Amazon Fire TV For Dummies

Introduction 1 About This Book 1 Foolish Assumptions 2 Icons Used in This Book 2 Beyond the Book 3 Where to Go from Here 3 Part 1: Getting Started 5 Chapter 1: Understanding Streaming Media 7 Introducing Streaming 8 Getting Clear on Streaming Media Devices 9 Understanding How Streaming Works 10 More about buffering 11 Streaming and data usage 12 Knowing What You Need to Stream: Apps and Hardware 13 Chapter 2: Getting to Know Fire TV 17 Getting Acquainted with Fire TV 17 Understanding What Fire TV Does 18 Fire TV components 19 How Fire TV works 20 Figuring Out Which Fire TV Device You Need 21 Learning What Fire TV Can Do 25 Watching movies and TV shows 25 Accessing other types of media 25 Watching and recording over-the-air TV 26 Connecting devices 26 Controlling your TV with Alexa voice commands 26 Controlling your smart home 26 Chapter 3: Setting Up Fire TV 27 Changing Your TV’s Input Source 27 Setting Up Fire TV Stick or Fire TV Stick 4K 28 Connecting Fire TV Stick to your TV 29 Setting up Fire TV Stick 31 Setting Up Fire TV Cube 35 Positioning your Fire TV Cube 35 Getting to know your Fire TV Cube device’s Alexa hardware 36 Connecting Fire TV Cube to your TV 38 Setting up Fire TV Cube 39 Setting Up Fire TV Edition 42 Part 2: Watching Fire TV 45 Chapter 4: Learning Fire TV Basics 47 Getting to Know the Alexa Voice Remote 48 Touring the Fire TV Alexa Voice Remote 48 Touring the Fire TV Edition Alexa Voice Remote 50 Checking Out the Fire TV Mobile App Remote 52 Installing the Fire TV mobile app 52 Pairing your mobile device with Fire TV 54 Touring the Fire TV mobile app remote 55 Navigating the Fire TV Interface 57 Navigating with the Alexa Voice Remote 58 Entering text with the Alexa Voice Remote 59 Navigating with the Fire TV mobile app 62 Entering text with the Fire TV mobile app keyboard 62 Introducing Voice Control of Fire TV 64 Issuing voice commands using the Alexa Voice Remote 64 Issuing voice commands using the Fire TV mobile app 65 Learning some useful voice commands 65 Looking Around the Fire TV Home Screen 66 Chapter 5: Watching Live TV 69 Getting Live TV through an Antenna 70 Connecting your antenna 70 Scanning for channels 71 Checking channel signal strength 72 Getting Live TV Using a Third-Party App 73 Managing Live TV channels 74 Adding a live TV channel to your favorites 74 Hiding a live TV channel or app 76 Filtering live TV channels 76 Watching Live TV 77 Seeing what’s on now 77 Navigating the live TV channel guide 78 Checking out the Live tab 80 Controlling live TV playback 81 Chapter 6: Streaming Movies and TV Shows 83 Installing a Streaming Media App 84 Searching for Movies and TV Shows 85 Searching the Amazon catalog 86 Searching within an app using Fire TV 88 Using an app’s search feature 90 Streaming on the Cheap with Free Services 90 Subscribing to TV and Movie Streaming Services 91 Buying or Renting a Movie or TV Show 93 Watching a Movie or TV Show 93 Controlling playback 94 Setting playback options 96 Peeking at cast or music info 96 Viewing mobile content on your Fire TV Stick device 98 Connecting Fire TV to a second screen device 100 Chapter 7: Watching and Recording Shows with Fire TV Recast 103 What is Fire TV Recast? 104 Getting Ready for Fire TV Recast 105 Positioning Fire TV Recast 106 Setting Up Fire TV Recast 107 Watching and Recording Over-the-Air TV 109 Managing your over-the-air channels 109 Watching over-the-air shows live 111 Setting recording options 115 Recording over-the-air shows 118 Watching recorded over-the-air shows 120 Managing Your Fire TV Recast 122 Checking DVR storage 122 Adding external DVR storage 123 Checking scheduled recordings 124 Changing recording priority 124 Deleting recordings 126 Rescanning channels 126 Part 3: Going Beyond the Basics 127 Chapter 8: Getting More Out of Fire TV 129 Connecting Bluetooth Devices 130 Pairing your Bluetooth devices 131 Connecting to paired Bluetooth devices 135 Unpairing a Bluetooth device 136 Connecting USB Devices 136 Adding a USB storage drive 136 Ejecting a USB drive 138 Letting Your Kids Watch Fire TV 139 Activating parental controls 139 Configuring parental controls 140 Making Fire TV Accessible 142 Enabling the Fire TV features for the vision impaired 142 Checking out the Fire TV features for the hearing impaired 148 Browsing the Web 151 Surfing with Silk 151 Surfing with Firefox 153 Listening to Music 155 Touring the Amazon Music app 156 Controlling music playback 157 Viewing Your Photos and Videos 159 Viewing photos and videos using Fire TV Edition Media Player 159 Viewing photos and videos with the Amazon Photos app 161 Running a Fire TV slideshow 161 Chapter 9: Controlling Fire TV (And More) with Alexa 163 What is Alexa? 164 Alexa’s components 164 How Alexa works 165 Installing the Alexa App 166 Taking a tour of the Alexa app 167 Giving Alexa access to your device microphone 169 Connecting Your Alexa Device to Fire TV 169 Getting to Know Alexa 170 Getting Alexa’s attention 171 Keeping Alexa’s attention 171 Ending the conversation 172 Enabling Brief mode 173 Enabling Whisper mode 173 Watching Movies and TV Shows with Alexa 174 Navigating Fire TV tabs 175 Locating movies and TV shows 175 Watching a movie trailer 175 Playing movies and TV shows 176 Watching live TV 176 Controlling the volume 177 Movie and TV show info requests 177 Some movie Easter eggs 178 Some TV Easter eggs 179 More Useful Alexa Requests 179 Everyday-info requests 179 Information requests 180 Audio requests 180 Alarm and timer requests 181 Calendar, reminder, and list requests 181 Communication requests 182 Shopping requests 182 Using Alexa to Control Smart-Home Devices 183 Installing a Wi-Fi smart-home device 184 Making automatic network connections with Wi-Fi Simple Setup 185 Discovering smart-home devices using an Alexa skill 186 Controlling a smart-home device 188 Turning smart plugs on and off 189 Working with smart lights 190 Part 4: The Part of Tens 191 Chapter 10: Cutting the Cord: Ten Steps to Going Cable-Free 193 Step 1: Decide If You Really Want to Cut the Cord 194 Step 2: Make a List of Your “Must-See” Shows (Or Not) 196 Step 3: Figure Out What Equipment You Need 197 Step 4: Check What’s Available Over-the-Air 198 Step 5: Make a Streaming Budget 200 Step 6: Subscribe to Streaming Services 201 Step 7: Set Up Fire TV Recast 202 Step 8: Put It All Together with Fire TV 202 Step 9: Do a Trial Run 203 Step 10: Say Goodbye to Your Cable Company 203 Chapter 11: Ten Things That Can Go Wrong 205 Troubleshooting General Problems 206 Restarting your Fire TV device 206 Checking your Fire TV device for software updates 207 Resetting your Fire TV device 208 You Can’t Connect to Your Wi-Fi Network 208 You’re Having Trouble Streaming Media 210 The Fire TV Mobile App Can’t Pair with Your Fire TV Device 212 Your Fire TV Screen is Blank 212 You Don’t Hear Audio During Playback 213 You’re Having Trouble Connecting a Bluetooth Device 214 You don’t see a Bluetooth device 214 You can’t pair with a Bluetooth device 215 Your Fire TV Device is Unresponsive 216 You Changed Your Wi-Fi Network Password 216 A Fire TV App Doesn’t Work Properly 217 Chapter 12: Ten Ways to Enhance Privacy and Security 219 Make Sure Your Wi-Fi Network is Locked Up Tight 220 Stop Saving Wi-Fi Passwords to Amazon 222 Delete saved Wi-Fi passwords via Fire TV 223 Delete saved Wi-Fi passwords via Amazon 224 Secure Your Amazon Account with a Strong Password 225 Enable Amazon’s Two-Step Verification 226 Prevent Fire TV from Playing Previews Automatically 229 Remove Content from Your Fire TV 230 Prevent Amazon from Using Personal Data for Marketing 230 Prevent Amazon from Tracking Your App Usage 231 Prevent Advertisers from Tracking You 232 Deregister Your Fire TV Device 234 Index 235