At the beginning stages, Amazon was just a web platform that sold only books. Throughout these years, the company has evolved from a small-scale online bookseller website to an international business firm that sells almost everything. Amazon is now the largest e-commerce platform in the world that has every product from A to Z. Amazon is now one of the leading enterprises in web services, e-commerce, and a lot more businesses including the Artificial Intelligence bases Alexa. Millions of people place their orders in Amazon for their needs. Thus, Amazon has excelled in most of the fields and has come out as one of the leading organizations in the e-commerce field. Apart from this, Amazon sells its own products. One such great product from Amazon is the Fire TV Stick.
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What is this Fire TV Stick?
The Fire TV Stick from Amazon is a device built on the Android platform. It is an HDMI based stick that you can connect to the HDMI port of your TV. So, what magic does this Fire TV Stick do? This lets you convert your normal television to a smart television. You can also play games or even run Android apps on the device. It lets you stream content over the internet from a variety of streaming services, including Amazon Prime, Netflix, etc.
Are You Planning to Buy an Amazon Fire TV Stick? Do you have a plan to buy this Amazon Fire TV Stick? Here are some things you should know before you buy an Amazon Fire TV Stick.
6 Things You should know Before You Buy an Amazon Fire TV Stick
Before you buy anything, you should think about whether it would be useful for you and whether it has any prerequisites for its smooth functioning. Without doing that, many people end up buying things but could not use them effectively.
1. Your TV should have an HDMI port
Yes. This electronic device connects via a High Definition Multimedia Interface port. Amazon Fire TV Stick can be connected to your television only if your TV has an HDMI port on it. Else there is no way in which you can use an Amazon Fire TV Stick. So before opting to buy an Amazon Fire TV Stick, ensure that your television has an HDMI port and it supports HDMI.
2. You should be equipped with a Strong Wi-Fi
The Amazon Fire TV Stick needs Wi-Fi access to stream content from the internet. This Fire TV Stick does not have an Ethernet port. You should be equipped with a strong Wi-Fi connection for the TV Stick to function properly. So Mobile Hotspots do not seem to be much useful in this case. Hence, you would need a broadband Wi-Fi connection.
Standard Definition (SD) video streaming would require a minimum of 3 Mbps (megabytes per second) whereas High-Definition (HD) streaming from the internet requires at least 5 Mbps (megabytes per second).
3. Not Every Movie is Free
You can stream the latest movies and TV shows using the Fire TV Stick. But not all movies and shows are available for free. A lot of them might cost you money. If you are a member of Amazon Prime, you can access content that is available on Prime. The banners of the movies that are available to stream over the internet on Amazon Prime contains an Amazon Prime banner. However, if a movie’s banner doesn’t contain such a banner (“Amazon Prime”), then it means that it is not available for free streaming on Prime, and you have to pay for it.
4. Support for Voice Search
The support for the voice search feature in Fire TV Sticks may differ upon which model you use. Depending upon that, some Fire TV Sticks support voice search features while some do not come with such compatibilities.
5. Some Subscriptions Require Membership
Amazon’s Fire TV Stick comes with many video streaming applications such as Netflix. However, you should have an account with a membership plan on such streaming platforms. If you don’t have an account with Netflix, you would have to subscribe to Netflix by paying the membership charges, to stream Netflix content.
6. Your Purchased iTunes Movies or Music won’t Play
iTunes is one of the common services used to purchase or rent music albums and songs. If you have purchased content from iTunes, you can stream the content on your iPhone or iPod device without downloading it.
Unfortunately, your Fire TV Stick would not support iTunes content. If you want a particular content, you would have to purchase it from a service that is compatible with your Fire TV Stick device.
How to Set up a Fire TV Stick
Anyone can buy and set up a Fire TV stick in their home. It is really, very simple to set up your Fire TV Stick,
- Plug the power adaptor into the device and make sure that it is “On”.
- Now, connect the TV Stick to your TV using your television’s HDMI port.
- Change your TV to the HDMI mode. You can see the Fire TV Stick’s loading screen.
- Insert batteries into your TV Stick’s remote, and it would automatically connect with your TV Stick. If you think that your remote is not paired, press the Home button and hold the button for at least 10 seconds. Doing so would make it enter the discovery mode, and then it would pair easily with the device.
- You can see some instructions on your TV screen to connect to the internet via. Wi-Fi.
- Then, follow the steps as instructed on your TV screen to register your Amazon Fire TV Stick. Once you complete the process, your TV Stick would be registered to your Amazon account.
Hurray! You have set up your TV Stick, and you are ready to rock. You can stream millions of digital content from the internet using your TV stick.
Features of Amazon Fire TV Stick
Other than watching films and listening to music, you can do some other things with your Fire TV Stick. Let us see what you can do with this electronic marvel.
1. Portability
Amazon TV Stickswork fine in over 80 nations across the world. You can connect the TV Stick to any compatible TV to stream your digital content.
2. Mirroring your Smartphone Device
Amazon Fire TV Stick lets you mirror your smartphone device’s screen to your television set. Connect both the devices (Your Fire TV Stick and your smartphone device) to a Wi-Fi network. Both devices should be set up to access the same Wi-Fi network. On your TV Stick’s remote controller, hold down the Home button and then select the mirroring option from the quick-access menu that shows up.
Set up the mirroring option on your smartphone device to mirror your screen. This would display your smartphone’s screen on your television.
3. Enabling Voice Control
Though some older versions of the TV stick cannot use this feature, the newer models come with such great options. You can control some models of the TV Stick (TV Stick devices that are provided with Alexa) using your voice.
4. TV channels
You can download a list of channels through the TV Stick. However, some apps might require subscription or membership.
5. Ability to track data usage
You can keep a record of the data used up by the Fire TV Stick. You can also set your preferred video quality to manage your data usage.
6. Parental Controls
You can set up your Fire TV Stick with parental controls to prevent kids from accessing content that is meant for a mature audience.
7. Bluetooth Pairing
Your Fire TV Stick is equipped with options for Bluetooth pairing, and hence you can pair Bluetooth devices such as a Bluetooth speaker with your TV Stick.
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We hope this guide “Things You should know Before You Buy an Amazon Fire TV Stick” was helpful and you were able to resolve your confusion and decided whether to buy a Fire TV Stick or not. If you want some additional clarifications, let us know through your comments.
