Firestick

bouicca21

Forgive my ignorance but I really don’t understand what a fire stick is, especially whether it is an Amazon thing or generic.

i have two Samsung smart TVs. One can no long access streaming services other than BBC iplayer.  I understand this is because the apps have changed and I now need a fire stick.  There seem to be several on the market and I don’t know if they would all work with my tv.  Working through the model number I arrive at built 2014, led, fhd. How do I choose? 

The other still works fine, the model number indicates built 2016, led, uhd.  Will I need a fire stick compatible with both?

mebu60

I have a 2015 Samsung 'smart' tv that can't run Discovery+, needs to be 2016 or newer. When BT Sport moved to TNT Sports I needed Discovery+ to access it. I put an old fire stick in an hdmi port at the back of the tv (hdmi4) then changed 'source' to that hdmi port, connected the fire stick to the wifi, loaded Discovery+ and am able to watch TNT Sports. Have to remember to switch source back to 'tv' for normal viewing. You can add the streaming apps you want to watch on to your fire stick, using the tv screen and remote. You may be able to buy a used fire stick from somewhere like CEX which will be cheaper. A fire stick is pretty universal as far as I am aware, but I'm no expert. 

la531983

Just buy a new one. Once in 2nd hand stores may be older ones.

Amazon currently doing their prime day, get any of the 4K ones, goes in a spare HDMI port on your television (age of television is irrelevant)

QrizB

bouicca21 said:

Forgive my ignorance but I really don’t understand what a fire stick is, especially whether it is an Amazon thing or generic.

Fire stick is an Amazon brand, although it's sometimes treated as generic (like Hoover / vacuum cleaner).

Any TV from the last 20 years or so should have a HDMI port that you can plug a Fire stick into.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/b/?node=5157838031

There are non-Amazon, non-Fire products that do much the same thing but the market is rather fragmented.

J_B

bouicca21 said:

Forgive my ignorance but I really don’t understand what a fire stick is, especially whether it is an Amazon thing or generic.

It's just a stick that plugs into the back of your TV (into a HDMI socket) - also needs a mains power supply.

Once in, simply connect it to your WiFi and log into your amazon account then you can download plenty of apps including BBC, ITV, C4, C5, Netflix etc etc

OutdoorQueen

I’ve got a Roku Express - Argos.  It is very similar to an Amazon Firestick but currently at £24.99.   It does have less functionality but does what I want it to.   It doesn’t work with Alexa.  There are articles which compare Amazon Firestick with Roku on Google. 

I think the Roku Express is an older model that is being replaced. 

https://inorain.com/blog/firestick-vs-roku

ButterCheese

bouicca21 said:

Forgive my ignorance but I really don’t understand what a fire stick is, especially whether it is an Amazon thing or generic.

i have two Samsung smart TVs. One can no long access streaming services other than BBC iplayer.  I understand this is because the apps have changed and I now need a fire stick.  There seem to be several on the market and I don’t know if they would all work with my tv.  Working through the model number I arrive at built 2014, led, fhd. How do I choose? 

The other still works fine, the model number indicates built 2016, led, uhd.  Will I need a fire stick compatible with both?

There are I think 3 models of Firestick, they all work the same but the cheapest model is slower (in terms of loading up the menus etc).  The Firestick 4k Pro max is the most expensive but it is much faster than the "normal" ones and is better for 4k, i.e. will transfer a better picture to your TV if you are watching a 4k dource and you have a 4k TV (which most modern ones are now).  We have about 4 in the house of varying ages, and the older/standard ones become very slow quite quickly.

Don't be tempted to buy anything cheaper; I've tried most of them and they are not as good.  Especially, don't buy an Android TV box; they are slow and the menu layouts are all over the place.  The Firestick works really smoothly and also interacts very well with anything you want to connect to it, like soundbars, headphones etc.  You can also get the Firestick to connect to your TV so you can use the Firestick remote to control on/off, volume etc and not have to flick between 2 remotes