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Customer Review
Reviewed in the United States on June 26, 2017
Our Comcast bill has had two increases of about $25 each, since the first of the year. Bringing our total monthly bill to $250/month. That is more than our monthly PG&E bill, or our monthly tithe to our church or also what we give to our grandkids for their college funds.
My wife was holding out on cutting the cable until the last increase came through.
After the first price increase, we added Sling earlier this year and the CBS live extra and bought a Roku. The Roku didn’t work that well streaming baseball and some shows. That was a big incentive to come to the Fire TV. Owner reviews of the newer Roku were not very positive.
Earlier this year, I asked my wife to keep track of what she watched.
Below is her list watched TV shows and what we watched together.
#1 show each morning the Kelly and any other show on ABC like specials. ABC was a big need and a real downside with this unit, more on that later.
#2 All of the NCIS shows, Scorpion, The Big Bang. That is covered with the $5 /month CBS live with our Sling program. CBS live is a great extra.
#3. Some of the cooking shows and flipping the house shows. No problem with Sling.
#4. PBS some specials and their own tv series/shows. More on this, another + for Fire TV if you contribute $5/month to PBS and the extra shows via Sling.
We basically watched 5-6 channels out of the huge selection of junk channels* from Comcast. Our monthly fee was paying for a lot of garbage. It was like going to a cafeteria and buying a small salad and a half of a sandwich and then having to pay for what some unknown hogs ate.
With the Roku, we added Amazon Prime TV, Acorn and the Prime concert extra channel.
As a result, Amazon Prime/Acorn and its various great offerings are now our #1 go to channels.
The Fire TV was easy to setup and worked with minimal streaming drag with my D link AC1200 WiFi extender bought from Amazon, with a direct ethernet plug in from the D Link to the back of the Fire Tablet. I unplugged our Roku and plugged in the Fire Tablet and it worked. Amazing!
$5/month donation to PBS opened up a lot of present and past programs on our Fire Tv/Sling. We have watched a good movie and a couple of episodes of a new series. Until we donated the $5/month to PBS via Sling, we knew nothing of these programs. We donated to PBS before.
We went to Xfinity business internet. Their monthly cost plus the Sling/ABC, CBS live and the PBS monthly donation is a little under $150/month. The Comcast Business price is guaranteed for 3 years. So, no more big increases, twice a year. We are saving $100/month.
The WIFI internet connection with Compact business is even more powerful than their standard
System. I took my D Link System into my office and after the new system Comcast Business was installed. I pushed the wps button and in a few minutes it was working. I then took it into our family room, removed the Infinity box and connected the D Link ethernet directly to our Fire TV and plugged it in. Everything is working great. Our picture is great and there is no pausing/stuttering or causing the system to reboot during baseball games and other uses.
Now come the negatives with Sling and the Fire TV:
#1. Inability to get ABC live unless we go to back to Comcast or another cable. Really????
Having to add the Orange to the Blue Sling and then the ABC live. That really increased the monthly cost and added a lot of non watched junk channels* to our our Sling collection. However, it worked and my wife is watching Kelly and Ryan live at this time with a great picture.
#2. The remote is very limited re no volume control, we have to use our Vizio control for volume control or mute. There is no true on off switch. The unit is too small for my wife with arthritis to operate. She says that she will never be able to use the remote to get what she wants. Also, as many people have noted, the batteries don’t seem to last long. She had zero problem with the Infinity or Vizio remote controls. Hopefully, the voice system will work for her. She used the voice commands on our Xfinity remote and her Android phone all the time.
# 3. Being unable to really turn off your tv with the remote. Putting it to sleep is not turning it off. I bought a Belkin Surge protector for about 15 bucks and connected the Fire Tv unit to it. Then I can push the off button on the Belkin and the Fire Tv really shuts down. Then, we can truly turn off the tv with the Vizio remote. The Fire TV box gets very warm in the idle mode, and we know what warm/hot temps over time can do to electronics over time.
With the above negatives, at this time I still give the Fire TV a 4+ ranking.
What will change my rating to a 5?
The system must not burn out, die or the remote becomes comatose in a year or less. Also, we need to be able to order remotes by themselves for backup in case our remote dies or gets dropped and broken.
If my wife can use the Voice system on the Fire remote to find what she wants on our Fire TV!
It is time for Amazon and Sling to do some negotiations with ABC to allow their local tv channels to be like CBS live and the same price/month. Having to add the orange to my blue Sling and then buying the ABC live, really kicked up our monthly costs. Also, that added more junk channels*. Amazon via Sling needs to come up with a true cafeteria monthly cost. We cut the cable to get away from channels that are junk channels* or not wanted.
It would be nice if Amazon came out with a real remote with an on/off switch for the tv, a volume control and a little larger with bigger buttons for the millions of Americans with arthritis.
Summary: It works, and we cut our expensive Comcast Cable saving $100/month, with more of what we watch, not what we didn't/don't watch.
My wife was holding out on cutting the cable until the last increase came through.
After the first price increase, we added Sling earlier this year and the CBS live extra and bought a Roku. The Roku didn’t work that well streaming baseball and some shows. That was a big incentive to come to the Fire TV. Owner reviews of the newer Roku were not very positive.
Earlier this year, I asked my wife to keep track of what she watched.
Below is her list watched TV shows and what we watched together.
#1 show each morning the Kelly and any other show on ABC like specials. ABC was a big need and a real downside with this unit, more on that later.
#2 All of the NCIS shows, Scorpion, The Big Bang. That is covered with the $5 /month CBS live with our Sling program. CBS live is a great extra.
#3. Some of the cooking shows and flipping the house shows. No problem with Sling.
#4. PBS some specials and their own tv series/shows. More on this, another + for Fire TV if you contribute $5/month to PBS and the extra shows via Sling.
We basically watched 5-6 channels out of the huge selection of junk channels* from Comcast. Our monthly fee was paying for a lot of garbage. It was like going to a cafeteria and buying a small salad and a half of a sandwich and then having to pay for what some unknown hogs ate.
With the Roku, we added Amazon Prime TV, Acorn and the Prime concert extra channel.
As a result, Amazon Prime/Acorn and its various great offerings are now our #1 go to channels.
The Fire TV was easy to setup and worked with minimal streaming drag with my D link AC1200 WiFi extender bought from Amazon, with a direct ethernet plug in from the D Link to the back of the Fire Tablet. I unplugged our Roku and plugged in the Fire Tablet and it worked. Amazing!
$5/month donation to PBS opened up a lot of present and past programs on our Fire Tv/Sling. We have watched a good movie and a couple of episodes of a new series. Until we donated the $5/month to PBS via Sling, we knew nothing of these programs. We donated to PBS before.
We went to Xfinity business internet. Their monthly cost plus the Sling/ABC, CBS live and the PBS monthly donation is a little under $150/month. The Comcast Business price is guaranteed for 3 years. So, no more big increases, twice a year. We are saving $100/month.
The WIFI internet connection with Compact business is even more powerful than their standard
System. I took my D Link System into my office and after the new system Comcast Business was installed. I pushed the wps button and in a few minutes it was working. I then took it into our family room, removed the Infinity box and connected the D Link ethernet directly to our Fire TV and plugged it in. Everything is working great. Our picture is great and there is no pausing/stuttering or causing the system to reboot during baseball games and other uses.
Now come the negatives with Sling and the Fire TV:
#1. Inability to get ABC live unless we go to back to Comcast or another cable. Really????
Having to add the Orange to the Blue Sling and then the ABC live. That really increased the monthly cost and added a lot of non watched junk channels* to our our Sling collection. However, it worked and my wife is watching Kelly and Ryan live at this time with a great picture.
#2. The remote is very limited re no volume control, we have to use our Vizio control for volume control or mute. There is no true on off switch. The unit is too small for my wife with arthritis to operate. She says that she will never be able to use the remote to get what she wants. Also, as many people have noted, the batteries don’t seem to last long. She had zero problem with the Infinity or Vizio remote controls. Hopefully, the voice system will work for her. She used the voice commands on our Xfinity remote and her Android phone all the time.
# 3. Being unable to really turn off your tv with the remote. Putting it to sleep is not turning it off. I bought a Belkin Surge protector for about 15 bucks and connected the Fire Tv unit to it. Then I can push the off button on the Belkin and the Fire Tv really shuts down. Then, we can truly turn off the tv with the Vizio remote. The Fire TV box gets very warm in the idle mode, and we know what warm/hot temps over time can do to electronics over time.
With the above negatives, at this time I still give the Fire TV a 4+ ranking.
What will change my rating to a 5?
The system must not burn out, die or the remote becomes comatose in a year or less. Also, we need to be able to order remotes by themselves for backup in case our remote dies or gets dropped and broken.
If my wife can use the Voice system on the Fire remote to find what she wants on our Fire TV!
It is time for Amazon and Sling to do some negotiations with ABC to allow their local tv channels to be like CBS live and the same price/month. Having to add the orange to my blue Sling and then buying the ABC live, really kicked up our monthly costs. Also, that added more junk channels*. Amazon via Sling needs to come up with a true cafeteria monthly cost. We cut the cable to get away from channels that are junk channels* or not wanted.
It would be nice if Amazon came out with a real remote with an on/off switch for the tv, a volume control and a little larger with bigger buttons for the millions of Americans with arthritis.
Summary: It works, and we cut our expensive Comcast Cable saving $100/month, with more of what we watch, not what we didn't/don't watch.
