if you went out and bought one of the 4k
versions of your fire stick and then
you're feeling like maybe you're not
getting 4k resolution that's a very
frustrating thing and holding down the
middle button on your remote and the
down button for five seconds then
letting go and hitting the menu button
will bring up a special developer option
panel that will help you confirm what it
is you're seeing on screen
there are two options up at the top that
you can enable the first one allows you
to see some basic statistics on how your
fire stick is performing and i
especially like the rssi that shows up
this will help you diagnose wi-fi issues
and if you just leave that on screen
while content is playing and then you
see the rssi drop below minus 75 dbm
then you might want to have a look at
how your wi-fi is situated but if you
enable the second option and then you
start content within any of your
streaming services you should see a
little information block pop up on
screen and give you not just the
information about the resolution but
also some information about audio output
which can help you diagnose some of
those issues as well
hello automators thanks for tuning in
again i'm brian from automate your life
and we will be automating your
television today in a way that allows
you to get so much more out of your
amazon fire stick and even i was a
little surprised at how far i could go
so as we go through today's video i'll
be building to bigger and better
features and by the end of this you
should have things like what is
essentially unlimited memory actually be
able to use the internet browser on your
fire stick play retro games with friends
or even better yet play luna anywhere in
the world your music and sound
experiences will change entirely and
you'll be able to load almost any
application you use on your phone or
tablet today
all that and much more as i give these
little tips throughout each segment
regarding that little trick at the start
of today's video for ensuring you're
actually getting those resolutions or
features you expect like dolby vision or
dolby atmos there is a few display
settings that you can modify but for the
most part if you just leave them to what
they were originally set at your content
should come in the best way it can on
your tv however your tv settings can be
really impactful to this and one of the
things you'll want to check is whether
or not your hdmi input for your fire
stick has some things like uhd turned on
or if there are any other settings that
may be restricting video or audio
quality there the physical hardware that
we get with the fire stick appears to be
pretty plain but it's built on the
android operating system even though
it's called fire os
what being built on android has meant
for this type of device is that we can
really hack the hardware in some really
amazing ways there are a couple of
purchases that i'm going to recommend
because this absolutely opens up a ton
of options but if you don't want to
purchase these things you can still do a
lot of what i'll show you going forward
and i will give you some of the
workarounds as we go the first purchase
is this micro usb otg adapter this is a
pretty common thing for people to buy
with fire sticks because it gives you
the option to power another device and
it gives us an opportunity to buy other
things to plug into it and that's where
our second purchase will be a hub now
there's a few that i've had but this one
is really inexpensive and it works
really well for a lot of reasons it has
three usb ports and will be powered by
our otg adapter i've also bought this
combo style but to be honest i don't
like it as much because it's not as
clean and because it's missing this
fancy ethernet port on the u-green hub
my installation of this took seconds and
just a few steps i turned off and
unplugged the fire tv stick from the
power and tv i unplugged the micro usb
cable from the fire stick i plugged in
the micro usb cable into the female side
of the otg adapter and then i plugged in
the hub's usb port into the adapter as
well
now what i have are three open usb ports
and there are many types of devices we
can now plug in one of the biggest
problems with fire sticks is their
storage capacity and the ability to drop
media files or other file types onto the
fire stick and then use them so one of
the easiest and most likely things that
you will have in your home are a ton of
usb keys or jump drives so i filled this
one up with a few different things from
my pc and then i plugged it into the hub
once my fire stick was powered on i went
into the settings and down to my fire tv
inside of there i could now see that i
had some external storage available i
could if i wanted to format that in
order to use it as storage for
additional apps now i would suggest that
you look at something like a solid state
drive if you're going to use it for apps
and that would require actual powering
of the drive in a separate outlet in
most cases but i have tried usb flash
drives and this kind of flash drive that
takes a micro sd or an sd card i do get
a warning that i can't use that one as
internal storage but now i have all of
this external storage and i did preload
it with some fun stuff in order to use
this well i downloaded an application
called file explorer it's free and it
does allow you to look inside that
external storage as long as you choose
to allow all of the permissions it's
asking for
that means you can play many types of
media files and it can scan through the
local network in your home to get other
files and storage now i've shown you
some methods for increasing your storage
but in some cases you might just want to
transfer a few files across and you
don't want all of this hardware the
application that i've found very useful
for this is called files to tv files to
tv has to be downloaded as an app both
in the fire stick app store and then you
have to get it on your phone as well and
you'll choose send on your phone and
then receive on the fire stick and then
you're able to send pretty much anything
from your phone over there and that file
explorer app will help you to then find
those i do know that many of you
struggle staying connected to your
home's wi-fi and one of the best things
you can do for the health of your wi-fi
network is to take streaming devices off
of wi-fi so if you are struggling with
wireless connectivity this hub gives us
the option to turn our connection into a
wired one i plugged it into the one
gigabit ethernet port but again i had to
do that with the device unplugged and
turned off
then once it gets turned back on head
into your network settings and you see
you've switched over to a wired
connection one of the biggest problems i
have with the fire sticks is that the
remote really just gives us a few
options for navigating and searching and
using everything on our fire stick and
for me i end up using the voice control
but i know a lot of people aren't
willing to do that or don't love that
and i think every one of us have felt
the frustration of typing in a password
using this remote and dying of old age
before we're done one great way to get
around this is to use the fire tv app
which you just download on your phone
and you can set up on a new device very
simply once you've downloaded that app
and your fire stick is plugged in it
should find the device automatically now
that i've added this hub i can plug in
both a keyboard and a mouse and many of
the apps you will use will then have a
mouse pointer that you can use as you
would on any normal pc or mac and the
keyboard will be able to type in to any
field you open up so remember that
password problem no more now if you use
the wrong devices this option will take
up two ports on that hub so might not be
your preferred way of doing that and
logitech who is the maker of this
keyboard has some great options for
combining their usb keyboards and mice
into a single adapter but i actually
think my favorite is this mini keyboard
it's small and it has a rechargeable
battery and there are many models
available today but almost all of the
buttons work exactly how you would
expect them to
there's a home button and there's even a
button to open up the internet browser
as well as and there's a back button and
of course the keyboard can be used in
any of those fields that you're going to
search with it also has a mouse pad up
at the top of it that you can use to
move that mouse pointer around you can
tap and then you can even scroll using
two fingers on this pad and all of this
is done on one usb port and it's done
wirelessly the only gap i really saw
here was that some of the applications
didn't know how to use all of the
buttons and i couldn't bring up amazon's
voice assistant with it this would
effectively leave us one usb port open
and maybe you don't need the wireless
keyboard or the extra storage and at any
time you can remove those just make sure
you unplug the fire stick because we're
gonna need two ports for this next hack
one great thing about the fire sticks is
that they allow you to introduce
bluetooth controllers to navigate around
the interface but in a lot of cases when
i've used my playstation 4 controllers
or based on what i've got back from
comments from you if you're using xbox
one controllers or other bluetooth
controllers you're finding latency in
things like games and so am i so instead
i took a few different controllers and
tested them out with this hub solution
this is a nintendo switch pro controller
or at least a look-alike one and when i
plugged this in this became easily the
best controller i've ever had on a fire
stick
i also tried these cheap usb super
nintendo look-alike controllers which
cost me like ten dollars or something
five years ago and while i'm sure
they're more expensive these days
plugging these in gave me a few ideas it
was really easy to use either of those
controllers to play final fantasy 3
which there is an app for and there are
many games in the app store that you
will suddenly have access to that will
work really well so you can now just sit
and roll through the app store and i'm
sure you'll find something you love
but i have some of these usb controllers
because in the past i've bought emulator
boxes that are built and pre-sold with
some of these controllers those are fine
but they cost usually a hundred to two
hundred dollars and i'm sitting here
looking at a ton of available storage
and usb ports so i downloaded an
application called retro arch and while
i won't specifically say the name of the
company that i'm playing retro video
games from because they would probably
shut a video down like this i can tell
you that you will be able to find a lot
of what are called roms for old video
games that you remember loving so i
opened up retro arch after having
plugged in my nintendo switch pro
controller i chose a core which is
what's called an emulator and for those
who don't know what an emulator is it's
software that is able to be just like
one of those old systems so i chose it
from the list and then i configured the
controllers in the settings
i had to walk through mapping the
buttons on this controller to what they
would have been in the game and then i
had to save the configuration for those
controllers and save the configuration
for retro arch in general it's very
important to save that configuration so
keep that in mind but from there i did a
quick test of playing a few games and
then i repeated the process with one of
those usb super nintendo look-alike
controllers then i was able to play
two-player games and depending on the
rom and the system you're using you
could get up to three players playing a
game using this hub you may or may not
have noticed this in today's video but
if you haven't i have been using a
computer monitor for all of these demos
first of all to do that i had to get
this dvi to hdmi adapter to plug in
which is a very simple and inexpensive
purchase and if you want to use
something like a computer monitor
it means you don't have a speaker this
actually leads me to an option that many
of you might be very interested in which
is an hdmi switcher like this which
would allow you to go between your fire
tv stick and your regular pc or computer
input anyways as i said i really didn't
find the bluetooth interface super
useful for game controllers but
this is somewhere i do find the
bluetooth option very useful
you can try bluetooth speakers and see
if your specific speaker will introduce
some latency it's likely that you will
feel like the sound is always a little
bit behind and unfortunately with
bluetooth speakers and the audio
features on these fire sticks you're not
going to find any way to get around
that if you do get latency however for
me i have found much better performance
with earbuds or headsets and i've even
used the echo buds as well as other
bluetooth earbuds just directly
connected through the bluetooth option
in the fire stick this gives you a way
to use an old monitor or another older
television with no speakers and create
kind of a private viewing experience for
someone of course the best feature for
anyone who wants to avoid using their
television speakers is the home theater
option and this is an easy process so i
feel like i can show you it briefly but
if you do need a full walkthrough of
this feature there's a video link in the
description below that will help for
this you will need an echo echo dot or
an echo studio if you want you can use
those in pairs and create a 2.0 speaker
system with them or you can buy an echo
sub and then two of those speakers and
create a 2.1 speaker system for myself
i'm finding a single echo sub and a
single echo studio are a very powerful
and well balanced system to set up one
of these home theater systems head into
the miss a application log in using the
same amazon account you use when you set
up your echo speakers and your fire tv
stick and then head to the devices page
tap on the plus and get to the prompt
that allows you to create a home theater
group
then choose the speakers that you would
like alongside that fire stick and
amazon will pretty much do the rest once
complete you'll probably get a little
demo of your new sound quality and if
you do find some latency in the way the
speakers are performing there are some
options within the audio settings of
your fire stick that allow you to
synchronize your speakers with the video
content and remember way back when i
showed you at the start of today's video
that you could see the audio information
well you can review that again to make
sure what kind of audio you're getting
is what you want but inside of the
settings for your audio you can also
find this option to determine if you
will get features like dolby vision or
dolby atmos with your setup and if you
want more information on things like
getting dolby atmos working then you'll
want to see this video where i walk
through everything i had to do in order
to get that feature working so we have
lots of options for video and audio and
i'm showing you how to play some games
plus we've added these little
peripherals to
make the experience better and i'm going
to head a little further down the video
game route but this next trick will
actually give you the option to get
different content types and even
different applications working like you
were in another country
the application that you would go and
get is called expressvpn and i've tested
this out and it seems very effective
within the entire fire tv system that's
because once i've signed up for a
monthly service with them which does
cost i can choose where i would like my
internet connection to be from
for those of you who don't know what a
vpn is it's something that can help with
privacy depending on how it's done and
in a lot of cases it can make it look
like you are in a different country so
let me show you what i did here and what
it quickly gave me access to which is
incredible my fire tv is set up in an
account that i created on amazon.com now
i'm up in canada so normally i would
create an account on amazon.ca
i have entire guides on how to deal with
this but if you're struggling to make an
account like this then feel free to
leave comments below and i'll help you
out
you will also find links to guides for
getting your account converted or
creating a new one in the description
below anyways using this american
account to set up the fire tv and my
echo speakers has given me the ability
to download applications like luna
that's amazon's new cloud-based gaming
service and it's an interesting offer
that i think a lot of people would like
to try
so i downloaded that application and
then i went in and i couldn't use any of
the games or sign up for a trial or
anything but i will tell you that my hub
solution and the nintendo switch pro
controller allowed me to get past the
need to buy a luna controller so what i
did is i went into that expressvpn
application turned on the vpn and made
it look like i was in the us then i
created this shortcut to jump over to
luna right away and suddenly i could
sign up for a trial with a credit card
on my amazon.com account within moments
i was playing devil may cry 5 and there
wasn't any latency or lag or any
problems with this and i assume that
most folks across the pond away from
north america are going to struggle with
latency a little bit more but it was a
very smooth experience and very
enjoyable from there i was able to go
into other applications with that vpn on
and look like i was from the us and get
different content so and it might be
really interesting for you to know that
netflix in canada still has the office
anyways this will potentially give you
access to a lot more content and a lot
of different apps on the fire stick
speaking of getting more apps i'm going
to show you the best way i think there
is to pretty much put any app on your
fire stick but before we do that you
need to know how to manage some of these
applications when they are misbehaving
or just to fix up your interface a
little bit on the fire stick so if you
have an app that isn't quite working
right and you come in and out of it a
couple of times but it just keeps
screwing up then there are two things
you can do head into the applications in
settings then manage installed
applications and find the name of the
app that is misbehaving you can clear
the data or the cache and i will call
that the nuclear option as if you have
things saved in it like an account
you're blowing that away when you remove
the data
but this can be a way to cause an app to
kind of hard reset
the other thing you can do that is much
easier is to force stop the application
and then to hit that little launch
button this closes the application fully
and allows you to get it started from
the very start again
as you get more applications there is an
option to go into the my apps section
and if you hit the little menu button
there you can rearrange and bring your
favorite apps up to the top in order to
have them show up in the quick menu on
the home page but if you go into the app
store there are a few options for
finding applications including the basic
search however i know for many of you
that you will have multiple fire sticks
and so it's easy to pull those apps
across
from one fire stick to another by
looking for this all apps option in the
store it's in that area that you will
see apps that you haven't put on this
fire stick but you have on other ones in
your account so now we have all these
options for finding and managing
applications and this means we can
really expand what type of applications
we will try and remember earlier in the
video i said that fire os was based on
android this is great news for us
because it means a lot of android
applications will work and i know many
of you have an iphone but let's be
honest most apps are available on both
iphone or ios and android so you should
find a version available for you so
we're going to do something called side
loading in order to do that head to the
app store and search for an application
called downloader
that application allows you to paste
urls directly into it but i think it's
easier to just do a search for the app
you're looking for
to do this
just put in the name of the app and then
i would say write apk after that
of course if you have one of these a
fancy keyboards this just became a lot
easier and what i want
to make sure of is that you feel secure
downloading one of these apks because
it's like downloading an app that wasn't
verified as safe by google in their play
store or amazon in their app store so
there's only a few sites that i download
apks from but once you find an app that
you would like it's a few clicks to
bring that application onto your fire
stick the first time you do this the
downloader app will ask for permission
to be able to install apps and you do
have to grant that the first time once
you've done that the downloader app will
work through the installation process of
your new apk and it will even prompt you
to delete the apk after it's done which
you can do once it's installed to keep
your memory clean or
less memory used on the fire stick keep
in mind that many of these apps won't
work totally right and this is a rabbit
hole that you can go down now and delete
apps as you need or move them around as
you find them useful and you can truly
do some amazing things in your home with
your television and i have even more
hidden tips and tricks on these fire
sticks up on screen now in that video so
go check that out it'll expand further
what you can do with these great little
streaming devices in your home otherwise
thanks for watching today and of course
don't hate automate