Just purchased an Amazon Fire TV (2nd Gen) on sale for $85....have generally heard good things about them, especially if you're a Prime Subscriber. Anyone had any tips/tricks for having one?
OT: Amazon Fire TV
- Thread starter mt_slothmore
- Start date
The only down side to the amazon devices is that the interface is constantly pushing you to purchase something from them, so all the other things you can do with an android box are pushed toward the back menus. You can root it and install kodi on it, but most people aren't going to want to deal with that hassle.
The one cool thing that you can do is install the playstation vue app, which will let you subscribe to a package of TV channels like BTN etc for about $35 a month with no contract.
If you have an Xbox one controller, you can play android games on it.
The one cool thing that you can do is install the playstation vue app, which will let you subscribe to a package of TV channels like BTN etc for about $35 a month with no contract.
If you have an Xbox one controller, you can play android games on it.
I have many clients that ask me to do just that. I explain to them that it's not all that, but who am I to turn down $$ if they insist.
considering cutting cord and getting firestick w ps vue for b1g. i have cox internet - curious if anyone else has that arrangement and if it's a good alternative to cable.
We have had the Amazon Fire TV Stick for about a year and a half now I believe and we love it 95% of the time. Amazon Prime used to be $79 a year but the price went up to $99 a year.
Under $9 a month is much better than cable or satellite prices, but there is a catch...
Many apps are free to download, but are not free to watch without signing in under a username and password for a paid tv account (DirecTV, Dish, etc)... so one way or another you have to pay for it... unless you have friends or family that will break their contract (fine print stuff) and give you their info.
I have downloaded a few free apps to watch certain sporting events (NBA Finals, NCAA Tournament, Husker games, Olympics, ESPN, etc) and as long as you have decent internet/WiFi speed and a good connection, it is great.
My sport apps that I have used are NBC Sports, NCAA March Madness, WatchESPN, CBS Sports, and FOX Sports GO.
My wife watches Netflix, Lifetime, Showtime Anytime, NBC News, Starz, and History.
My kids like watch the Disney Junior, PBS Kids, and Disney Movies Anywhere apps and many different free games. My wife has a password et up for almost everything for my kids so she controls what they watch.
I have used the screen mirror function to watch sports and movies from my phone on our tv. I like it, but with my somewhat slow internet connection, it froze often.
Sometimes we have to unplug the Fire TV stick to get it to work when it freezes up, but we love having it.
I do not believe it is a replacement for cable or satellite though.
Under $9 a month is much better than cable or satellite prices, but there is a catch...
Many apps are free to download, but are not free to watch without signing in under a username and password for a paid tv account (DirecTV, Dish, etc)... so one way or another you have to pay for it... unless you have friends or family that will break their contract (fine print stuff) and give you their info.
I have downloaded a few free apps to watch certain sporting events (NBA Finals, NCAA Tournament, Husker games, Olympics, ESPN, etc) and as long as you have decent internet/WiFi speed and a good connection, it is great.
My sport apps that I have used are NBC Sports, NCAA March Madness, WatchESPN, CBS Sports, and FOX Sports GO.
My wife watches Netflix, Lifetime, Showtime Anytime, NBC News, Starz, and History.
My kids like watch the Disney Junior, PBS Kids, and Disney Movies Anywhere apps and many different free games. My wife has a password et up for almost everything for my kids so she controls what they watch.
I have used the screen mirror function to watch sports and movies from my phone on our tv. I like it, but with my somewhat slow internet connection, it froze often.
Sometimes we have to unplug the Fire TV stick to get it to work when it freezes up, but we love having it.
I do not believe it is a replacement for cable or satellite though.
From my general research, PS Vue works much better using the Fire TV vs the Fire Stick
The Stick is definitely not as good, which is shown not only in the price difference, but also on the specs.
I built a HTPC this January and it blows all the Amazon stuff away. I have it configured to boot straight to Kodi and use my cell phone as the remote control.
I wouldn't be surprised if the interface and such for Vue is much smoother on the box versus the stick, because the box has a better processor and such, but it's certainly not unusable on a Fire Stick.
I have a Fire Stick and recently did the 7 day free trial of PlayStation Vue. When first loading up, the interface was a little sluggish getting going, but once it was loaded it wasn't too bad. I'm sure the Fire TV would be smoother, but it wasn't terrible by any means on the Fire Stick.
As for wondering how well PS Vue would work for you? I would say the best thing to do would be just to try the free trial out. You can try it for 7 days, and if you're worried about canceling it when the trial is up if you decide you don't want it, don't. It is the most unbelievably easy service I have ever had the "pleasure" of canceling in my life. There is literally a button that says "Cancel Subscription" on your main page after logging in to your account, you click it and confirm you want to do that, and that's it. No calling and sitting through someone trying to convince you to stay. No need to e-mail or contact customer service, or anything. Even better, I cancelled mine the day before the trial was going to be over, because I didn't want to forget and get charged for it, and the subscription actually stayed active until the full 7 days were up.
Also, in saying I cancelled my subscription, don't think that it was because I didn't like it or was unsatisfied. I was just wanting to try it out before the season started, to make sure it would do the trick for me. Once I knew that, I cancelled it, but I am planning on signing back up once the season gets going, so I can access BTN and ESPN and such. Another really nice thing about Playstation Vue is that you get access to pretty much all the "Watch" apps and such for the channels you are subscribed to. This means, for Husker football purposes, you get BTN2Go and Watch ESPN, so you can even watch stuff on your phone when you're out and about. At least in the case of BTN stuff, there is also a PS Vue app for phones, so you can watch it on there too, but this way you have options. For ABC games, unless you live in one of the select larger cities, there is no live streaming of networks on PS Vue; however, you should still be able to watch any of those games through Watch ESPN.
FireTV makes a sweet plex client though.I built a HTPC this January and it blows all the Amazon stuff away. I have it configured to boot straight to Kodi and use my cell phone as the remote control.
I wish Sony would just release the Vue app for all Android systems. I'd sign up for it if I could just run it on my generic $30 android tv box. I'm def not buying an amazon fire box just to run the Vue app though.
i don't watch a lot of tv anymore, it just doesn't interest me, so would the stick be suitable to watch a game or two at most on the weekend?
I was just going to post an OT about this exact thing. Been doing a lot of research on cutting the cord with Cox cable TV and just seeing what the options were. It sounds like PS Vue is the best out there to keep some live TV and also get the games on BTN, ESPN, etc. If it wasn't for live sports, we would've cut the cord a long time ago. But not it seems feasible to be able to go with PS Vue and still get everything we need.
I wanted to see what others were doing for live tv streaming. I have a PS3 but no other device to stream on another TV. Was looking into the firestick vs the fire tv and also the roku. I am thinking the fire tv is the best way to go for the other TV. Am going to start my PS Vue trial tonight and see how it works with my internet. I may need to bump up my internet speed though. I am currently on the Essential package for Internet which only gets me 15Mbps download. PS Vue says you only need 10Mbps for one stream and 5 additional Mbps for additional streams. So I might have to bump the Internet up to the next level but that's not a big deal considering I will be saving about $100 when I drop cable TV all together! Currently paying nearly $200 per month for cable and Internet. It's getting ridiculous with all the fees and charges for the cable boxes, etc. I have no real complaints about the TV service other than we are not using it for what we are paying to have it.
I was just looking to get any input on what people are doing that no longer have cable and are using a streaming service to get live channels for games and what not. Thanks for what I have already read. Good information. I will keep the dialog going when I test out my Vue trial and see how some games look over the weekend. Thanks in advance and GBR!!!
I wanted to see what others were doing for live tv streaming. I have a PS3 but no other device to stream on another TV. Was looking into the firestick vs the fire tv and also the roku. I am thinking the fire tv is the best way to go for the other TV. Am going to start my PS Vue trial tonight and see how it works with my internet. I may need to bump up my internet speed though. I am currently on the Essential package for Internet which only gets me 15Mbps download. PS Vue says you only need 10Mbps for one stream and 5 additional Mbps for additional streams. So I might have to bump the Internet up to the next level but that's not a big deal considering I will be saving about $100 when I drop cable TV all together! Currently paying nearly $200 per month for cable and Internet. It's getting ridiculous with all the fees and charges for the cable boxes, etc. I have no real complaints about the TV service other than we are not using it for what we are paying to have it.
I was just looking to get any input on what people are doing that no longer have cable and are using a streaming service to get live channels for games and what not. Thanks for what I have already read. Good information. I will keep the dialog going when I test out my Vue trial and see how some games look over the weekend. Thanks in advance and GBR!!!
oh, very good! i will be waiting to hear your thoughts...i may wing it with the firestick to start. i too pay cox an exhorbitant amount that i am no longer willing to do.
Yes, if you have decent internet speed and are willing to watch whatever games are on.
Unfortunately, unless you already pay for tv (or can sign in under someone else's paid tv subscription) then you can't use most of the watch tv apps.
I like the watch espn app to watch games that were already played.
There is no B1G network app for it.
Personally, I would recommend it for the wife and kids (movies, kids cartoons) more than someone that wants it for sports.
I am not 100% sure on how the sling player app works and if you can pay a small fee to be able to watch espn or fox sports.
If you have no other method of watching tv, go for it. My wife was already an amazon prime member.
I watch my sports apps by entering a username and password for a tv provider. Without being able to do it this way, I wouldn't use the fire stick much since I don't care to ever watch tv, except for sports.
I love watching PlayStation Vue on my Amazon Fire TV. It's got all the stations you need for the college football season and I get all the local channels using an indoor antennae. I will agree with above too, the Fire Stick is not nearly as smooth running (specifically) the PlayStation Vue app as is the Fire TV or gaming Fire TV. I've also downloaded the PlayStation Vue app onto my Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 12.2" tablet and use it as a second game viewing screen. I dropped Cox Cable a couple of months ago and couldn't be happier. I've downloaded Kodi on the Fire TV and it works flawlessly, too.
definitely plan to upgrade speed. my wife has prime, but we have apple.tv - so no ps vue. my understanding is ps vue has a ~$40/mo plan that i could drop after college football season. appreciate the info.
good info!
what does kodi allow you to do beyond fire or other streaming devices?
As the commercial say, "It's what you do." Check out my new $400 computer case. It will house my new home server project. Stay tuned!
Absolutely, you are not locked into a commitment with the PlayStation Vue, other than the month you are paying for. I plan on dropping it as soon as the college football season is over with. Yes, the $40/month subscription will be all you need for the college football season. The upper tier package doesn't provide any more channels that would be beneficial in this situation.
Kodi is SO much more than what the actual streaming devices provide. It's a source for new movies, tv shows, live streaming, etc. I would do a search on YouTube for "Kodi" and you will see what it's all about. It is pretty awesome. Takes a little while to figure out the set up and navigating through the menus, but there are tons of tutorials on YouTube that will help with that, as well.
Just got the FireTV hooked up last night and count me as satisfied...mooched my old man's dish network login so I can get Fox Sports Go and History Channel...mix that with PS Vue & Netflix and I am a happy camper...I even had a co-worker tell me I can borrow their Directv login for the Sunday Ticket app! And for full disclosure, I am planning on getting each person I "borrow" a login in from, a gift card to Buffalo Wild Wings