Is your Amazon Fire TV stick...garbage?

[Phynaz]

Love mine, no issues streaming with it.

Since this post I've given up on the stick devices. Bought a Roku 3 and gave them all away.

The sticks are just too under powered.

 

[JeffMD]

I bought an amazon stick in attempt to get a better plex experience over my chromecast. There was something about having the whole remote control UI driven interface on the tv that I really liked. Unfortunately in the end it was plex that was flawed.

And yea the whole reason plex broke down was because transcoding was required because these sticks are underpowered. And that is understandable, as long as you stay in the realm of their purpose they work perfect. Online streaming services? Your golden! Asking it to play your library of offline movies you downloaded and are in several formats? Not so much.

I like my amazon but it sits in its box now. Hopefully I can give it a good home.

 

[Voxata]

What do you mean Jeff? I use Cromecast with Plex, no issues. However, my setup is like this :

G3258 MicroPC Ethernet - Plex host/transcoder
NAS Ethernet

Chromecasts around the house

A+ experience

 

[smitbret]

I bought an amazon stick in attempt to get a better plex experience over my chromecast. There was something about having the whole remote control UI driven interface on the tv that I really liked. Unfortunately in the end it was plex that was flawed.

And yea the whole reason plex broke down was because transcoding was required because these sticks are underpowered. And that is understandable, as long as you stay in the realm of their purpose they work perfect. Online streaming services? Your golden! Asking it to play your library of offline movies you downloaded and are in several formats? Not so much.

I like my amazon but it sits in its box now. Hopefully I can give it a good home.

It's not your sticks that are underpowered or Plex that's broken, your server needs an upgrade.

 

[JeffMD]

Nah, my issue was that when plex transcodes, it will not go higher than the original bitrate. Most of my stuff is anime that is well encoded for low bitrates. So when plex re-encodes for my devices it is using a fast streaming profile at the same low bitrate which results in a quality hit. Heck, what made me drop the Chromecast is I had an entire series that was so low bitrate the transcode dropped the resolution from 720p to 480p. There was no way to tell it not to.

 

[MrSquished]

I have had a Roku 3 for a couple years now. Picked up a firestick the other month as per my gf's request so we could use Kodi. We use the stick for Kodi and Netflix and I don't see any slowness or quality issues with either service on the stick. I was expecting to though.

 

[Ichinisan]

I have had a Roku 3 for a couple years now. Picked up a firestick the other month as per my gf's request so we could use Kodi. We use the stick for Kodi and Netflix and I don't see any slowness or quality issues with either service on the stick. I was expecting to though.

Well their newer stick is over a year old now. Aside from user experience issues due to UI design, it doesn't really have a major hardware/performance flaw as far as I know.

 

[daveybrat]

I just replaced my older Roku 3 and the Roku Streaming Stick (2016) with 2 new Roku Streaming Sticks (2017) for $39 each on Amazon.

They are just as fast if not faster than my older 2, and the biggest thing is the new remote is awesome. Voice controlled and it has a power button and volume buttons for my tv. I couldn't stand having to toggle between the Roku and TV remote to change channels and volume.

My parents have the old Amazon Fire Stick. I'm buying them the same new Roku Streaming Stick for Christmas. Their Fire Stick is kind of pokey and i know they'll like the volume buttons on the remote.

 

[bfun_x1]

I got the Streaming Stick+ to use in my basement where the both the Nexus and Fire Stick had been failing. It works perfectly. Roku moved the antenna to the cord and I guess that makes a huge difference.

 

[taisingera]

Yes, especially since they don't play Youtube anymore, if you are into that. Thanks Google >(

 

[zerogear]

Yes, especially since they don't play Youtube anymore, if you are into that. Thanks Google >(

Retaliation for Amazon not carrying Google devices , lol

 

[Ed Anger Jr]

My Amazon firetv stick and remote are both redacted! Now for those of too young to remember, I'd like to tell you a short story of how things were when I was a youngster, Paleolithic Era. TV was very large pieces of furniture which rested on the floor and almost never moved. They were built in the USA in things called factories, where men and women (or Ladies, as they were called). All television was broadcast with an analog system, the signal was received by an antenna usually attached to the roof. There was a box on top with a dial that rotated the antenna to get the best reception depending on where the transmitting station was. Only father's were permitted to perform this task, if he was not home, whichever kid won the fight. Our TV was a Zenith 27" that lasted over 25!!!YES 25 YEARS!!.When it did go the fritz, rarely, a TV repairman in only a few minutes for a nominal fee. Additionally, it had amazing color, early Color TV broadcasts were in extraordinary bright,vibrant colors, watch an episode of the original star trek. A little bit much today but compared to b&w,it was WOW! Invite the neighbors over.
Enough, glorious nostalgia; fast forward to 2018, I'm grown up , I have a wife & every year I but a new flat screen and extra remote to replace to the "what's pride in your work?" Chinese garbage I boughjugge previous year. This is a redacted state of affairs for the USA to be in. The phony 25,000 plus stock market is money a mirage. Where are the American Factory's churning out exports? They don't exist. Awake from your slumber there is a tsunami heading our way.

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[bbhaag]

My Amazon firetv stick and remote are both redacted! Now for those of too young to remember, I'd like to tell you a short story of how things were when I was a youngster, Paleolithic Era. TV was very large pieces of furniture which rested on the floor and almost never moved. They were built in the USA in things called factories, where men and women (or Ladies, as they were called). All television was broadcast with an analog system, the signal was received by an antenna usually attached to the roof. There was a box on top with a dial that rotated the antenna to get the best reception depending on where the transmitting station was. Only father's were permitted to perform this task, if he was not home, whichever kid won the fight. Our TV was a Zenith 27" that lasted over 25!!!YES 25 YEARS!!.When it did go the fritz, rarely, a TV repairman in only a few minutes for a nominal fee. Additionally, it had amazing color, early Color TV broadcasts were in extraordinary bright,vibrant colors, watch an episode of the original star trek. A little bit much today but compared to b&w,it was WOW! Invite the neighbors over.
Enough, glorious nostalgia; fast forward to 2018, I'm grown up , I have a wife & every year I but a new flat screen and extra remote to replace to the "what's pride in your work?" Chinese garbage I boughjugge previous year. This is a redacted state of affairs for the USA to be in. The phony 25,000 plus stock market is money a mirage. Where are the American Factory's churning out exports? They don't exist. Awake from your slumber there is a tsunami heading our way.

Hey old man river. It ain't 1963 anymore and "the Zenith that rested on the floor" that you're pining over because of some nostalgia from your youth are relics of an era long gone. Whats next? You gonna wax on about how they don't make peddle cars like they used to or how the "american dream is dead"....please.
Get real man. It's a tired rant and posting in a three month old thread on an obscure tech forum ain't gonna change a damn thing.

 

[tsupersonic]

I have a first gen Fire TV, and sometimes it's just unbearably slow. The Netflix app decides to error out every time I want to use the FTV, and I have to reset the Netflix app, sign back in, and then it works. I've resorted to using my Xbox One for my media purposes now.

 

[ibex333]

Any issues with your Firestick have to do with your garbage Router, or the distance between router and Firestick.

Mine works great overall. The only problem is it will freeze on a rare occasion and I have to pull the power to reset it, but that is RARE. Another rarity is when this thing will forget my network settings and I have to do it all over again. But that's like once or twice a year maybe.

Also, it can be slow when switching menus and such, but come on... That's like an extra 5 seconds of waiting here and there. Not annoying enough to call it a bad device. It really isnt that big a deal considering the price.

Overall, a Firestick is a great value for what it is, especially Firestick 2. I have the 1st gen, and not only can it stream movies, but it can also emulate SNES, SEGA, etc.
Amazing value for only $25.

I usually don't have any issues with buffering or anything like that. I watch Hulu, Amazon Prime and Netflix.

 

[Dulanic]

These are the devices I've owned and my opinion of them.

1. Roku Express - Seems OK for basic usage, I gave it to my dad for Netflix and he likes it. No big complaints.
2. Roku 4 - So this gets the most use in my home. I guess it's because it was the 1st 4K device I had and I don't feel like changing it out. But also, it has a lot of options. I primarily use Plex, Netflix, Prime Video, HBO Go and no major issues. Occasional reboot randomly, but pretty rare. No HDR support, but that's OK for me for now.
3. AFTV Stick - For a basic streaming device, it's decent. But it does have a few issues, occasional lag, no ethernet but can be added, no HDR support, No 4K. For a basic streaming device it works and works pretty well.
4. AFTV (Gen 2) - One of the better options, too bad they don't still make it. It has SD support, HDMI, but no HDR. I wish they made the new gen like this thing. Had a USB port to use for external storage
5. AFTV 4K - So I am so torn here. There is a decent device, but amazon dropped the ball in a lot of ways. They removed the ethernet and basically made it a amazon fire 4K dongle vs a actual fire tv. The HDMI is also kind of akward as it's short also. This should have and could had been so much better than it is.
6. Chromecast - I won't go into detail, but I had the 1st gen and never use it. Total POS. Wifi sucks, it stutters, it's just a hassle to use. Haven't use the newer ones and don't really want to because I don't want to tie my video to my phone or other device. I guess the new one isn't bad, but I can't see myself wanting to use it. I want to standalone device that doesn't need other devices.

 

[Ichinisan]

Any issues with your Firestick have to do with your garbage Router, or the distance between router and Firestick.

Absolutely not. I'm a network guy and the problems I described could not be attributed to the router or range. I used multiple high-quality routers. Some first-gen Amazon Fire TV Stick devices were simply garbage. The problem with the remote control misinterpreting skips as rewind/fast-forward was absolutely infuriating.

 

[rchunter]

Trying to use wifi to stream movies (especially blu-ray rips) is just asking for trouble. Hard wired ethernet all the way.
I have Vero 4k and Roku ultra all hard wired and I never have any problems whatsoever.

 

[ElFenix]

i have an OG fire stick and it is garbage. UI is slow, often unresponsive, goes into hitching fests, etc. it wasn't this way when it came out of the box, amazon's software is just too much for the hardware. my parents' OG firetv is much faster.

i should probably hop on the directv appletv deal before that goes away (missed the boa deal, unfortunately)

 

[ibex333]

Absolutely not. I'm a network guy and the problems I described could not be attributed to the router or range. I used multiple high-quality routers. Some first-gen Amazon Fire TV Stick devices were simply garbage. The problem with the remote control misinterpreting skips as rewind/fast-forward was absolutely infuriating.

Then how do you explain the fact that I have none of the issues you are experiencing? I also know a thing or two about networks.

PS: I don't use skips. I don't care for that feature. I rewind and fast forward instead.

 

[ElFenix]

And mine suddenly lost the ability to wifi

 

[Ichinisan]

And mine suddenly lost the ability to wifi

First-generation stick?

 

[ElFenix]

First-generation stick?

yeah. a reboot fixed it.

 

[killster1]

purchased the firestick for 19$ when ever it came out. used it once put kodi updated it all. was not impressed with buffering in kodi. fastforward to 3 months ago, installed firestick and watch iptv amazon prime netflix all with no issues. yes the os seems laggy but once it starts playing never had issue. Here and there i feel like wait for 2 seconds after push remote but expected for 20$ device. Now im in the boat of wanting more devices for summer time and what to get. after reading this thread i will prob go with roku ultra 2017 version for 50-60 each