5 Cool Things You Didn’t Know Your Amazon Fire TV Stick Could Do – BGR

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Like most other major streaming devices out there, the Amazon Fire TV Stick is designed to be intuitive and user-friendly. In fact, even without reading the manual, you can quickly set it up and customize it to your liking. Simply follow the initial setup prompts, log in to your streaming services, and you’re good to go. From there, it’s easy to figure out how to open apps, search for movies to watch, adjust the volume, and manage the media playback.

But while the Fire TV Stick is pretty straightforward for the most part, it actually hides a couple of tricks up its sleeve that aren’t as obvious. These hidden capabilities go beyond basic controls and streaming and add more convenience to the device. From accessing secret shortcuts to connecting with Bluetooth devices and Ring doorbells, here are five of the cool things you can do on the Amazon Fire TV Stick that you probably didn’t know about.

So, you’re busy watching the news on your Amazon Fire TV Stick when your Ring doorbell rings. Rather than picking up your phone and opening the Ring app, wouldn’t it be more convenient if you could immediately see the camera feed right on your TV screen? Well, you can actually link the two devices to do exactly that. 

Once paired, the Ring live feed will automatically pop up as a picture-in-picture window on your TV every time someone rings the doorbell or motion is detected. You can easily maximize this window to view the video in full-screen mode, hear your guest, and even talk back. Other than automatic popups, the Fire TV Stick can also display the live feed anytime you want. To get started with pairing your Ring and Fire TV Stick together, follow this guide:

1. Launch the Alexa app on your phone. 
2. Tap the three lines at the bottom.  
3. Select Skills & Games. 
4. Search for Ring.  
5. Choose the first result. 
6. Press Enable to link it to your Alexa account. 
7. Hit Agree and continue. 
8. Follow the prompts to finish pairing the two devices. 

With your Ring doorbell added to your Alexa account, you can now configure it to use your Fire TV Stick. Here’s how:

1. On the Alexa app on your phone, select the lightbulb icon.
2. Open your Ring doorbell. 
3. Select Settings.  
4. Under Announcements, go to Announcement devices. 
5. Choose your Fire TV Stick. 
6. Tap the back button. 
7. Toggle on Doorbell Press Announcements, Motion Announcements, or both. 

Your two devices are now linked and ready. When the live camera feed appears, long-press the home button to select it. Then, click Full screen. To talk to your guest, press and hold the Alexa Voice button. To close the feed, click right to enter Picture-in-Picture mode, long-press on home again, and choose the X icon. To display the feed manually, hold down on the Alexa Voice button on your remote and say, “Show me [your Ring doorbell name.]”

You already use your Fire TV Stick remote to control your TV’s volume, move through the menus, and open apps with single-button presses. But it actually offers more functionality than you realize. On top of the basic controls, your Fire TV Stick remote also supports several handy shortcuts to make using the device easier. 

One of the most useful actions you can quickly do with the remote is rebooting. Normally, restarting the stick means going into Settings first, navigating to My Fire TV, and then choosing Restart. But with your remote, you can just long-press the center and Play buttons simultaneously for at least five seconds. Your Fire TV Stick will then turn black and power back up after a short while. If you’re running into impossible issues with your Amazon Fire TV Stick and the only fix left is resetting it to factory defaults, you can instantly do that with a remote shortcut too. Hold down on both the right and back buttons for roughly ten seconds. A factory reset warning will then appear on the screen. If you want to cancel it, just hit Cancel before the timer runs out. 

Another time-saving remote shortcut you need to know is pressing and holding the home button. This pulls up the quick settings where you can access five options: Profiles to view and switch profiles, Ambient Experience to activate ambient experience, Sleep to put your Fire TV Stick into sleep mode, Mirroring to allow screen mirroring, and Settings to open the Settings menu. Other shortcuts you can try include long-pressing the back and fast forward buttons to open the screen magnifier and long-pressing the center and down buttons, then clicking the menu once to view the developer tools menu.

Similar to most other streaming devices, the Fire TV Stick ships with a screen saver – called Ambient Experience — that turns on when your device is idle. It displays pretty photos, making the TV look like a digital picture frame instead of a boring black void on the wall. But other than doubling as a picture frame, your Fire TV Stick can actually work as a huge smart display too. 

It features widget support that allows you to add different types of information on the screen. For instance, you can link your calendar to show your events and appointments, or put up the weather to help you plan your day. There’s also the option to use sticky notes, your music, live TV, and your smart home devices right on the screen saver. This makes your TV more functional when you’re not streaming any content. To configure the Ambient Experience on your Fire TV Stick, check out this guide:

1. Long-press the home button on your remote. 
2. Select Ambient Experience from the quick settings. 
3. Hit the menu button on your remote. 
4. Go to Add widgets.
5. Click on the widget you want to display on the screen saver. 
6. Press Add Widget. 

If your widgets don’t show up as soon as the screen saver starts, follow these steps:

1. Start Ambient Experience. 
2. Click on the menu button on your remote. 
3. Press Ambient preferences. 
4. Go to Widgets at Start. 
5. Change it to Show. 

You should now see the widgets on the screen saver. Press the up button on the remote to enlarge the widgets and see all the ones you added.

Watching on a big TV screen is often loud and attention-grabbing, and while that’s usually fine, there are instances when you’d want a more private listening experience. Say, your baby is asleep but you’d like to put on an action movie as you finish your night routine, or your roommates are busy working but you want to binge-watch the latest season of your favorite show.

Instead of having your Amazon Fire TV Stick on full blast, you can just listen in with your Bluetooth headphones. Yes, you can actually connect an external audio device to the Fire TV Stick, so you can watch on your own, just like how you would on your phone or laptop. To pair your Bluetooth headphones to your Fire TV Stick, follow these steps:

1. Put your headphones in pairing mode to make them discoverable.
2. Press the home button on your remote.
3. Navigate to the gear icon on the home screen.
4. Choose Controllers & Bluetooth Devices from the menu.
5. Click on Other Bluetooth Devices.
6. Press Add Bluetooth Devices.
7. Wait for your Bluetooth headphones to show up on the screen.
8. Select the headphones from the available devices.

If pairing is successful, you should see a Device Connected message appear in the bottom-right of your TV. You can then wear the headphones and start your movie or show of choice.

Every streaming device’s weakness is long and complicated text input, and the Amazon Fire TV Stick is no exception. It has always been a pain to type with the on-screen keyboard and remote as you have to do a million button presses before finishing your search query. This is especially true when using the Amazon Fire TV Stick browser to surf the web, or looking for a show with multiple words.

The good news is, the Amazon Fire TV Stick works with physical input peripherals like keyboards, mice, and trackpads. This makes typing your search queries and navigating the interface faster and more convenient. You can even use the keyboard and trackpad to play games on the streaming device if they’re supported.

There are two ways to connect a keyboard, mouse, or trackpad to the Fire TV Stick. If it’s wired or comes with a dongle, get yourself an OTG cable with three ends: a USB port, a microUSB port, and a microUSB connector. One like the AuviPal 2-in-1 MicroUSB to USB Adapter would work fine. All you have to do is insert the keyboard’s USB cable/dongle in the OTG cable’s USB port and the Fire Stick’s power cable into the microUSB port. Then, plug the microUSB connector into the Fire Stick, and you’re good to go. If you have a Bluetooth input peripheral, though, you’ll have to pair it from the Settings. Here’s how:

1. Enable pairing mode on your Bluetooth keyboard/mouse/trackpad.
2. In your Fire TV Stick, open Settings.
3. Click on Controllers & Bluetooth Devices.
4. Go to Other Bluetooth Devices.
5. Select Add Bluetooth Devices.
6. Wait for Fire Stick to find your Bluetooth device.
7. Click on it from the list.

From here, you can use the input device as normal.