Amazon Fire Stick

[Ces6]

There are a few threads on this but I know things go out of date quickly so thought I would ask here!

If you have a fire stick, could you please answer the following?

1. Does it always listen (like Alexa)?
2. We have a smart tv but it is relatively old, out of guarantee and will no longer connect to the internet - will a fire stick get round this problem?
3. What do you use them for? Currently we use a (very old) apple tv box to watch Netflix but you can't update it or put any new apps on it (which meant that, for example, when we activated the Disney Channel trial period we couldn't actually see it as we didn't have the app or the possility for the tv to connect to the internet). Would a fire stick help?

Thanks from a Luddite!

We have a firestick, as it was cheaper than trying to sort new aerial cables or a satellite dish when we moved back in post tenants. The only thing I can't get is Food Network, and some of the Channel 5 stuff.

No, it doesn't listen afaik. There is Alexa, but I'm not sure if that's on the Firestick or the sound bar.

My TV has never connected to the internet. The Firestick does all that bit.

We have Amazon Prime, so we get access to all the stuff on there that's free with Prime, so movies, box sets, (and NCIS), we have the ITV app, BBC iPlayer, the Channel 5 app, the Channel 4 app. Dh has discovered you can get YouTube on there, so moves seamlessly from the computer to the TV to watch car things.

I think it's worth it, and has avoided having to run new cables from the attic to the room where we have the TV, and drilling through floors and ceilings in the process.

We have a firestick and I recommend it. When we needed a new TV a couple of years ago we saved money by buying a non Smart TV and a firestick. We liked it so much that we bought one for the second TV. We use it for all the catch-up services, YouTube , Prime and have used it for netflix, Disney plus and Now TV. Now TV was a hassle to install as the app wasn't available on the firestick but everything else was simple.

We've got 4 fire sticks as the first worked so well on our old flat screen TV that we now have one on our older smart TV and we've also attached one to a computer screen which also works.
We use Amazon prime with it, Disney and all of the free view stuff.

I love our fire stick, as far as I know it doesn't listen in (you can use voice control but only if you press a button). You can access iPlayer etc, Disney Plus, YouTube and subscription apps like Netflix.

As long as you have an HDMI slot in your TV it should work fine. If you have Amazon Prime you'll have all that stuff too.

Apart from all the uses already mentioned by PPs, I use mine to mirror from laptop to TV (Zoom entertainment and the like). Useful if there's more than one person trying to watch the content!

Thanks!

Check out the RoKu stick as an alternative. Just plugs into the back of the tv and has a separate remote. Not Amazon so it doesn't link to Alexa but we use it for Netflix, catch-up, YouTube, Spotify and LesMills on demand. Pretty sure you can link to the Disney channels.

Fire sticks also have quite a few 'interesting ' side loaded apps which opens up a whole new world of viewing, should you wish. I'm not talking porn (although I'm sure it's there if I looked) , just tv channels and programmes, entire tv series, movies etc from everywhere. I believe all the sky sports channels etc etc if you want that. You can look up firesticktricks for more info. I have two fire sticks and think they are the bees knees.

we had 2 firesticks and both crashed many times and then stopped working after 6 months

now we have Roku and it is much better