Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote includes TV controls and HD streaming device

I purchased this because i have a hacker next door. I purchased an amazon lite from him about 2 years ago. Along with the device which at the time i had no knowledge of. While so called installing, he for some reason also took pictures of my router. And the tv he was trying to install on. As he was saying was not working correctly. He took everything next door. An hour later he walks in the door with a different tv and plenty of excuses. The tv he said i could purchase from him for a 100.00. I paid for the tv and thought everything was great. I don’t have an alexa, but he did. While over there for a visit his girlfriend said that their tvs were hooked up to it. She also stated that the tv that i now had was also hooked up to it. At the time, i thought nothing of it but kept it in the back of my mind. One night i forgot to shut off everything. I turned the internet off but not my tv device hooked to the tv that i bought from them. I did not turn my tv on yet, but yet i heard a person talking to children. I quietly walked over to my tv and heard it coming through it. It was them next door. I was hearing everything. So that meant they could hear me too, i googled for information and there it said that it is possible for hackers to not only hack voices with the alexa but could also see what i was doing through the tv lens. I could not afford to purchase another tv and was not sure about the amazon device that i purchased from him. It turns out he had all his devices and my tv on my internet. I did call the cable company. They fixed that situation. So, i purchased the new device and did the installment myself. Not hard like my neighbor was lying about. Because of the new device, it was installed on my internet. I also have 2 step verification now and passwords for everything. Because my new device programed on my internet and amazon helped me with all new passwords not only my tv but my account also. So, if you have hackers this device might help you because installing it programs everything new.

Was having connection problem with an xfinity digital adapter in a bedroom. Tech support could confirm signal was reaching the device but nothing i could do could bring picture or sound to the connected tv.

My choices were to schedule an on-site service call and probably get the device swapped out (not convenient, because we don’t live there). Or, at tech support’s suggestion, switch to a streaming device that supports the xfinity stream app, turn in the digital adapter that i’ve been renting, and knock $8.50/month off my xfinity bill. No brainer.

Xfinity stream app brings the functionality of xfinity’s x1 cable box/dvr to an unconnected tv. The fire stick was the lowest priced xfinity stream capable streaming device with a remote that can also control the tv. I think it was even on sale the day i bought it.

Following the on-screen instructions, set-up was quick and easy. I was a little concerned for a while that i might have been caught in some kind of loop, because the fire stick needed to update three times. The first two updates brought me back to the same starting point. But the third update did finish the job. So if this happens to you, just stick with it.

It was easy enough to find where to download apps and i quickly added xfinity stream, which brings all my cable channels and a guide to the fire stick. I searched online for instructions on how to rearrange apps and that was easy enough to find and do.

The fire remote lacks a numeric keypad, so there’s not direct access to xfinity channels by number. But the guide scrolls ridiculously fast and i believe i can set favorites for quick access to the channels i watch most. Which, to tell the truth, is almost none on this tv that’s mostly for guests and occasional renters.

I’m not thrilled that the voice feature is alexa. I’m advising guests that if they don’t want alexa constantly listening to them in the bedroom, they should put the remote in a drawer. That’s where it’ll be when i’m there.

Upon getting the unit installation was very easy. I loved the fire tv stick, however we were a little heavy streamers than i thought and the apps we needed filled up the 5gb memory ( 5gb is the useable out or 8). So i decided to upgrade to a fire tv cube and because i was in my return window amazon was gracious enough to take my product i had already used and given me a full refund. I was like wow! Thank you amazon, they are really stand up folks. Now i am excited to get the cube which has double the memory and almost 4x more power on the processor but is a bit more expensive, however i understand you get what you pay for, plus it was my fault not knowing what i needed and went with reviews that said take the least expensive unit if you were not a heavy streamer…well it has to do with how many apps you have and the more apps the more cache it fills up and can cause your firestick to lock up when you try to zip around the menus. Anyrate, thanks amazon and look forward to getting the cube here in a few days. Ps a cool thing is since i set up all my apps and set up favorites and shows that took me hours to do, from the youtubes i looked at once you set up the cube it will recognize you had a firestick before and give you the option to restore, now thats worth it! So it should be plug and play and in about 10 minutes i will have my unit upgraded and all my apps, shows and everything just as i had left it!!!!!!!!! Another great feature. For you out there that has kids or wifes watching tv a good portion of the day the cube would be my recommendation. But if not and you find yourself where i did no worries amazon has your back! Thanks again amazon! After further thoughts i decided to keep the unit for the spare bedroom and a roving remote tv when we go on vacations so now i have two fire tvs

Easy to setup. I needed a hdmi to rca connector to plug it into my old tv, but that proved no problem. I was amazed at how much free stuff there is to stream. I ended my cable subscription and still have plenty to watch. Even if i eventually decided to buy 1 or 2 streaming services, i’ll still only be paying a fraction of what cable was costing me. The only issue i’ve had so far is sometimes it takes 20-30 seconds for a new program to load, but that is likely due to the speed of my internet. Once the shows start, they are totally delay free.

I have a good number of tvs around my house, most of them are fairly old. I use fire sticks on several of them because it’s a lot cheaper than upgrading to smart tvs for streaming. In some rooms i have tvs next to each other to watch two programs – mostly sporting events – at a time. I use hdmi splitters to choose which tv to watch cable on and have a fire stick on the other for streaming. I use the voice control, but probably not for everything it can do. And i like the fact that i can do most of the tv controlling through the fire stick remote, which it’s easy to pair up with the tv. Yes, i’m a fan of fire sticks.

I originally got this because i didn’t have a smart tv and wanted to watch ‘live’ tv. It didn’t take long to get used to how to use it and i like that i can add apps whenever i want. When we moved, we got a samsung smart tv. Since i misplaced my fire stick during the move, i decided to just use the smart tv features. I was surprised to find that i prefer the fire stick, how easy it is to peruse all of the live tv apps i have with the guide just going through each one without me having to switch apps. If i choose a show on an app that’s different from the one i was using, it switches over more quickly than the smart tv does. I will purchase a new one if i don’t find the one i have. I don’t use the voice controls or alexa so i don’t know how those work. The biggest drawback for me is how small the remote is, super easy to lose. I used electrical tape to attach a large yellow fake carnation to it and now i never lose it. In fact, i probably should have done the same to the fire stick as i know exactly where the remote is right now because of the flower lol.

Excellent! We got an lg tv, and found it confusing. We simply ordered this firestick and remote ( we have it for our other tv), and are in heaven. So easy now! It even synched with our other one during our 3 minute set up! So easy and perfect! We set up our tv around 3:00 pm. We went on amazon to find this product, and it was delivered the same day by 9:00 pm! No additional charge! We are in awe of this amazing product, and of amazon’s stellar service!

This is definitely an alternative to roku. I have mainly rokus in my house and this is my first firestick. I bought it for the voice recognition so i didn’t have to scroll through pages of guide pages. Why they don’t put a page scroll up and down function in the roku or firestick is just dumb. In any case, the one feature i like is their guide page will show all programming that you have signed up for. I don’t know if it’s a random thing or not, but the shortcuts on the remote does not have sling on it so i am forced to go to main firestick page to select it. I don’t know if you reprogram those buttons.

I have used in the past raspberry pis for the streaming of my htpc content. Due to the unavailability of pis i decided to try the firestick. Needless to say i ordered two more after seeing how seamlessly this product works. I am still able to listen to my streaming shows and movies in dolby digital.
I highly recommend this unit for all your streaming needs. The other big plus is the intuitive remote that allowed me to finally reduce to one remote per television/surround receiver set up.

We have been moving and didn’t try this fire stick out until now. It does not work at all and we are past the return window. Today i discovered that we actually got two instead of the one i ordered. We did not get the one i ordered, so when i reported that, amazon sent a replacement. The replacement arrived, and my husband put it on a tv. Later, the lost one arrived and my husband put it aside. I did not know it had arrived. He often doesn’t tell me when packages arrive; he just brings them in and opens them. So this is my fault. Amazon had blacklisted the unit i said i did not receive. My fault, not amazon’s.

Full disclosure: i am probably one of the least technologically savvy people in the continental united states. I cannot testify to any of the great advancements in this fire stick (even though i had one of the previous versions), i’m pretty sure it has a number of functions i can barely comprehend — much less utilize.

What i can do is give you a ‘complete idjit’s’ experience with this device. I like it but i don’t love it.

First off it is beyond easy to set this thing up. As stated i had a previous version (not sure which one – i’ve had it a couple of years) so everything was automatically transferred over to this one. Follow the prompts, push the right options, good to go in almost less time than it takes to talk about it.

Second, i have sort of an odd southwestern/southern/ozark-ish twang (long story, not important) combined with a slight speech impediment… It can sometimes be difficult for people to hear and understand me unless i speak very slowly. Not an issue here at all. This device understands what i’m saying better than my own mother! Seriously, alexa is great at ‘learning’ voice patterns and updating appropriately.

The tv control function is a nice addition and streaming quality is fine.

One big downside for me is that the configuration of the remote control itself seems completely counterintuitive to any other remote i’ve ever used. The buttons for prime video; netflix; disney +; and hulu are situated at the very bottom and i keep finding myself trying to use it while it’s upside down. I just don’t like that setup at all!

So, i like my new fire stick. I got it during prime days so the price was right. I don’t regret my purchase but if i had to do it over again… I would. It’s a nice little device that allows access to a plethora of entertainment, even if i’m not entirely sure of everything it actually does.

I am still not sure what i’m doing or what any charges are. But i had trouble getting this set up so i decided to scan the barcode. It said it was free but needed a cc. I should have stopped but no, i wanted to tv. The company this was through is in california and my cc immediately shut it down. I called my bank and they said the name and 2 different charges were what they commonly see in fraud. He said they can release it if i wanted but after that conversation i declined. Now i have to wait for a new cc in the mail. I don’t recommend scanning to set this up

I have several of these in my house, and an amazon recast to record shows over the air.
Pros:
-the best/easiest setup of any device ever! Plug it in, select a few options and the tv brand (no codes). For the first one you obviously have to fill in your wifi in the app (i can’t remember), but from the second on, it knows already.
-searching using your voice works 90% of the time
-easy to add streaming apps from the list.
Cons:
-designed to work well and not need support, but it does need support and it isn’t there. No manual, and very little online.
-confusing live menu and channel grid (sometimes the grid only shows streaming channels, even though all i want to see are my over-the-air network channels), which despite configured to my needs, reverts inexplicably.
-if you have a recast: alexa commands and connection to amazon recast could be better. Works 80% of the time, but requires rebooting to the point of having to unplug either or both every 3 months or so. You tell it to ‘skip 3 minutes’ to advance through commercials, like you always do, and it starts to say ‘i don’t know how to do that’, or ‘this is not a valid command’. The next day it works.

Ok i had my years with roku and they stopped supporting more and more channels since my tv is older. I only stream, haven’t had cable in 10 years. I only have prime, hulu, netflix and disney and they knocked me off 2 of those. I am still getting used to the firestick but like it and it’s features. I have yet to use their photo storing service but will probably try on the weekend. I think it’s a good proudct

The fire stick picture is great, but works better on a smart tv with just as much or higher resolution. I have a 32” tv in my living room and although the picture is somewhat good, the 55” in the bedroom shows so much better. I lost a lot of my apps that i had downloaded from my previous fire stick and from looking online some may cost now or may need a vpn. Also there are not as many shows or many old shows are showing up on the fire stick.

We have several fire tv sticks. This one replaces an older model with degraded performance: latency, voice cuts out. The new one is very responsive and works great. One gripe i have is no av (rca) output jacks (the standard for over 50 years) to enable recording/timeshifting programs and connectivity options with crt tvs. Older roku devices having av outputs still produce a beautiful sd picture that i can record to dvd or hdd.

Firstly, just fyi, another reviewer said that when you are watching, say, your cable tv on one hdmi port and and want to switch over to another hdmi to watch firestick, all you have to do is just only press ‘home’ on the firestick remote, and it will immediately take you to firestick on the other hdmi. This works. Prior to that i had been confused, pushing various buttons just to accomplish it.

Now for my hbo max story:
i’m a female, retired senior citizen. I have owned smart tv’s, roku boxes, and a smart blu-ray player for streaming services like netflix and prime, but nothing i currently own gets hbo max. Therefore, i bought this firestick just to get hbo max, which became a struggle, as follows if you’d like to read it.

I had wanted to view a series which was only available on the new hbo max originals streaming channel. I didn’t have any hbo subscription. However, my cable provider (verizon) was then offering a ‘deal’ for a subscription to the regular hbo movie channels, along with a new hbo max originals streaming channel. But, as my streaming device did not support hbo max, i bought this firestick, which does, priced at $24.99 in feb. 2022. But then, after hours and hours of chats with verizon and amazon to fix the problem, my firestick would simply not hook up to verizon’s streaming service.

Eventually, after these hours of frustrating chats, verizon informed me that they could not give connection service for any streaming devices unless i updated to a larger, more expensive channel line-up plan as well as purchase a new, high speed router for a few hundred dollars or rent it for $15/month, and in addition to that, a $100++ fee for a service visit to update my system to facilitate the new router. However, my old, self-purchased verizon router was still working, and doing everything i needed just fine, except getting me hbo max originals. Also, a few years ago when i tried one of verizon’s faster routers, the speed increase would not work well with my old laptop so i returned that router and just went on with my old equipment until now. But it won’t get me hbo max originals streaming.

As an alternative to all this, firestick was offering a $15/mo. Subscription to hbo max with hbo max originals streaming channel, using amazon instead of verizon as provider. So, i decided to just purchase that, and it hooked up right away just fine. I watched the whole series i had wanted to see, and then decided to cancel, as there was nothing else that plan seemed to offer but a few more ‘max originals’ along with a list of past hbo movies you can stream if you want to. I decided to stay with verizon’s hbo subscription instead, because i was enjoying the usual hbo live tv movie channels and didn’t want to give them up.

So, my ‘free deal’ from verizon for both hbo and the max originals streaming channel, for $15/month, never happened, with only the promise that the new, expensive router would work. Maybe i’m just not keepin’ up, but would rather save my money for now.

I have 4 tvs that i couldn’t get the streaming options i wanted. This fire tv stick solved that problem by giving access to a buffet of content. It wasn’t to hard to set up ( youtube helped a bit) and it worked without too much of a learning curve. The only thing that i miss, as compared to the dish network remote that i was accustomed to, was the slow motion feature and ability to display a paused screen with no symbols of the action being taken. But, seeing how i am saving around $75.00 a month for the things i liked to watch, it is a manageable sacrifice. I would also add that even though this is not a 4k ‘stick, the clarity of what i am accessing is quite impressive on practically all channels and content.

I rarely use alexa so i can’t really say about how good it works. It’s the continue watching that constantly piss me off. Some shows never show up on the list and a couple default to a certain episode. Although i do believe those shows are mostly from the app purchases in the prime app. I’ll never pay full price for paramount plus through prime the only way to find some shows search for the episode from your watch list. A lot of the reason i got it was for the tv control function so i only needed 1 remote. Other than that stuff i like very much.

This is a great way to stream and not deal with cable prices omg. I bought one for each tv in my house and i love it. The only problem i’ve had is my first one i bought died less than a year after i got it and i have no clue why? I was so disappointed i thought maybe it needed new batteries but that wasn’t the case. However the other two still work well so we will see but up to this point i’m happy minus the one