Amazon “Fire TV” remotes - DESIGNED to be thrown away! - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: eti
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2022, 04:11:21 am
content: I have two Amazon “Fire TV” devices. They work, JUST…. but they run THE worst variant of the already horrendous software bodge OS ever, Android. I digress…Amazon “Fire TV” remotes - DESIGNED to be thrown away! Yes, truly the most disgusting example of a total lack of awareness on the behalf of Amazon, that things need to be REPAIRED and not tossed and replaced. Trying to open one of their “Voice remote” remotes, demonstrates just HOW loudly and brazenly they silently shout “Hah, screw you, buy a new one!” When you discover the sheer amount of superglue used to seal the thing shut, and to add insult to injury, when you get it open you find (amongst fragments of torn remote control parts) that they SCREWED THE PCB IN!!Why?!!!! Morons.

author: SilverSolder
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2022, 04:31:31 am
content: Throwaway consumer electronics is becoming the norm, sadly.

author: MrMobodies
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2022, 06:19:26 am
content: Did that just stopped working?I have never known a remote to stop working ever.This is why I refuse to buy new phones.Many of them have that glue in there and I tend to get a bit concerned that I might cut a ribbon or something when trying to open it up to replace stuff.

author: Bud
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2022, 06:50:00 am
content: Quote from: eti on January 06, 2022, 04:11:21 amPictures or it did not happen!

author: Rick Law
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2022, 06:56:14 am
content: Quote from: MrMobodies on January 06, 2022, 06:19:26 amI am a "lucky guy", I got a rare TV remotes that failed...My Auria TV remote failed in just a few months after purchase. It was "randomly" failing. It took me a while to figure out the pattern: Upon inserting battery (power up the remote), it works for a few presses then it stops working. Pull out the battery, count to 10, and reinsert for a few more key presses until the next cycle.I am now using a learning remote. It was painful "teaching" the learning remote with the right codes. (painful = many times of battery pulling and reinsertion).

author: eti
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2022, 08:10:43 am
content: Quote from: Bud on January 06, 2022, 06:50:00 amIt happened. See photo .

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 10, 2022, 06:22:16 pm
content: There are numerous videos and galleries of other people opening those without shredding them to bits like you did. So despite them being glued, something about your technique sucked.Remote controls are, generally speaking, among the most reliable pieces of electronics we use, and simultaneously one of the cheapest to manufacture.Labor costs time. Suppose it takes 30 minutes to repair a remote control (when you include diagnosis, repair, retesting, paperwork, etc). A typical going rate for electronics repair in a developed country might be around $100/hr. So that’s $50 in labor right there. Who in their right mind would pay that when a brand new one costs that much or less??They’re not morons for not worrying about repairability on a product that almost never fails, and stands a nearly 0% chance of being repaired if it does.There are some truly egregious instances of wasteful non-repairability, but this truly does not qualify.

author: Martin Miranda
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 10, 2022, 06:25:56 pm
content: why are they using metal dome switches with rubber....

author: edavid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 10, 2022, 06:51:23 pm
content: For once I agree with an eti rant. If they are going to make them so difficult to repair, they should sell replacements for a reasonable price. It's usually cheaper to buy a complete Fire TV Stick than a replacement remote (right now the remotes cost $30). It should be possible to send in a broken remote and $10 and get a new one back.Also, while I like the fact that they use RF rather than IR, I am mystified by the way the WiFi Direct implementation insists on using the same WiFi channel that the Fire TV Stick is connecting on. Is there some reason why that's not as stupid as it seems?

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 10, 2022, 06:57:22 pm
content: Quote from: eti on January 06, 2022, 04:11:21 amNo, this rather shows your hands are growing straight from an ass.Not the best video. But preheating it a bit will make any adhesive easy to release.

author: Rick Law
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 10, 2022, 07:25:20 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on January 10, 2022, 06:22:16 pmYou are certainly right about the labor cost and chance of repair, but, for the kinds of remotes included with a system, it may have many device-specific keys that is not available on a generic replacement universal remote.eBay used to be a good place to buy a used remote for a device - I had purchased a few, one for a Samsung TV, and two for WD TV-live. These days, for whatever reason, I don't see much of those used remotes on sale at eBay anymore.So, lucky for me that my remote's failure was not a 100% failure (works for a few keys immediately after battery removal and reinsertion), I could use a learning remote to learn the keys. Otherwise I am left with finding a remote for a specific device or repair to regain all remote features. Reasonably priced replacement remotes from OEM is probably the best choice.

author: Sal Ammoniac
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 10, 2022, 10:41:19 pm
content: Forget the remotes... Amazon Fire TV devices themselves are designed to be thrown away!This is how it works: Amazon designs and sells a Fire TV device, like the Cube. It mostly works fine and the UI is responsive. They then come out with a series of newer models with updated, faster CPUs and more RAM. They add new features to the software that takes advantage of the increased CPU power and additional RAM... But now the older devices run like dogs and the UI is slow and laggy and nearly unusable. The only viable solution is to upgrade to the latest Fire TV device.Rather than continuing on the Fire TV treadmill, I've switched to a Nvidia Shield TV Pro. Hopefully it won't have the planned obsolescence issue Fire TV does.

author: edavid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 10, 2022, 11:18:20 pm
content: Quote from: Sal Ammoniac on January 10, 2022, 10:41:19 pmI am still using a Fire TV Stick from 2018, and I haven't noticed any performance problems in the UI or any of the streaming apps that I use. Of course it's connected to a 720p TV

author: Sal Ammoniac
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 10, 2022, 11:40:43 pm
content: Quote from: edavid on January 10, 2022, 11:18:20 pmYou're lucky. I had a Fire TV Cube about two years old that gradually got slower and more laggy with each new FW update until I ditched it for the Shield Pro. The last straw was the complete UI overhaul that came out a few months ago that was very poorly designed and implemented. It's almost like they hired an expert on user experience to design their new UI and then did the exact opposite of what he recommended. And then there's all the bugs and crashes...

author: SilverSolder
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2022, 12:45:24 am
content: Quote from: Sal Ammoniac on January 10, 2022, 10:41:19 pmThat sounds like the business model for smartphones too... fill them with "updates" that destroy them, keep the cycle of "improvements" going...

author: eti
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2022, 01:22:22 am
content: Quote from: tooki on January 10, 2022, 06:22:16 pmYou clearly lack the ghastly experience of having owned a fire tv & remote. It’s the biggest piece of junk ever, being buggy, laggy, battery draining, tactile keys go mushy very quickly, the fire tv stops responding, the remote will randomly decide to oscillate-key press (repeats play/pause/play/pause infinitely, many many times a second until you press it again to break it out of the loop.Another demonstration of Amazon being utterly clueless on how to design products. They’re utterly ghastly.

author: eti
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2022, 01:24:27 am
content: Quote from: Sal Ammoniac on January 10, 2022, 11:40:43 pmYeah, the new UI (it’s different just for the sake of being different!) is such an utter mess.

author: eti
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2022, 01:27:45 am
content: Quote from: Martin Miranda on January 10, 2022, 06:25:56 pmBecause they’re Amazon, the same brainless wonders that did this (and there’s countless more examples of this idiocy):https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-news/its-clearly-ridiculous-amazon-slammed-20285894

author: eti
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2022, 01:30:47 am
content: Quote from: MrMobodies on January 06, 2022, 06:19:26 amWith respect, there’s ~7BN people on earth, and you’re a sample count of ONE person. I agree that IR remotes are very reliable on the whole, but even then I’ve got an LG which is kept immaculately clean, and yet the buttons of which decide to stop being tactile, or responding.

author: edavid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2022, 01:43:28 am
content: Quote from: eti on January 11, 2022, 01:22:22 amI guess I am lucky, I've never really had those problems. I've had one Fire TV stick randomly complain it's not paired to the remote, even though the remote still worksOtherwise they've been pretty solid, definitely above average for consumer electronics. I love that CEC works well, even with some pretty crappy TVs. Voice control often works too.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2022, 01:49:06 am
content: Quote from: Sal Ammoniac on January 10, 2022, 10:41:19 pmI'm disappointed Nvidia haven't upgraded it by much compared to the original in 2015. Mainly just a slightly faster version of the same CPU, 3GB RAM while the much cheaper Raspberry Pi 4 is available with 8GB.I would say that a PC would be the most future proof, although obviously for a higher budget. Would be an interesting challenge to see how much it would cost to build a PC (using only new parts) with performance comparable to a Shield TV. Back when the original Shield TV was new, building a PC with equivalent performance would be a lot more expensive. I'd be surprised if that's still the case nowadays.

author: SilverSolder
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2022, 02:31:58 am
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on January 11, 2022, 01:49:06 amHow high performance does it need to be to show TV content though? I've always used middling PC builds to run projectors etc. (playing dvd and BluRay rips) and it was a pretty good experience overall...

author: MrMobodies
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2022, 02:32:23 am
content: Quote from: eti on January 11, 2022, 01:30:47 amAaah I have seen some remotes in the past say residential homes and living accommodations where some buttons didn't work too well obviously wear and tear and some had been dropped/ labels worn off and filthy condition but never came across one that stopped working in good condition and looked aftered.Here's a fault you might know about:I brought a One4all LCD remote like the one above in 2005. I really liked and it worked fine for about a year but one day when it went flat so I changed the batteries. Then it kept on draining them every two weeks and eventually a week. I tried different AA batteries, Duracell, Panasonic and some rechargeables. I can't remember what I did with it but I lost it at some point.Obviously something in the circuit started to draw a lot more power.Any ideas how that could suddenly happen?

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2022, 02:40:19 am
content: Quote from: eti on January 11, 2022, 01:30:47 amWell now, you have something in common!It never ceases to amaze me how you expect top notch quality and design for repairability out of bargain basement loss-leading products.

author: eti
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2022, 04:19:11 am
content: Quote from: Monkeh on January 11, 2022, 02:40:19 amSetting up a straw man does nothing. I expect it TO WORK, it’s not asking much.

author: Martin Miranda
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2022, 04:26:49 am
content: what is designed to be thrown away?ultrasonic welded plastic...now i understand.

author: duckduck
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2022, 07:38:40 pm
content: Quote from: MrMobodies on January 06, 2022, 06:19:26 amI have repaired our Roku remote about 4 times before finally buying a replacement, and we just got a new remote for our cable box to replace the failed one.Now, the problem of the young child spiking the remote like an angry footballer when asked to turn off the TV certainly points to some parenting issues...EDIT:That's a shame about the Fire remote. I'm sure that Amazon sells their hardware at a discount (using the disposable-razor-blade sales model). I was pleasantly surprised to find that replacement (3rd party) remotes for the Roku were only USD7 or so. Shenzhen FTW!

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2022, 07:46:00 pm
content: Stuff the repairability, what's the chipset in there, can it be hacked and repurposed?

author: eti
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2022, 08:32:42 pm
content: Quote from: duckduck on January 11, 2022, 07:38:40 pmOh... Ohhh yesss... I'd forgotten ALL about my Roku 4 remote and it's flimsy side-mounted tactile buttons which broke off... that's another one.

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2022, 09:29:23 pm
content: Quote from: Sal Ammoniac on January 10, 2022, 10:41:19 pmThat's a hell of a lot better than the experience with the White NowTV boxes (subsidised Roku LT boxes) in the UK. They could be used with the main free UK streaming services but NowTV decided that they were no longer up to the job and stopped supporting them. Of course their last firmware update was used to disable the ability to enter developer mode by a remote button sequence, preventing them from being converted into a Plex media server or something else vaguely useful.Power them up now and the just sit there like dumb bricks, displaying on the TV screen a message that they are no longer supported . Premeditated e-waste creation!

author: SilverSolder
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2022, 10:36:16 pm
content: Quote from: Gyro on January 11, 2022, 09:29:23 pmAnother item to add to the "Why I avoid cloud services" pile?

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2022, 10:55:43 pm
content: The "All your base are belong to us" business model.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2022, 03:27:32 am
content: Quote from: SilverSolder on January 11, 2022, 02:31:58 amIt takes a surprising amount of compute power to upscale to 4K. The mpv upscaler I tuned for my PC uses about 30% of a 970, about 1 TFLOPS of FP32.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2022, 06:41:34 pm
content: The good thing with a free market is that if Amazon just makes crap, people will stop buying their products, right? Or will they?

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2022, 07:45:04 pm
content: Hmm, I bought a Fire Stick lite last week, It seems pretty good so far. I bought it.... because Sony had stopped supporting streaming services on my relatively recent (in my eyes anyway!) non-Android TV.I had been reduced to plugging the TV into the Displayport on my laptop if I wanted to watch iPlayer or any of the other main streaming services. My logic is that the future e-waste potential of the Fire stick is smaller than trashing an, otherwise perfectly good, FHD TV and buying a new one with an unfeasibly large screen (don't get me started on 4k!).

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2022, 12:50:45 pm
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on January 12, 2022, 03:27:32 amScaling just for display is typically done in hardware, though, and is thus “free”. Graphics cards have had scaler units for over 20 years now.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2022, 01:51:13 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on January 13, 2022, 12:50:45 pmThat's a "simple" scaler designed for very low latency. For video playback where latency is of little concern, a scaler that also examines neighboring frames does much better.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2022, 02:44:23 pm
content: Well that’s not just a scaler, then, that’s upscaling and motion interpolation.

author: Sal Ammoniac
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2022, 05:55:22 pm
content: The Nvidia Shield TV has what they call an AI scaler, and I can confirm that scaling to 4K on the Shield is noticeably better than 4K scaling on the Fire TV (I arrived at this opinion through A/B testing, although it wasn't double blind).

author: blacksheeplogic
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2022, 01:59:40 am
content: Quote from: eti on January 06, 2022, 04:11:21 amYou fck'd it up, take some personal responsibility. Next time try searching for a how to guide.

author: eti
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2022, 03:00:07 am
content: Quote from: blacksheeplogic on January 14, 2022, 01:59:40 am👏 😜Are you free for life consultation? I’d like assistance with spatial awareness and general decision making. I can pay you in the appropriate currency - peanuts and bananas.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2022, 03:56:05 am
content: For context the quote stream needs a rebuild:Quote from: tooki on January 13, 2022, 02:44:23 pm... that higher end TVs do internally already (examples as far back as 25 years at least).Live TV is so compressed through the chain that its unlikely to benefit much, and the decoder/de-interlace is a bigger influence.Complaining that outdated/low end/cheap device doesn't do your preferred cutting edge image processing (for gains of a few dB in PSNR), lol. Also, people have traditionally (and still do) the expensive video operations offline for later playback with minimum overhead.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2022, 03:58:24 am
content: Quote from: eti on January 14, 2022, 03:00:07 amBananas I'll happily accept as payment, 42kg per hour. However, peanuts might be cheaper for your delivery costs, 14kg per hour.

author: eti
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2022, 04:37:24 am
content: Quote from: Someone on January 14, 2022, 03:58:24 amI don’t think I’d replied to you. 😎

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2022, 07:33:40 am
content: Quote from: Someone on January 14, 2022, 03:56:05 amDon’t basically all TVs now have motion interpolation? I don’t think I’ve seen any TV larger than 32” without motion interpolation for probably 15 years.

author: jonovid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2022, 08:13:23 am
content: when it comes to the design of TV remotes I could write a whole book about them from an end user's point of view.some key points in questioncan it be repaired? are the button contacts accessible without destructive disassembly.design TV remotes that are easy to clean. water resistant.a plastic case design that does not have lots of cracks & crevices in it.make it two remotes not just one, when you purchase a new TV or TV consumer entertainment technologyif a TV remote is so cheap. why not add or sell a second or spare remote so if the first is lost or damaged beyond repairyou still got a working spare remote when the TV or TV product is no longer in production. if this is all too much to askthen at least design all the buttons needed on the face of the TV or TV entertainment technology so it will still be functional without a remote.so simplehave better more functional button layout design that better reflects today's lifestyle . as to have 3 or 4 AV one button pess auxiliary inputs.the TV channel number buttons are longer the dominant use of buttons, as many TV sets get used as video monitors. so auxiliary inputs need separate buttonsone per auxiliary input. if your TV has 4 HDMI inputs then the TV remote should have 4 separate AV-in buttons.the case for better TV remote design on big expensive TV technology.touch if you can see it, feel if you can not. why TV remotes need tactile or raised buttons for use in the dark.why not backlight illumination of rubbery buttons. this type of technology was used on many of the first cell phones that had buttons.most TV remotes live in a dark room . if design has movement detection then the TV remote will light up in the dark if grabbed.finding a lost TV remote? the TV is easy to see , so design a paging button on it. so the remote will beep here I am down the back of the sofa.it's about time TV remotes got a lithium ion battery in its design, as with most other cheap consumer electronics.anything voice activated must have an off button or some of us will be un-plugging the TV or bitching bettys talking cyclops box from the wall.privacy starts with less electronics not more. the life off-line without the phone.

author: PlainName
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2022, 06:30:46 pm
content: QuoteYou're writing from an engineer's, or hobbyist's, point of view. A normal end user's point of view would be: can it bereplaced?Your average TV viewer knows nothing of these things and no-one is going to pay the going rate to fix it - just the time taking it apart would cost more than a new one. All they care about, if they even think that far ahead, is that they can get a replacement off Ebay or whatever.

author: Sal Ammoniac
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2022, 07:02:51 pm
content: One thing I didn't like about the Fire TV remote is that it's small and totally black (the white icons on the buttons wore off a long time ago). It's easy to lose in the dark (I have a projector setup in a light-controlled room and the ambient light is very low). Some of my other remotes have glow-in-the-dark buttons, and that makes it easy to find them in the dark when I drop them.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2022, 09:50:13 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on January 14, 2022, 07:33:40 amI'm still seeing cheaper TVs that don't advertise any such features, or have any menu options for it (including 4k models). It might be a fixed option thats silently included, but I cant be bothered to get out the test equipment to find out. Always on interpolation, just as bad as none, I like film cadence for what it is.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2022, 10:44:26 pm
content: Well, if you’ve seen them, I won’t dispute it — I haven’t looked that carefully, I’ll admit!I’m torn on motion interpolation — I really do like it on things like pans and credits, but I also don’t like for everything to look like a daytime soap opera. On my Panasonic plasma, it seems relatively tame, so I leave it on.

author: eti
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 15, 2022, 01:33:41 am
content: Quote from: Sal Ammoniac on January 14, 2022, 07:02:51 pmAnd it wobbles back and forth when you put it down on a surface, like a rocking chair. Seeing this remote wobbling, in my peripheral vision, is extremely irksome, so I ran two long beads of hot glue down the back cover, lengthways, so they are at the same level as the “hump”(?) of the curve. What a silly design!

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 15, 2022, 01:46:49 am
content: Quote from: Sal Ammoniac on January 13, 2022, 05:55:22 pmThe original also had pretty good upscaling. The new one improves on that and might approach a desktop GPU in quality but the specs say it only works up to 30 FPS, not so good for fast action content. Had they upgraded to a newer CPU instead of a slightly faster version of the original, they could probably make it work at 60 FPS or faster.Quote from: Someone on January 14, 2022, 03:56:05 amI wouldn't call a $200 Shield TV "cheap" or "low end" compared to $55 for the 4GB version of the Raspberry Pi 4.As for doing the processing offline, how would you store the data without incurring compression losses? It's not hard to find a SSD with sufficient bandwidth but one big enough for even one hour of uncompressed 4K video would be far more expensive than a good GPU.Quote from: tooki on January 14, 2022, 07:33:40 amThe processing on the HDMI inputs is basically the same as the output scaler in modern GPUs. It is simply impossible to look more than a frame or two ahead without introducing an unreasonable amount of latency. The apps that run on the TV can use whatever processing the hardware is capable of, so the UI gets the fast path but the video can have a lot more latency to allow better upscaling. In that case, the scaling is running on the GPU inside the TV, which generally leaves a lot to be desired. (How long before some manufacturer makes a "gaming TV" with an AMD APU or even a desktop GPU?)

author: SilverSolder
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 15, 2022, 02:12:34 am
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on January 15, 2022, 01:46:49 amWindows Media Center Edition? - it was actually pretty good...

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 15, 2022, 04:03:10 am
content: Quote from: SilverSolder on January 15, 2022, 02:12:34 amNowadays, I'm thinking Steam OS, probably with some sort of Android container for Android apps.