Paul McFedries has been involved with computers for more than 40 years. He has been a programmer, database developer, consultant, and website developer, and now devotes his time to helping others understand technology. His 95-plus books, covering everything from Amazon Alexa to web coding, have sold more than four million copies worldwide.

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