7 ms·

Amazon Fire TV is terrible. I bought one and I'd love to switch to Chromecast. It's so slow and limited. In the current state it's a meaningless product

amorphid 8y ago
Re: Chromecast, I found it to be buffering a lot of video. One thing that helped was buying a wired Ethernet adapter for it, and plugging it directly into my network. That made the Chromecast much more usable for me.
dahdum 8y ago
I threw mine away after struggling with it for a week. I should have known when Amazon booted Chromecast out of their store, they knew they couldn’t compete. Roku stick is a pretty solid option, with the remote it’s handy for travel / hotel rooms.
- andybak 8y ago
  I'm still waiting for a hotel room where the TV isn't a postage stamp 3 miles from the bed.
  - dagw 8y ago
    What kind of fancy high end hotels are you staying at. At 90% of the hotels I've stayed at everything is right next to the bed.
otp124 8y ago
Sounds defective -- I've had the opposite experience. Try sending it back for a replacement, or upgrade to the latest. I've used ~7 different smart devices for my TV, and the FireTV is my favorite (I'm using the FireTV stick with the Alexa remote).
chrisper 8y ago
Why not switch to Android TV like Nvidia Shield?
- scarface74 8y ago
  And Nvidia Shield is about the only device that has the horsepower to run a native Plex server that can transcode. None of the other standalone solutions handle transcoding well.
manojlds 8y ago
The remote is the worst I have seen. Stops working randomly.l and drains battery.
- wavesplash 8y ago
  Sounds defective. I've got 6 of them and I replace batteries once every 9-12 months or so.
baddox 8y ago
I just picked up a Chromecast (I got the Ultra). On one hand, I like the phone controls for the convenience of queueing up some random YouTube videos while I’m lounging around the apartment or doing chores. On the other hand, the phone-only controls can be inconvenient for more attentive viewing (like a movie or TV show) because all actions require unlocking my phone and opening the app that’s casting the video. This is particularly inconvenient when I receive a phone call, since there’s no way to quickly pause.
- bhouston 8y ago
  Google Home allows you to turn on, off the TV, pause, rewind, fast forward, and play from Youtube, Netflix, but not Plex. Also change the settings on your phone to be unlocked automatically inside your house.
- mseebach 8y ago
  The pause and other playback control buttons on my TV remote works with the Chromecast. It somehow gets passed on through the HDMI port.
  - isaack 8y ago
    You should thank HDMI CEC [1] for that. [1] https://support.google.com/chromecast/answer/7199917 https://support.google.com/chromecast/answer/7199917
    - bebna 8y ago
      U must be my soul buddy...
  - bebna 8y ago
    It is HDMI CEC channel (existing since 1.1) that allows the TV to control its source. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Electronics_Control https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Electronics_Control
  - baddox 8y ago
EddieSpeaks 8y ago
Get a Windows compute stick if you care that much about freedom. I have it, never need anything else
wavesplash 8y ago
If you bought a 1st Gen Firestick, those are sluggish. The FireTV square box are very snappy (I have 4 1st Gen FireTVs that are still super responsive). I also have a Chromecast and the Chromecast never gets used since the FireTVs are so good - and lets be honest, the Chromecast is much more limited feature wise.
- bartread 8y ago
  I guess I'm not the target market for them because I don't see the point of any of these things. I have a PS4 Pro, which provides for all my entertainment needs, including Amazon Video, Netflix, iPlayer, YouTube, and whatever else, and seems to sidestep all the annoyances and limitations. Snappy UI? Check. 4K video? Check. Frequent upgrades and ongoing support? Check. Storage, if you need it? Check. I suppose there's a pretty large market of people who don't have current gen consoles hooked up to their TVs for whom these kinds of peripherals are more appealing.
  - crystaln 8y ago
    Yes there is a large market of people who don't have video game consoles hooked up to their displays.
    - noir_lord 8y ago
      I bought my mum a roku (she's disabled so she spends a lot of time watching TV/movies and on the Internet) and it seriously improved her life, prior to that she only had UK digital and catch up services but now with Netflix/Amazon prime and BBC iPlayer she has more high quality TV that suits her taste than she can watch. She's also seriously addicted to Netflix's Marvel offerings which I find somewhat hilarious.
      - Normal_gaussian 8y ago
        When you remove barriers surprising things happen. Being able to stream practically any genre of music with no added cost (ala spotify), watch all kinds of television through the same immediate interface (ala netflix), get decent guides into all kinds of hobbies (ala reddit) - people suddenly start branching out, because why not. The risks are removed and the options are clearly laid bare. I feel deeply that we should look to this for how to build societal infrastructure - tax, legal, health, finance - not just entertainment.
ekianjo 8y ago
> Amazon Fire TV is terrible. Yet Amazon keeps raving about how they are "consumer-obsessed". It's like they don't test their own devices.
- rbultje 8y ago
  It (sadly) has nothing to do with the device, this is (again, sadly) called marketing.
crystaln 8y ago
So switch to Chromecast. They are so cheap why even bother complaining here? I love my Fire TV. Great apps, and easy to add a bt keyboard and install Kodi for torrent streaming. I don't think you can do that with a Chromecast. Best media center I've ever had.
bspn 8y ago
The experience with a Chromecast is very different to Amazon Fire TV and it does not provide a native set-top experience. If that's what you're after, I'd recommend trying something like the Xiaomi Mi Box which runs stock Android TV and has a cleaner, more intuitive UI than the Amazon devices.
lsaferite 8y ago
I used them on all of my TVs until they started adding ads for things other than their tv shows and movies. Now I've switch to Roku and Nvidia Shield.
- scarface74 8y ago
  Switching to Roku to avoid ads - you might be disappointed.
madengr 8y ago
I bought one a few years ago, specifically to root and install Kodi. It’s been working fine since.
ajross 8y ago
> I'd love to switch to Chromecast A Chromecast is $35...
michaelcampbell 8y ago
<shrug> To each their own I guess; it's orders of magnitude better than my TV for running Plex, which is my #1 use case.
philjohn 8y ago
Eh, I have the opposite opinion. The latest one (voice remote with Alexa) is pretty damn snappy, it's got all the catch up services in the UK, as well as Netflix and Amazon Prime video. I've sideloaded Kodi to stream media from my SAN and it all just works.

amorphid 8y ago

Re: Chromecast, I found it to be buffering a lot of video. One thing that helped was buying a wired Ethernet adapter for it, and plugging it directly into my network. That made the Chromecast much more usable for me.

dahdum 8y ago

I threw mine away after struggling with it for a week. I should have known when Amazon booted Chromecast out of their store, they knew they couldn’t compete. Roku stick is a pretty solid option, with the remote it’s handy for travel / hotel rooms.

andybak 8y ago
I'm still waiting for a hotel room where the TV isn't a postage stamp 3 miles from the bed.
- dagw 8y ago
  What kind of fancy high end hotels are you staying at. At 90% of the hotels I've stayed at everything is right next to the bed.

otp124 8y ago

Sounds defective -- I've had the opposite experience. Try sending it back for a replacement, or upgrade to the latest. I've used ~7 different smart devices for my TV, and the FireTV is my favorite (I'm using the FireTV stick with the Alexa remote).

chrisper 8y ago

Why not switch to Android TV like Nvidia Shield?

scarface74 8y ago
And Nvidia Shield is about the only device that has the horsepower to run a native Plex server that can transcode. None of the other standalone solutions handle transcoding well.

manojlds 8y ago

The remote is the worst I have seen. Stops working randomly.l and drains battery.

wavesplash 8y ago
Sounds defective. I've got 6 of them and I replace batteries once every 9-12 months or so.

baddox 8y ago

I just picked up a Chromecast (I got the Ultra). On one hand, I like the phone controls for the convenience of queueing up some random YouTube videos while I’m lounging around the apartment or doing chores. On the other hand, the phone-only controls can be inconvenient for more attentive viewing (like a movie or TV show) because all actions require unlocking my phone and opening the app that’s casting the video. This is particularly inconvenient when I receive a phone call, since there’s no way to quickly pause.

bhouston 8y ago
Google Home allows you to turn on, off the TV, pause, rewind, fast forward, and play from Youtube, Netflix, but not Plex. Also change the settings on your phone to be unlocked automatically inside your house.
mseebach 8y ago
The pause and other playback control buttons on my TV remote works with the Chromecast. It somehow gets passed on through the HDMI port.
- isaack 8y ago
  You should thank HDMI CEC [1] for that. [1] https://support.google.com/chromecast/answer/7199917 https://support.google.com/chromecast/answer/7199917
  - bebna 8y ago
    U must be my soul buddy...
- bebna 8y ago
  It is HDMI CEC channel (existing since 1.1) that allows the TV to control its source. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Electronics_Control https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Electronics_Control
- baddox 8y ago

EddieSpeaks 8y ago

Get a Windows compute stick if you care that much about freedom. I have it, never need anything else

wavesplash 8y ago

If you bought a 1st Gen Firestick, those are sluggish. The FireTV square box are very snappy (I have 4 1st Gen FireTVs that are still super responsive). I also have a Chromecast and the Chromecast never gets used since the FireTVs are so good - and lets be honest, the Chromecast is much more limited feature wise.

bartread 8y ago
I guess I'm not the target market for them because I don't see the point of any of these things. I have a PS4 Pro, which provides for all my entertainment needs, including Amazon Video, Netflix, iPlayer, YouTube, and whatever else, and seems to sidestep all the annoyances and limitations. Snappy UI? Check. 4K video? Check. Frequent upgrades and ongoing support? Check. Storage, if you need it? Check. I suppose there's a pretty large market of people who don't have current gen consoles hooked up to their TVs for whom these kinds of peripherals are more appealing.
- crystaln 8y ago
  Yes there is a large market of people who don't have video game consoles hooked up to their displays.
  - noir_lord 8y ago
    I bought my mum a roku (she's disabled so she spends a lot of time watching TV/movies and on the Internet) and it seriously improved her life, prior to that she only had UK digital and catch up services but now with Netflix/Amazon prime and BBC iPlayer she has more high quality TV that suits her taste than she can watch. She's also seriously addicted to Netflix's Marvel offerings which I find somewhat hilarious.
    - Normal_gaussian 8y ago
      When you remove barriers surprising things happen. Being able to stream practically any genre of music with no added cost (ala spotify), watch all kinds of television through the same immediate interface (ala netflix), get decent guides into all kinds of hobbies (ala reddit) - people suddenly start branching out, because why not. The risks are removed and the options are clearly laid bare. I feel deeply that we should look to this for how to build societal infrastructure - tax, legal, health, finance - not just entertainment.

ekianjo 8y ago

> Amazon Fire TV is terrible. Yet Amazon keeps raving about how they are "consumer-obsessed". It's like they don't test their own devices.

rbultje 8y ago
It (sadly) has nothing to do with the device, this is (again, sadly) called marketing.

crystaln 8y ago

So switch to Chromecast. They are so cheap why even bother complaining here? I love my Fire TV. Great apps, and easy to add a bt keyboard and install Kodi for torrent streaming. I don't think you can do that with a Chromecast. Best media center I've ever had.

bspn 8y ago

The experience with a Chromecast is very different to Amazon Fire TV and it does not provide a native set-top experience. If that's what you're after, I'd recommend trying something like the Xiaomi Mi Box which runs stock Android TV and has a cleaner, more intuitive UI than the Amazon devices.

lsaferite 8y ago

I used them on all of my TVs until they started adding ads for things other than their tv shows and movies. Now I've switch to Roku and Nvidia Shield.

scarface74 8y ago
Switching to Roku to avoid ads - you might be disappointed.

madengr 8y ago

I bought one a few years ago, specifically to root and install Kodi. It’s been working fine since.

ajross 8y ago

> I'd love to switch to Chromecast A Chromecast is $35...

michaelcampbell 8y ago

<shrug> To each their own I guess; it's orders of magnitude better than my TV for running Plex, which is my #1 use case.

philjohn 8y ago

Eh, I have the opposite opinion. The latest one (voice remote with Alexa) is pretty damn snappy, it's got all the catch up services in the UK, as well as Netflix and Amazon Prime video. I've sideloaded Kodi to stream media from my SAN and it all just works.