) I noticed my phone picked up two nearby roku's to cast to. What sort of gross shit should I continuously cast to these things to fuck with my neighbors?

6/14/2015 12:58:36 AM

anyone having problems with Netflix on their FireTV stick? mine keeps playing a Sense8 ad before everything i watch. Except it's only the audio, and then every couple times the entire thing will crash. Just started yesterday but did it all night.

6/30/2015 1:46:02 PM

Netflix on ours has been really really choppy recently. A restart fixed it. Wondering if it's just a resource constraint or something. I need to run the USB cable to the TV so it power cycles every time I turn the TV off and on instead of having it on all the time.

6/30/2015 1:50:58 PM

Yeah my netflix and hulu have been really choppy and laggy...not sure if its the internet or the stick itself.

6/30/2015 3:36:58 PM

^^i have mine plugged into an outlet, but i put it on Sleep mode each night before i turn the TV off.

6/30/2015 3:41:41 PM

My Netflix has been fine.

6/30/2015 4:11:19 PM

^^Yeah I'm not sure if sleep mode would remedy it. And you have to manually put it to sleep each time?

6/30/2015 4:20:41 PM

i'm not sure if goes to sleep on it's own or not. Placebo effect, but i feel like it doesn't get as laggy during the next use if i put it to sleep. And all that is is holding the home button down for a couple seconds, so not a big deal.

6/30/2015 5:14:14 PM

It goes to sleep on it's own.

6/30/2015 5:46:19 PM

Anyone familiar with putting Kodi(sp?) on these by unlocking them?

guy claims he can watch any movie via amazon fire stick....anyone?

2/17/2016 8:03:54 PM

I just side loaded the Kodi app and all that goes with it.

BEST thing i could have done. I now have access to about any channel, movie or station in the world.


I recommend it. it's all done via wifi too so no need to hook up the stick to your pc

2/17/2016 8:48:21 PM

Quote :

"I now have access to about any channel, movie or station in the world."

What does this mean?

2/17/2016 9:13:51 PM

Quote :

"IN THE WORLD"

2/17/2016 10:18:11 PM

i mean from my TV fire stick alone. I'm sure I can do that sort of thing via PC and hdmi etc...but I mean without having to do anything other than use my remote and stick in my tv.

2/18/2016 1:37:56 AM

You're still not making any sense. What's your source for everything in the world? Do you simply mean you can now run Kodi and play downloaded content? You could already do that with Plex. I still prefer my HTPC for Kodi and the Fire Stick for everything else although if the process is easy I guess I could give it a shot. The issue I had with Plex was it didn't support surround sound (DD, DTS, etc) from .mkv files so that was a nogo.

2/18/2016 12:10:08 PM

Kodi has some third-party addons that make pirating media frictionless.

2/18/2016 1:50:29 PM

exodus is nice, now that they updated the search bug

2/26/2016 3:45:54 PM

went to Best Buy to try and buy one, was fresh out of stock. Amazon is on back order too.

2/28/2016 9:59:36 AM

did you try amazon now?

2/28/2016 3:28:31 PM

yea, says In Stock on March 4th.

I currently have sling and plan on keeping sling. So my initial plan was to sign up for a new sling account to get the $50 promo, and use that to buy a Fire Stick (to use with Kodi, and while traveling. I have a Roku 3 for Sling at home). It looks like you can sign up for the promo in store, and then order the stick online from Best Buy, so I might do that.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/clp/sling-tv-promotion/pcmcat748300349642.c?id=pcmcat748300349642

Since the Fire Stick is only $40, I wonder if it'd take $50 off of 2 Fire Sticks (my brother wants one too).

2/29/2016 4:27:59 PM

keep in mind that you can't use these devices on most hotel wifi

2/29/2016 7:34:37 PM

you can if you sideload a browser, the same way you'd sideload kodi

2/29/2016 10:49:45 PM

^Thanks for the heads up. When I said traveling, what I really meant my gf's family beach house which has wifi but not netflix that we hit up alot over the summer. I currently bring a chromecast, but a remote and kodi would be nice.

3/1/2016 8:00:57 AM

Anyone have any luck sideloading Vudu?

I got it loaded, but then I couldn't log in because of the lack of a touch interface.

I tried using the Remote Mouse app, but didn't have any luck using it in place of the touch interface.

I'm going to try to pair a bluetooth mouse with my Fire TV tonight; maybe I'll have better luck with an actual mouse ...

Regardless, Amazon needs to pull its head out of its ass and allow some sort of Ultraviolet-compatible apps into their ecosystem.

[Edited on April 19, 2016 at 4:55 PM. Reason : clarification]

4/19/2016 4:55:18 PM

UPDATE: I was able to get signed in to Vudu with the help of a wireless mouse. The latest version that will install successfully is 1.5.011, which sort of blow. Version 4.0+ crashes on start up.

There's no pause functionality -- you have to back out to the main Vudu movie selection screen to stop playback, and reselect the movie to resume. There is no fast-forward or rewind without using the mouse, and the menu navigation is less than ideal use the Fire TV remote.

The playback quality is decent, but I don't think it's HDX. Maybe HD, definitely not SD.

BUT! At least my Ultraviolet collection is accessible on Fire TV now. Suck it Amazon.

[Edited on April 19, 2016 at 7:16 PM. Reason : ]

4/19/2016 7:11:40 PM

So do you need a VPN for Kodi?

11/25/2016 4:04:28 PM

no


fyi these are on sale for 29.99 - not sure for how long.

11/25/2016 5:46:28 PM

Only limited to a quantity of 1 thru Amazon, though I suppose w/ a Prime membership you could get more?

Can get a max of 2 with Best Buy, dunno about other sites/stores.

11/27/2016 11:14:36 AM

2 max with amazon even with prime.

I went to target and best buy in knightdale today and they were old sold out.

Let me know if anyone finds more for 29.99

11/27/2016 2:06:44 PM

Got my GF one over black friday.

The voice remote is pretty good, wish mine had it.

The actual dongle itself is larger though, makes it hard to plug into HDMI ports. Thankfully amazon throws in that extension.

11/28/2016 1:24:29 PM

FYI, The new sticks actually allow you to plug in usb devices if you buy a micro-usb->usb adapter. Even hubs. So you can use things like ethernet adaptors, and flash drives, mice and keyboards, and usb controllers. At this point I don't even know why you would need to buy a full sized Fire TV unless you need 4k.

11/28/2016 7:34:56 PM

im loading kodi on a few of these and selling/xmas presents to folks.

So far the following places i've seen selling these (at a limit of usually 2)
best buy
staples
target
bphotovideo

11/29/2016 8:31:05 AM

my fire stick is so slow.

11/29/2016 2:07:52 PM

bttt.

I still use the old fire stick in my bedroom. It's still so slow. However, i took it out of town this weekend and was using it on a TV where I was staying. It booted up and ran great. Very little lag in browsing through apps, quick to load netflix and quick to enter/exit apps. It was setup the exact same as I have it in my bedroom at home: plugged into power outlet and directly into HDMI port. Has anyone experienced any performance differences in their units from one TV to another? Got me wondering if the TV itself could have a negative impact.


Internet connection at home is actually much better than where i was staying too.

5/30/2018 3:54:31 PM