Amazon Fire TV Reviews

by Really_miffed

I’ve had AmazonFireTV since my fire tv remote broke a few years ago. It used to be a really great app so I never bothered getting a new remote. Over the last few months there must have been an update or something bc now it bugs out like CRAZY. If I’m trying to scroll through movies, apps, etc or trying to FF or rewind it gets “stuck” as if it were a real button and just endlessly scrolls to the left or right until there’s nothing left to scroll through. It will skip through an entire movie and when you try to get back to the part you were at it gets stuck again and goes all the way back to the beginning. I get one maybe two good swipes or taps over and suddenly it’s shooting down the end of the list and I have to open and close AmazonFireTV at least twice before it works again. If it’s not doing that it’s because it just suddenly stopped registering touch in the middle of using it.

by Elisethebeasf

In the modern age where everything is a tap or button press away, I never thought I’d be forced to use such a nonsensical, awkward, and simply inoperable tool to flounder my way through an app which I’d previously thought unintuitive enough, but the mobile remote function is about as far from convenient as it gets. Its design is painfully obscure to use, making menu navigation maddeningly impossible. Inexplicably, neither a screen interface appears on your phone nor does a cursor appear on your smart tv. It’s clumsy, offering no reprieve from its terrible mismatched jigsaw puzzle of functions that seem to argue with you as you try them out in vain, systematically destroying your patience and sanity one step at a time. It’s about the only thing advertised as ‘free’ whereupon installing it you realize the steep price was your time and effort, and suddenly looking for the microscopic, equally unlabeled remote lost in the physical world is no longer so Herculean a task.

Truly one of the quickest regrets I’ve ever experienced, AmazonFireTV’s utilization, borne from necessity and not desire, will surely cause me to seek therapy.

by B5g2

Great app. I love being able to use my iPhone to type and search while surfing Netflix. The one issue I am having difficulty with is that, and this is strange, but, the r and s letters do not type out on screen. What I mean is if I type SEARCH into any field, this is what it looks like EACH because the S and R are not being in-putted on-screen. My phone works fine. It’s AmazonFireTV that won’t translate those letters. Fix this and I’ll change my review to a positive 5 stars.

Also, I’m taking a star off because I’m sick and tired of this fragile app not allowing me to use my phone. Doesn’t happen every time, but enough times and of course at the most inopportune moments. My batteries in the remote died. Tried using my phone to navigate the options of AmazonFireTV . Huh. The fire stick isn’t showing up on the available fire stick options. Guess I’ll have to unplug it yet again. Seriously, that’s the ONLY WAY TO RECONNECT. It’s not my phone either. This issue reaches across multiple devices.

by NateBlairFilm

Our dog chewed up our fire stick remote twice now... both times, we were grateful we live in an age where we can control our TV via our phones. However, for some reason on my phone (iPhone 8, iOS 13), once the phone screen locks (like if it goes idle while we watch a show) it disconnects from the TV and AmazonFireTV seems to freeze or become unresponsive.

I’ve tried closing AmazonFireTV completely and restarting it, but it doesn’t connect again until I download AmazonFireTV from AmazonFireTV Store and pair it with the TV again. Meanwhile, our firestick plays continuously with no way of stopping it while we try to get AmazonFireTV to work!

It’s too bad this isn’t just a little better at maintaining its connection, otherwise it seems like a great option for controlling our TV, but at this point in time I would definitely only recommend this for desperate times since it is not at all reliable.

by Gloliver7149

I finally had enough and decided to write a bad review to see if maybe it will get the developers to fix AmazonFireTV , but in reading the very first featured review I saw when I came to the AppStore, it seems you’ve already been told about this problem, and for whatever reason, have yet to fix it. My remote works fine for one button press and that’s it for up to 15-20 minutes. My iPhone app does the exact same thing so if I want to watch a Netflix program, I have literally had to click Netflix with the iPad, then while it’s getting ready to use again I try and type in what I want to watch, then when I’m done with that, I have no choice but to sit and wait 10 minutes for either the iPad or iPhone to work again then repeat the process, till I am finally able to get to a show and push play before it freezes again. Which, being as it’s only job on the world is to change channels and it can’t do that, then you’re quite lucky I gave u two stars instead of one. I gave you two because this used to be a good app. I would like to see it like that again, so maybe pay attention to your 2.8 stars and do something about this.

by Mismysis

Thank lease fix this Fire TV Remote!! AmazonFireTV has always worked just as intended until the update about a week ago. Now, after I’ve had Fire TV on for a bit & it asks if I’m still watching but when I open AmazonFireTV my fire TV (usually only one device, mine) shows up as in the cloud and not on active wi-fi. I close AmazonFireTV out, re-open, select my device and it just shows “connecting” until it finally says “Cannot connect”. I even reset my phone, turn it off/back on, disconnect from wifi/reconnect but I’m unable to get back in my device to “continue watching because it shows in the cloud (not on wifi) while my other device shows on wifi as normal. So, it’s not an internet issue, as one device shows on network & one doesn’t and it’s not a loose Fire TV connection issue as all my fire devices are permanently attached to and behind the TV, on wall mounts without cords accessible or in the way of traffic & zip tied in place.

This is an internal remote connectivity issue with the remote & the device. Please fix this as soon as possible.

by MeKayLOVE

AmazonFireTV is convenient especially for me because my remote disconnected from my firestick and completely malfunctioned. (Only reason i gave it 2 stars for the convenience) So AmazonFireTV came in handy for me to be able to watch my firestick (for a moment).
However it continuously discounts from my television and then won’t reconnect, so then I’m disabled from watching on my firestick again. I’m just glad I have an actual remote being delivered because AmazonFireTV is trash.
The accuracy of the touch of buttons and big screen in the middle to portray the up down left right is completely off. I really wouldn’t suggest the use of AmazonFireTV unless you desperately need to, like I had to because of my remote malfunctioning. But I CANT WAIT to get my remote in the mail because I can’t keep trying to reconnect AmazonFireTV to the tv, and the only solution it says is “make sure you’re signed in under the same account as your firestick tv” 🙄 I am but it still won’t reconnect. A waste.
I suggest to do some modifications update/upgrade on this application

by Enjoy.mya

To be honest this isn’t a bad app, the idea is great and it is very convenient and f you have lost the physical remote like me. However, AmazonFireTV tweaks a lot. Sometimes I have to leave my phone on AmazonFireTV for a period of time just to continue using AmazonFireTV for my fire stick but even then AmazonFireTV will disconnect from my tv and take a long period of time to reconnect and if I’m lucky it’ll reconnect quickly but on the other hand it’ll continue to connect then tell me it can’t or continue to say reconnecting. It is really frustrating because I can’t stop my show or change to the next, even with my fire stick being on, connected to wifi and currently playing a show AmazonFireTV can’t seem to find my device. I read other comments and reviews like mines just to find out everyone else has the same problem and have been having this issue for quite some time now. I hope in the future this will be fixed because it is rather irritating.

by InstaTom23

AmazonFireTV is useful when it needs to be. Like if the remote is across the room and I'm on my phone, it's super convenient that I don't need to stand to grab the remote when I have the same capabilities on my phone (so it's perfect for laziness) other than that, AmazonFireTV has connectivity issues. It takes a few tries before I can connect my phone to the firestick. I need to exit out of AmazonFireTV multiple times to reset it and hope it connects. Took me about 6 tries just now? Yesterday it connected instantly on the 1st try. Other days it's all over. Inconsistent. The only complaint I have other than the connectivity (which I can get over) is the fact that you can't control your TV volume. They should have a volume feature built into AmazonFireTV itself to allow manual control of the volume instead of using the TV's volume functionality. I used to use certain players that have volume adjustments built in so I know it's possible. Anyway, not a bad idea just executed poorly.

by Dmartinez811

I first discovered AmazonFireTV when a girl friend connected it to change what I was playing, I thought this could be handy! A few months after I got my fire stick the remote stopped working, I thought it was strange, changed the batteries but nothing. That’s when I really started using AmazonFireTV . It worked great at first but as days went on it would take a long time to find and connect to the fire stick. I tried my controller again which magically worked again. About a year later my dog chewed the controller so only the up and left button worked as well as the other so I couldn’t use it on the home screen since the down and right button didn’t work. Again same problem with AmazonFireTV , it can connect right away at times. Sometimes I have to try and connect 3-5 times meaning closing and opening AmazonFireTV . Other than getting connected AmazonFireTV works great! I like the keyboard feature which didn’t work for my iPhone 6s until the 11 generation update.

by Yostrj

We recently moved to a new home and I needed to setup my Fire TV recast in a new location. I had all sorts of problems connecting from the Fire TV app on my phone (iPhone XS, iOS 13) so I assumed I needed to reset the Fire TV Recast and start from scratch - no big deal (I thought). After trying and failing to connect, then rebooting, reconnecting, etc. the ‘NEXT’ button kept freezing during setup within the iOS 13-compatible Fire TV app during the “connect to the device WiFi” step during setup. I tried and repeated this step for 30+ minutes before giving up. I then tried to set up the Recast using my wife’s phone which was still on iOS 12 (Fire TV app for iOS 12 on iPhone 7+), which worked immediately on the first try.

[note: other than Fire TV Recast setup issue on iOS 13, the other features/functions worked after we set up the device from another phone]

by Kukuk4cocopuffs

I use AmazonFireTV because my plastic remote stopped working all of a sudden. It works fine, and I like that it has a keyboard feature so I can type more quickly than searching out individual letters. However, some of the features of AmazonFireTV remote don’t translate to certain fire stick apps, so it can be difficult to maneuver those apps with the slide screen on the remote app. And AmazonFireTV suddenly stops working with my tv and will not work for a day or two at a time before it magically works again. I will be using it to hit play on one show, and when I try to use the remote app a few minutes later it stops working. It shows that you’ve moved your finger on the selection pad, and it shows that the buttons have been pressed at the right time, but nothing changes on the tv screen itself. It’s quite frustrating when this happens, but when AmazonFireTV is great when it decides to work.

by Tuleinyana

Over the years, AmazonFireTV has been less and less effective. As of this version, I constantly have my app opening with the UI, it’s responsive but it does not control any devices. I cannot exit out of the UI to select a fire device. When I close AmazonFireTV and open it again, it quickly shows the devices and opens the UI of the remote again.

I also reset a FireTV, 3 or 4 generations ago, and I could not connect, even the plastic remotes had a difficult time. Thankfully one of them worked or I would have had a new paperweight. I bring this up because after the fire tv reset it, when it was turned off and AmazonFireTV was working, my device wasn’t available, after the reset and the device turned on, it showed in AmazonFireTV , couldnt connect to it though. Also could not setup any older type devices.

Not sure how AmazonFireTV works but it needs a lot of work

by KTRuffin

AmazonFireTV was very useful when I lost my fire stick remote (idk how I lost it but I suspect it’s in my room), my mom mentioned it to me, and I reinstalled it. (my mom must’ve had AmazonFireTV previously) It took me by surprise of how good it was! I functioned just like my fire stick! (My fire stick was awesome btw ;-;) But there is two things that irritates me. And one of them is when my phone turns off automatically, it would have a little “Reconnecting” thing. This didn’t bug me much, until now. Now, if you leave AmazonFireTV open for a long time, the “Reconnecting” thing will be a bit long. (Not too long, but enough to annoy me) And, there is the last thing I need to complain about lol. If you leave AmazonFireTV for a long time, the thing I just said above is if your fast enough to come back. If you leave it for a long enough time, when you come back to AmazonFireTV , it shows how to connect to your fire stick TV. Now, this happens a lot, and it’s really stupid cause it takes so many taps just to be lucky and actually connect to it. Let me get straight to the point. Sometimes if I try to connect to it, (which means tap on what my TV is called) it doesn’t work. It’s like a frozen screen, but it’s not. And if I hit the wrong thing, which happens often, It would send me to “Add Devices”. Please fix this, it would be better for me.

by SharikaD

AmazonFireTV itself gets 4 stars. But the TV/TV Remote definitely a 1 star. App is great to fall back on when tv/tv remote not acting right. Glad we do have an app to assist. Thought the idea of this smart tv Element with Alexa was an good idea, so I bought the tv on clearance pretty much half price. I really realize you get for what you pay for. To keep up with the modernization of what is going on, they just push items out way too fast. Usually I look at reviews before I purchase something but this was on a whim. I feel like I’m changing batteries in this remote once a month, why is the question? I feel like I have an defective tv and remote. I have only had this tv for 4 months within the first month I had to have the remote replaced, so I’m on my second remote. I just give up with this tv

by Mwangota

I usually don’t do reviews but here it goes... AmazonFireTV has always worked great for me especially since I have lost the physical remote. But recently for about a week or so when I attempted to watch anything AmazonFireTV would not let go up,down,left or right I could however click on the setting button and it would immediately take me to settings but again I could not go up,down,left or right and when I clicked the home button it immediately went to the home button but I still couldn’t move around. I came on here in the reviews to see if anyone was having this issue I had attempted to unplug and re-plug the fire stick and I was still have the same issue. Today I decided to contact support through AmazonFireTV and selected call me, so I immediately got a call waited less than 1 minute and they actually helped me. She was able to take control of my screen and see what I was talking about she had me troubleshoot by reinstalling AmazonFireTV on my phone than unplugging the fire stick from my tv wait 2-3 minutes than plug it back in and to my surprise it WORKED i guess waiting before replugging helped because I had unplugged the fire stick before but not that long just like a couple seconds so yeah hope someone can find this helpful.

by Former Snapper

Update:
Seriously why hasn’t AmazonFireTV been updated and fixed??? It hasn’t worked on my phone for at least 2 weeks. It’s ridiculous!!!!

Previous review:
AmazonFireTV is useful and easy to navigate WHEN IT WORKS, which it only does about 50% of the time. The other 50% of the time, it will either be unable to connect to the fire stick OR it will connect/open and allow “buttons” to be tapped but does not control the tv at all. It’s extremely annoying and not fixable by closing & reopening nor uninstalling & reinstalling. It just randomly starts working again, sometimes after 2-3 days of not working at all. If it worked even 80% of the time I’d be happy...

by Wesley Brilhante

I’m trying AmazonFireTV cause my original controller broke and my universal one has problem with the back button but let’s get to the point AmazonFireTV is very good for me but the developers should look into the sensitivity levels of the buttons for example if I have my tv volume at 1 and I hit the + volume on AmazonFireTV just one time the volume of my tv should go up only to 2 but most of the time it keeps going all the way until it’s all the way to the maximum,it happens also with the arrows when I’m trying to switch apps with i hit whatever direction keeps going to that direction indefinitely so for me I’m just using as the home button and the back button the rest i can get around with the universal controller I bought

by Pacman Rules

Just set up AmazonFireTV for my Fire TV remote and it’s awesome! Pairing AmazonFireTV to the Fire TV was seamless. AmazonFireTV itself works extremely well and I prefer to use it in place of the actual remote since it just feels easier to navigate through the Fire TV options using both hands on the phone instead of one when using the physical remote. Also, if a reconnection is needed when reopening AmazonFireTV it does so immediately. It's important to make sure your connected WiFi network remains the same on your phone as it is on the Fire TV WiFi connection. I suspect that poor WiFi connections and conflicting networks are the reasons why some have complained about their reconnections to AmazonFireTV either not working or taking too long. No problems here with that. The voice commands functionality works great too, just speak what you want to watch and you're set to go. Ability to turn the tv on or off by voice is very convenient too. More to explore. Well done!

by RTurner623

My dogs chewed up our remote, so I found AmazonFireTV to use in the meantime! It is also super easy to figure out as well. The blank touch pad was a little confusing at first, but it’s not difficult to navigate. I do think AmazonFireTV would attract more users if there was some kind of circle dial similar to the Fire TV remote or at least 4 directional arrows so it’s easy to specify direction you are clicking instead of having to tap on the blank center touch pad. There was another remote app that has this, but it wants you to pay to subscribe and does not seem to be as good as AmazonFireTV. The only major downside of this remote app and other remote apps I’ve looked into, is that they don’t seem to have volume control options, so I’m still going to have to buy an actual remote because of this. If it wasn’t for the volume issue, I would be happy just using AmazonFireTV from now on.

by Animegirl531

It’s absolutely hilarious how often AmazonFireTV doesn’t work. I’m constantly closing and opening AmazonFireTV , undownloading and re-downloading it, and turning my phone completely off then on again to try anything to get it to work, for it to still say “connecting” forever when I try to connect to my firestick, and sometimes never get anywhere. I would love to be able to open AmazonFireTV, click on my device name, and just use the remote but unfortunately AmazonFireTV has unbelievable flaws. Reading through other reviews, it seems there’s plenty of others having the same issues. I can’t imagine it’s difficult to make a functional app that connects to a device over the internet in 2019, especially for a company that is so concerned with customer satisfaction normally.

by Sissy W

I’m always getting a “reconnecting” message or “cannot locate firestick” message and the letters “s” and “r” don’t work on the keyboard. My remote that comes with the firestick quit working so I downloaded AmazonFireTV and it doesn’t work!! I’m spending too much time trying to get the remote app to work and if it doesn’t work I can’t use the firestick. I’ve deleted AmazonFireTV and reinstalled but that has not helped. I’m constantly having to unplug my firestick to get the remote app to work. I have problems with the remote app about 6 times a day, every day. I do hope you get this fixed, if not I’m going to have to look into another tv device to purchase because I don’t have satellite or cable. It also may be a good idea to look into the reasons why the remote that comes with the firestick, quits working so soon. I’m very disappointed in the quality of this product. A remote should work longer than 6 months and the remote app should be able to locate the firestick when the firestick is on and playing and the keyboard should allow all letters to be typed in. Thank you for your time.
Update:Even with the update and bug fixes it doesn’t work. It won’t connect or it can’t find the device. I’m in the middle of using it and it starts reconnecting then it can’t connect while I’m using it, no stopping just scrolling.

by Happymesa91

AmazonFireTV is great if your batteries on your physical remote go out or if you lose your remote. There are two main issues that I have with AmazonFireTV. The first one are connectivity to the actual fire stick. Sometimes AmazonFireTV doesn’t want to connect to the fire stick or there are issues while using AmazonFireTV . The second issue is the fact that the home button is right above the pause/play button and in order to get the pause/play you have to swipe up from the bottom of your device. The issue is AmazonFireTV automatically times out the pause and play button leaving the home button in the exact same place where you might have wanted to press pause/play. I’ve hit the home button many times thinking it was the pause/play button and it’s so frustrating to be watching a show and get completely kicked out to the home screen. Developers need to please fix that!

by Robpex

UPDATE: They fixed the bugs and AmazonFireTV worked for a few weeks FLAWLESSLY. Now, AmazonFireTV has stopped working completely. I cannot connect to my fire stick since the latest Apple update. It’ll connect briefly and then disconnect within seconds. Now I can’t get into the controls at all.

AmazonFireTV works as it’s supposed to once it FINALLY gets connected... after about 10 tries. God forbid you have to use your phone for anything else because it’ll take 10 more tries to reconnect after leaving AmazonFireTV . I accidentally washed my original remote and rely on the mobile remote for control. Honestly if I can, I just leave AmazonFireTV open and drain my phone battery just in case I need to pause what I’m watching ... because it’ll take 10 mins to reconnect if I don’t. I hope they fix this.

by Patrickh1234

I’ve had AmazonFireTV for awhile now & up until recently, it worked reasonably well w/ only minor issues. Around 2 weeks ago, AmazonFireTV would just randomly stop responding. I’d be in the middle of choosing something to watch & it would just stop. I’d have to close it out & reopen it. Even then I’d only have about 10-15 seconds before it would quit again. I found that deleting & reinstalling AmazonFireTV fixes the issue...temporarily. I usually have to delete & reinstall AmazonFireTV at least once a day, if not more. I’ve been searching for another Firestick remote app for my phone & as soon as I find one that actually works, I’ll be deleting this one for good. The only reason I gave it 2 stars instead of 1 is b/c when it does work, I love it. Unfortunately, the work/doesn’t work ratio isn’t waaaaay off.

by Destiny Vogt

I have never left a review on any app ever and I’ve had an iPhone since 2013. AmazonFireTV started off great. Our batteries die often in our actual remote so I just downloaded this, back in August I think. As of the most recent update, everything has been crap. Firstly, when I try to search with the keyboard on here, R’s and S’s will not type. Now, the thing won’t connect to my fire stick. It’s been so frustrating because the WiFi connection is absolutely fine. And all apps are working on the firestick with the WiFi, but AmazonFireTV won’t connect to it. Says there’s no internet connection, but there is. It keeps doing this and after about 100 tries it’ll connect, and then disconnect itself. It’s frustrating and this has all only started after the last update. Please fix this.

by Monny_swim

When I first got it, this was so much easier to navigate through my firestick. Before getting AmazonFireTV, my issue always was me needing to pause whatever I was watching and not able to because I couldn’t find my remote. I got this for my iPad and iPhone and it was great. But two nights ago, something completely random happened and now all of a sudden AmazonFireTV won’t connect to my fire stick, the Sign In button doesn’t work, most buttons on AmazonFireTV won’t work initially either. I deleted AmazonFireTV and redownloaded it and nothing changed. I checked with my firestick tv, my echo, my WiFi/internet and everything was fine, it all came back to AmazonFireTV. I’m really not sure what happened but it’s a pretty annoying let down to say the least.

by Acornsinthe816

After a lot of digging and countless batteries I discovered that due to the fire stick remote being blue tooth it drains batteries much quicker and this is a known issue with it.
With that there truly needs to be an app in lieu of the one provided as many people will continue to have this issue. I started using AmazonFireTV over 2 years ago and loved it! It saved my frustration over the ever dying remote and I could let anyone in the house have their own remote. It never gets lost! Over the last 2-3 months AmazonFireTV is impossible to get it to connect and once you do have it connected it often disconnects shortly after. Please fix whatever bug is causing the issues!

by JunkWithSpunk

Thought the batteries went dead in our Fire TV remote we’d only had a couple months, replaced the batteries, troubleshooted, contacted support, tried everything under the sun to no avail. Discovered AmazonFireTV and was back in business! It’s actually easier to use than the remote because it has a keyboard so saves a lot of time when searching for something, and I love how you can swipe up to fast forward 10 minutes, or swipe right to FF 10 seconds - it’s been SO much better than using the FF button that takes wayyy too long to buffer through everything. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!