Amazon Fire TV Stick

http://www.amazon.com/firetvstick

by wuliwong • 12 years ago

35 25 12 years ago

wuliwong3• 12 years ago

With the $20 discount as a Prime member it only comes to $19. I decided to give it a try. I had actually been considering purchasing a Roku recently because my Chromecast doesn't work with my new Comcast router without some router adjustments. For $19, I'm ok with using this for Netflix rather than Chromecast and having to figure out how to setup my router to not use the 5ghz channel.

jcastro2• 12 years ago

The bummer is that the Netflix app for FireOS is old compared to what you get on other devices.

vhost-2• 12 years ago

Yeah, I really like the interface for Netflix on the Roku 3.

wuliwong3• 12 years ago

Ah, I obviously haven't tried it yet. I sure hope they have an update to the Netflix app soon.

bsilvereagle• 12 years ago

Has anyone ran the Amazon Fire TV/Chromecast through a proxy to see what sort of information is being sent back to Amazon/Google?

woobar• 12 years ago

Anyone knows what tech is used by included remote? BT or IR?

wuliwong3• 12 years ago

This has turned out to be far more difficult to find out than I would have guessed. I still don't know! They also sell an optional "voice controller", I would assume that uses the same tech. Maybe we can figure it out through those specs.

MattPearce• 12 years ago

I think we can safely assume it is bluetooth (as the streaming stick is usually behind the TV, out of line-of-sight.

Plus they need to use bluetooth for the voice controller anyway - good luck transmitting voice data over IR :)

cgarvis• 12 years ago

Could it be using the wifi to transmit the voice commands?

benologist• 12 years ago

If it's like the Fire TV remote it's bluetooth and the microphone's inside it.

vhost-2• 12 years ago

The Roku 3 uses Wi-fi direct: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi_Direct

I wonder if it's that or BT.

edderly• 12 years ago

Same as regular FireTV, bluetooth

kookiekrak• 12 years ago

Can you mirror a laptop to the tv using this?

shanselman• 12 years ago

It has been confirmed by Amazon to support Miracast, so that would make it the cheapest way to get Windows 8.1 wirelessly cast.

mcintyre1994• 12 years ago

"Fire TV stick cannot be powered directly by your HDTV and should be plugged into the wall"

That's really disappointing, I'd rather have less power and be able to power via the TV USB port like chromecast. Maybe even a dealbreaker, definitely broke my impulse buy for now.

anonymouse123• 12 years ago

I'm assuming it means it's the same as the Chromecast, i.e. it isn't powered from the HDMI port.

ripter• 12 years ago

Chromecast is typically powered by the USB port on the TV, not the wall. I'm not going to buy this if I need to plug it into the wall.

kapilkale• 12 years ago

$19 makes this an incredible impulse buy.

I recently lost my apple tv remote and buying a fire stick is more attractive than trying to figure out where to buy a new remote and how to set it up.

Steko• 12 years ago

If youve got an iPhone the remote app is way better than the actual remote for most things.

mercutio2• 12 years ago

You can program any IR remote (like, for instance, your TV remote) to act as your AppleTV remote. Much more convenient than using the provided-by-Apple remote.

Of course to teach the Apple TV you'll need a working remote or mobile app, so if you don't have any iOS devices you may be out of luck.

dang• 12 years ago

https://hn.algolia.com/?q=fire+stick#!/story/forever/0/fire%...

mamcx• 12 years ago

Ultra-cheap mini-server potential?

Amazon Fire TV Stick

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