Summary
- Amazon’s Fire TV Sticks have an underappreciated feature: Bluetooth audio support.
- You can seamlessly hook up Bluetooth speakers, earbuds, and headphones to your Fire TV Stick.
- Bluetooth audio is a game-changer, and totally changed the way I use my Fire TV Stick.
The main reason I chose to buy a Fire TV Stick 4K Max was to use it with the Samsung TV I have in my living room. I don’t mind Samsung’s proprietary Tizen OS on its smart TVs, but I had always wanted to try Fire OS, so when I saw the 4K Max on sale earlier this year, I decided to go for it.
Now, after using it extensively over the past year, I’ve come to really appreciate the device and all the features it offers. I don’t have cable TV, so everything I watch on my TV is streamed through apps like YouTube, Prime Video, HBO Max, and Disney+. What I like about my Fire TV Stick is just how easy it is to access all of those apps, and how smooth and stunning the streaming quality looks at 4K HDR, partly thanks to the 4K Max’s fast Wi-Fi 6E capabilities, which my older Samsung 4K TV lacks.
Although I initially bought my Fire TV Stick mainly for my living room TV, I decided to experiment with it earlier this summer and use it on my 4K monitor at my desk. However, I quickly ran into an issue: audio.
The speakers on my monitor suck, and the audio sounded horrific. In search of a solution, that’s when I discovered what might be the Fire TV Stick’s most underappreciated premium feature (that Roku Streaming Sticks don’t even offer): Bluetooth audio support. That’s right, if you want to use your Fire TV Stick with Bluetooth speakers, earbuds, or headphones, you can easily do so. If you want to do the same on your Fire TV Stick, setting it up only takes seconds, and I highly recommend it.
- Brand
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Amazon
- Resolution
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4K
- Audio codecs
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Dolby Atmos
How to set up Bluetooth audio on your Fire TV Stick
You can use AirPods with your Fire TV Stick
If you’re interested in using a Bluetooth audio device on your Fire TV Stick, it’s quite simple to set up and pair your device. First things first, you’ll need a Bluetooth audio device handy, like a speaker, headphones, or earbuds, like Apple’s AirPods. The headphones I personally use are the SteelSeries Arctis Nova 7, as I can connect them to my PC (via USB-C) and to my Fire TV Stick (via Bluetooth), allowing me to hear both the audio from my PC and my Fire TV Stick simultaneously.
It’s also worth noting that this works with any Fire TV Stick. So, whether you have the Fire TV Stick HD, Fire TV Stick 4K, Fire TV Stick 4K Max, or the Fire TV Cube. That said, here’s how to easily connect your Bluetooth audio device to your Fire TV Stick step-by-step:
1. On your Fire TV’s homepage, navigate to Settings. Alternatively, you can press the Settings button (the gear icon) on your remote and select Settings.
2. Go to Remotes & Bluetooth Devices.
3. Scroll down and choose Other Bluetooth Devices.
4. Choose Add Bluetooth Devices.
5. Now, press the pairing button on your Bluetooth device. For example, on most AirPods, you open the lid and tap the circular button on the back of the case.
6. Your Bluetooth device should pop up on the screen, select it, and your Fire TV Stick will become paired with it.
After pairing a Bluetooth audio device with your Fire TV Stick, it will show up in the Other Bluetooth Devices menu screen. Whenever you enable Bluetooth on your audio device, it should automatically connect with your Fire TV Stick. If you ever want to disconnect them, hover over them on the Other Bluetooth Devices screen and press the Select button on your remote. To unpair them altogether, press the Menu button instead (the three horizontal lines to the right of the Home button).
A new way to experience your Fire TV Stick
Using my Fire TV Stick with Bluetooth headphones is game-changing
When I first purchased my Fire TV Stick 4K Max, I didn’t even realize Bluetooth audio was a feature, but now that I’ve begun using it so much, it’s completely changed the way I use the device. While I still use my Fire TV Stick on my living room TV, now that I can listen to it with headphones while it’s connected to my monitor, it makes watching TV late at night way more convenient. Not only is the audio quality much better on my headphones than on my monitor’s speakers, but also, since it’s not coming out of any speakers and going to headphones instead, I’m not disturbing anyone else in my household. It’s truly a win-win situation by all accounts.
Bluetooth audio support may seem like a small feature, but it’s made a huge difference in how I use my Fire TV Stick. It’s added a whole new layer to a device I was already enjoying.
Additionally, I find it both sad and amusing that neither the PS5 nor the Xbox Series X natively support Bluetooth audio devices, as they use a proprietary wireless protocol that only works with specific headphones. So if you want to use AirPods on your Xbox or PS5, you’d need to connect them to your TV (if it supports Bluetooth), not directly to the console. It’s funny to think that a $60 Fire TV Stick 4K Max supports a feature that a $500 or $600 gaming console doesn’t. Shoutout to Nintendo, though, since you can use Bluetooth audio devices on the Nintendo Switch and the Switch 2. Looking at Roku’s streaming sticks, Fire TV Stick’s main competitors, they don’t support Bluetooth audio natively but provide a workaround through their app.
Overall, Bluetooth audio support may seem like a small feature, but it’s made a huge difference in how I use my Fire TV Stick. It’s added a whole new layer to a device I was already enjoying. If you have a Fire TV Stick, give it a try and see what you think of the audio experience.
