FireTV Stick

Something was fucked up with my stick and account. I had to get through 3 levels of customer support and finally had to talk with the people who I assume are actually sitting there looking at the logs. What I'm guessing is the stick sent to me's serial# was in some weird limbo state where it wasn't allowed to be used.

I'm having new ones sent out, now in addition to my WIFI problems, I cannot even get into Netflix. And the Amazon Prime Video UI frankly sucks for kids.

Do you have a tablet to use voice search? I found that alright. I could see how the UI would be difficult to use for children though since it is so much scrolling.

Ok does anyone know if you can redirect the sound output of the firestick to bluetooth headphones? I'm thinking of setting this up in the kitchen for the wife with like an under cabinet TV thing on a small 15inch and I figure she can put on some headphones if she wants to make sure she can hear over other noises but I'm not sure how that will work.

I have never used a bluetooth headset with a TV but I haven't seen any settings on my Fire stick that gave the impression you could do that. I guess you could if the BT sound is routed through the TV itself?

Yea, for $20 the wife was initially questioning it, now with $20 + $5 spent on the Plex app she's dying to get extras next time they do a similar sale.

Denamian_sl said:

Only downside to it is the lack of youtube, google movies and no support for android screen casting. If those aren't a concern it's a no brainer. I have yet to try Plex on it, I'll have to see how well it handles higher quality videos.

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And on Android "casting" look up the free app "AllCast" for it. (Which indirectly takes care of Google Movies)

The twitch app was sharting the bed hard for me last night. Everytime I tried to filter by game it would just crash.

Chanur_sl said:

So how does this compare to a Chromecast?

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So far I like it better. I like having an actual interface rather than just going to the Plex app on my phone and casting shit. Considering 99% of my Chromecast use was Netflix and Plex, that seals the deal for me. It also has Spotify, which I have not used but apparently youhave to control it from your phone which is no bueno but oh well, and Amazon Prime Video which is awesome.

dbl

chaos_sl said:

So far I like it better. I like having an actual interface rather than just going to the Plex app on my phone and casting shit.

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My friend keeps trying to convince me that the Chromecast is betterbecauseyou interface on the phone. I don't get it, I prefer the Fire stick.

I don't have a Chromecast to compare to but considering how hitchless it's been versus tons of people commenting on the difficulties for less tech saavy people to use Chromecast, it seems way better to me. Sure, I'd probably use a Chromecast fine - but my wife without assistance handles the Fire Stick without breaking a sweat, but I'm sure if she'd have specific hoops to run through to do the Chromecast she'd end up never touching it.

New ones came, at first they were perfectly fine. Overnight still having WIFI issues. Taught my kids how to hold down the buttons to restart it, and hoping that is enough.

As for the UI, it's really rough, just like the Amazon Prime app on Roku.

Netflix is really the best set-up, both kids have profiles with their own shows and everything is basically in the first two or three rows.

Yeah the interface could use some polish, for sure. But my frame of comparison is the Chromecast, which has zero interface. To me, it is a step in the right direction. The next one of these stick devices I think will really knock it out of the park. We're really close to the ideal device for me, though.