With the $20 discount as a Prime member it only comes to $19. I decided to give it a try. I had actually been considering purchasing a Roku recently because my Chromecast doesn't work with my new Comcast router without some router adjustments. For $19, I'm ok with using this for Netflix rather than Chromecast and having to figure out how to setup my router to not use the 5ghz channel.
I recently lost my apple tv remote and buying a fire stick is more attractive than trying to figure out where to buy a new remote and how to set it up.
You can program any IR remote (like, for instance, your TV remote) to act as your AppleTV remote. Much more convenient than using the provided-by-Apple remote.
Of course to teach the Apple TV you'll need a working remote or mobile app, so if you don't have any iOS devices you may be out of luck.
"Fire TV stick cannot be powered directly by your HDTV and should be plugged into the wall"
That's really disappointing, I'd rather have less power and be able to power via the TV USB port like chromecast. Maybe even a dealbreaker, definitely broke my impulse buy for now.
> Chromecast is typically powered by the USB port on the TV, not the wall.
Chromecast is powered by USB, whether that comes from the TV or the wall depends on whether the TV has a free USB port (which requires having a USB port to start with.) I suspect lots of Chromecasts are used with older, pre-USB TVs (the popularity of TV USB ports largely coincides with Smart TVs, and Chromecast adds more to a TV that isn't already a Smart TV.)
This has turned out to be far more difficult to find out than I would have guessed. I still don't know! They also sell an optional "voice controller", I would assume that uses the same tech. Maybe we can figure it out through those specs.
