Anyone use Amazon Fire Stick to WIFI

Len Amaral · Post by **Len Amaral** » 16 Nov 2019 5:39 pm

I hear many people wanting to cut the cable bill and stream. Anyone use an Amazon Firestick or similar device hooked into WIFI? Positives or negatives with the operation of the devise?

Greg Cutshaw · Post by **Greg Cutshaw** » 16 Nov 2019 7:15 pm

I started with Amazon FireTV and have now ended up with three AppleTV's. I have a Roku TV but it's built in Wi-Fi is pretty weak. My AppleTV and FireTV will work wirelessly but I get less dropouts when hard wired to an Ethernet cable so they are all hard wired now. I you want really good content you will end up paying for but likely save a lot of money over cable assuming you are paying for internet anyhow.

I've been through most of the streaming services and now an down to:

Netflix, $16 month, that I share with 3 other people

Amazon Prime Video $100 a year that I share with one other person

YouTubeTV, 74 HD channels including all local networks, unlimited DVR, $54 a month with tax, I share that cost with 2 other users.

So I spend about $41 a month and see all the shows I want. I also buy the MLB package every year and occasionally pay for shows that I want to stream.

HDTV requires 5 Mb/sec and 4K TV requires 25 Mb/sec bandwidth. I pay $70 a month for Road Runner 100 Mb/sec service that usually delivers about 45 Mb/sec actual bandwidth.

I find that a LOT of the Neflix and Amazon shows are much better than the networ shows.

I do run a few 4K TV's with Dolby atmos and 9 speakers on some shows and that streams very well.

Hope some of this info helps. I found that the original Firestick lacked an Ethernet port had poor Wi-Fi reception, went to a FireTV box with a port to solve that.

Promises of a lot quality free programming never really materialized so you can plan on paying for most of the popular content.

Ken Boi · Post by **Ken Boi** » 17 Nov 2019 7:35 am

I use to use the Amazon Firestick and it worked great. All I can recall is a very occasionally reset (unplug/replug). I am not using it now because I bought a new Smart-TV that has Amazon Prime incorporated. I like Prime as there are some very good shows to watch (e.g., Jack Ryan, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, free movies, and even old reruns of the Bob Ross painting shows).

If you have a Smart-TV, I suggest looking into YouTube-TV. If I was to cut from cable, I would be considering that.

Just be aware that anything wireless is dependent on your location, distance to router, wireless plan you signed up for, etc.

Larry Carlson · Post by **Larry Carlson** » 17 Nov 2019 1:43 pm

.
We have used an Amazon Firestick for about 4 years.
I like it a lot.
We have Amazon Prime so we get a huge amount of movies and tv shows we can watch for free.
Right now we are watching BOSCH. Good show.
We are not tv fans and dropped cable because of the lousy programming and all the commercials.
Now we watch one episode of a tv show each night. It's off after that.
I think the Firestick and Prime are great deals for people like my wife and me.
Not expensive, it always has worked great and we have a lot to choose from.
I know nothing of any of the other boxes, gizmos etc. people use.

Greg Cutshaw · Post by **Greg Cutshaw** » 17 Nov 2019 2:23 pm

Bosch is my favorite detective show!

Len Amaral · Post by **Len Amaral** » 18 Nov 2019 10:38 am

Thanks for all the suggestions and insight. The cable prices are getting crazy and you can't just add a channel but pay for a whole package just to get one channel you are interested in.

Greg Cutshaw · Post by **Greg Cutshaw** » 18 Nov 2019 11:10 am

I don't often think in terms of CHANNELS anymore but instead think of PROGRAMS. The ton of stuff that I watch on Amazon Prime and Netflix is not on a certain channel, but just selected from a list of PROGRAMS. Buying a certain channel which may have 50 PROGRAMS on it does me no good when I just want to watch ONE of its PROGRAMS.

YouTubeTV still uses the channel concept but they make it easy to sort through all the channels but certain programs. Amazon and Netflix do offer some channel subscriptions as well like HBO, SHOWTIME etc.

Right now if you are a Verizon unlimited data cell phone subscriber you can get Disney+ free for one year viewable on your streaming device of choice.

Len Amaral · Post by **Len Amaral** » 18 Nov 2019 1:31 pm

I have Comcast for my internet provider and cable at my home. I also have a summer cottage that has Spectrum internet and Direct TV with a dish on the roof. We only use the summer place for several months in the summer so if I don't cancel the service I am paying for it 9 or 10 months a year.

Would be nice to get one service I can use in either location.

Wiz Feinberg · Post by **Wiz Feinberg** » 19 Nov 2019 8:26 am

Len Amaral wrote:I have Comcast for my internet provider and cable at my home. I also have a summer cottage that has Spectrum internet and Direct TV with a dish on the roof. We only use the summer place for several months in the summer so if I don't cancel the service I am paying for it 9 or 10 months a year.

Would be nice to get one service I can use in either location.

A solution to your conundrum is in the works. T-Mobile just announced that they are beginning to roll out high speed Internet service to T-Mobile customers within the updated areas, with speeds of up to 50 mbps. That is enough throughput to stream HD movies and live events to several devices at the same time (at 6 mbps avg). It can also stream 4k to a couple of devices.

Speed-wise, that is close to Comcast's Performance tier. I don't know what the cost will be or when it will be nation-wide. But, it will give T-Mobile phone customers another option for their ISP.

This high speed ISP requires decent proximity to a T-Mobile cell tower. They are adding actual hardware to their towers to make this happen.