We have switched from Roku to FireTV for all of our devices
Reviewed in the United States on July 7, 2023 | Rating: 4/5 | Best Sellers in Amazon Devices & Accessories
while the device works great for streaming it still has room for improvementwe first started with roku devices over time though roku devices basically stop working they stop being supported and even though they may have worked fine for years you can no longer update them or install software even old versions so you have to throw them awayso we tried firetv sticks the first generation was rough but they have come along way for media streaming and app coverage they really cant be beat butwe love that they are tied into amazon but also hate that they are tied into amazon it never lets you forget that its primary job is to let amazon sell stuff to you and its secondary job is to be your streaming device what do i mean by this well it really likes to put you back on amazons homescreen as much as possible and when you are in amazons homescreen you are presented with the content you have paid for but also a lot of content amazon would like to sell to you i really only want to see the content i have already paid for for example if you are watching something on max or netflix and you pause the program if you unpause it quick enough it will just pick up where you left off however if you wait to long you will find yourself back at amazons homescreen asking you to tell it which user profile to use well unless i tell it otherwise shouldnt i be the same person i was when i hit pause shouldnt i want to continue watch what i was watching when i hit pause once you select a profile you are back to amazons homescreen where the show you ads for services they want to sell you when all you really wanted to do was resume what you were watching when you hit pauseso then you have to remember what was i watching again and what service was it i was watching it on and then you have to navigate back to wherever it was you were and then and only then can you resumeso other than that the device is great i wish there was a way i could just pay a fee like you can on the kindle to alter this behavior so its primary function is to be my streaming device instead of to show me adsthis also becomes a problem if you have guests or visitors that dont understand this is how an amazon device works we didnt have a password set on the device and we had an older house guest that unknowingly subscribed to all sorts of streaming services and pay per view not realizing what they saw on the tv was not in our services even though we already subscribe to more services than you could ever possibly watchlastly the stick periodically has little flukes like we have the remote set to turn on the tv one time it wouldnt turn on the tv anymore it turned out it seemed to be turning it on but then turning it right back off like when you hit the button once it was sending the on off signal more than once unplugging the stick and plugging it back in seemed to fix it and then we could turn the tv on again it happened in the opposite direction too one time we couldnt turn the tv off we would press the button and it would turn off and then it would turn right back on again same as before a reboot seemed to fix it this doesnt happen often but it is annoying when it doesas for alexa integration it usually works well but sometimes it just stops working all of a sudden telling alex to pause just doesnt work anymore it just doesnt do anything doesnt tell you there is a problem or anything so you have to go find the remote even though you have paused it that way 100 times beforethe wanting to take you through the advertising screens is a problem with the alexa integration as well you cant say alexa watch some movie on some service and get taken to that movie no no it is first going to want to know who you are so you get to the profile selection screen i should be the same person i was last time unless i have logged out for some reason selecting a profile still doesnt get you to where you asked to go it gets you to the amazon advertising center so then you have to repeat yourself alexa watch some movie on some service and then and only then will it do what you asked it to do in the first placeso the device is great but it is my device and should focus on my needs more than amazons but it doesnt that is its only flaw