Fire stick advice

[Madmag]

Always a sucker for a bargain I bought an Amazon fire tv stick when they were half price. Had read about so many people using them I thought at under £20 I should give one a try. It has now been sat in its box for weeks & I've just never got rounding to looking at it. Time is now of the essence as going off on our winter travels soon so haven't time to set it all up & play around with it here. Thought I'd take it with me & have a mess around with it in Spain. The question is, is there anything I need to do here in UK like registering it or connecting it to a certain account? Sorry its a simple question but with your help I'm trying to save time as I need to spend a long time when I get new technology so I can work it out these days.

 

[Jev88]

Amazon sticks need to be registered to activate as far as I understand it.
Username and password etc....

You will then need a decent WiFi signal to internet for stick to link to and power for stick (my TV has a spare usb socket for example). Make sure you can actually plug usb and fire in at same time as I needed a small extension to clear TV socket housing).

 

[Madmag]

Thanks for that. I hope to get a suitable wifi link in Spain so presume I can leave it until then to register. Good info re extension as my TV just has single slot at top.

 

[Figaro]

I've been setting one up in van that I inherited from daughter.
You also have to log on to the apps like iPlayer and itv hub etc.
Not done mine yet as I haven't a clue what passwords I used and not sure if I'd need to do it again for each network connection.
For example I was using home broadband, but in the van have mifi and phone tether options do not sure how that affects anything ?
Life used to be do simple !

 

[The Dotties]

If you have good WiFi at home, register it before you go. Depending on how many channels you have it’s a lot easier. (Netflix, Prime video, iPlayer itv, 4 etc) they will all need to be registered to the stick.

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[Madmag]

Thanks for all the replies. Next silly question, do I need to have it plugged in to a TV when I register it or can I just do it on my PC & Amazon account?

 

[Figaro]

Connected to tv

 

[Madmag]

Thanks . Will try on home TV.

 

[TheBig1]

first time you plug it in and enter your amazon account email and password it will download and install updates. then I suggest you add a couple of apps like live lounge and kodi. these will give a huge choice of channels and movies for free

there is a guy locally charges £10 to do all the setting up for you. similar to be found in most towns on facebook selling sites

 

[Graydo]

Hey,
I have one of these too, dont forget it needs to be powered via usb as well whilst in the hdmi socket at the rear of your tv.
I just use the hotspot on my phone unless campsite has good wifi.

Graydo

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[Madmag]

Thanks for all your help so far. Tonight I finally set about setting it up. Plugged it into home TV, set it up and downloaded some apps. So hopefully it’s all ready to use. Have lots of wires and adapters ready for when I set it up once we are Spain and have a good Wi-fi supply. Will let you all know!

 

[MisterB]

Some apps, like bbc are only supposed to work in the uk (they use IP address to distinguish) - dont know how true that is though. I would add a VPN if you install kodih

 

[63720]

Do you have a smartphone on contract that you can tether to? We have a Firestick and use our own phone data packages when abroad and can access all British TV. Some sites don't allow streaming because it's very resource hungry and still restrict access to BBC because of licence issues and can be expensive. You may want to consider a mifi with a 3 Internet With Legs data card for guaranteed connection. Also when setting up the Firestick go through the menus and enable Data Monitoring, this then allows you to chose lower quality video, but you won't really notice the difference, thereby using less data. On best quality 1 hour of TV uses roughly 1gb of data, on lowest quality it's about half of this. If you have a tablet or smartphone download the UKTV app it's a good alternative to a Firestick if you just want to watch the news.

 

[Landy Andy]

A VPN is not required if using a UK purchased sim whilst abroad. Only if foreign sim is used.

 

[busby]

Using mine in Spain at the moment..Getting all the main channels plus some decent stuff on Amazon,,Vikings,Back of the Net etc.Still learning.BUSBY.

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[Figaro]

Using mine in Spain at the moment..Getting all the main channels

Is that live TV through the firestick ?
Can I ask how please, only managed the catch up stuff on mine so far.
Thanks

 

[Madmag]

Hi. Thanks yes I have all the gadgets I think. Have phone with data & a mifi with a 3 card. Also a VPN. Usually when in Spain we hire/ pay for router and data. Going to be a bit trial and error setting it up I think.

 

[Phil 748]

Hi if you set it up at Home before you leave it should be ok, we have a Fire Stick using a 3 MIFI router, just make sure the roaming is switch on when abroad. We have side loaded Virgin TV GO on to the fire stick so it was just like watching TV at Home, Just have to watch how much Data you use, 3 have a 19G limit per month when roaming