Amazon fire stick: Don’t buy if you’re living outside the U.S

When it comes to devices for streaming online content, you’ll be spoiled for choice. And that’s probably not a good thing. Filtering out what works and what doesn’t work for your location is a costly and daunting task. Amazon fire stick is certainly one of the best hardware choices out there, but it won’t work for everyone — at least not for me.

Amazon fire stick a low-cost device by Amazon that connects to the internet over WiFi connection and streams online content directly to your HDTV via the HDMI cable. The device also enables you to play games and it comes with remote enabled with Alexa voice support. It can also be controlled using a mobile App installed on your smartphone or tablet. It runs on the Fire OS software which is regularly updated over the air. It’s great.

So I got myself the Fire TV Stick 4K released in 2018. It has 1.5GB DDR4 RAM, 8GB of storage, WiFi 5, HDR10, Dolby Atmos, Dolby Vision, and supports HD, FHD and 4K video formats. It currently costs $39.99 on Amazon.com.

I have a Prime video subscription I have using for about 2 months now. Prime video is great alternative to Netflix if you are living outside of the U.S. You’ll enjoy Amazon Originals such as The Grand Tour, Jack Ryan, The Aeronauts and more content licensed to Amazon.

Read more: Beginner’s Guide to Amazon Prime Video (For Uganda, Kenya, and Nigeria): It is worth it?

I have been watching Prime video from my Android Phone, iPad and via the web player and occasionally on the big screen TV via Chromecast. Now logically I thought I would get Amazon’s Fire TV stick to watch Prime Video along with Netflix, Plex, Curiosity stream, Youtube and other platforms. I was wrong.

Outside of the U.S, it appears the Fire stick doesn’t necessarily work. I have tested it from Uganda, but its likely that the results are similar in other regions outside of the U.S. I spent the entire afternoon testing out the Fire stick and I was quite disappointed with the results. Alot of other services such as HBO, Pluto, Starz, CBS Access, Sling don’t work and I expected that. But Amazon prime Video is now available in over 200 countries world wide with of course all the content restrictions.

However, when I tried Amazon Prime video on my Fire stick, none of the content I have been streaming such as Grand Tour worked! I kept getting Error code 5505 with the message “your device’s current location settings might be incorrect or unsupported…”. I tried a lot tricks mentioned on online forums such as changing my location in the settings on my Amazon account, but still no luck.

On the other hand, platforms such as Netflix, Plex, Curiosity stream, Youtube, Red Bull are working just fine. Seems rather odd that Amazon’s own service doesn’t work on its device while some of its competitors are working fine. For this reason, you might want to wait buying the Fire stick if you are a prime video subscriber until Amazon fixes this issue.

But there are plenty of reasons to get the device if you don’t plan to use it for prime video. It has support for Netflix in 4K, Plex, Curiosity stream, Youtube, Tidal, Apple TV and other services. It comes with a dedicated remote unlike Chromecast. The remote has voice support via Alexa, so you can just issue commands using your voice rather than typing using the on-screen TV Keyboard. It supports WiFi 5 which if fast wireless standard and Ethernet LAN via a dongle if you really want to go for fast speeds. Get if for $39.99 from Amazon.com.

Feature Image: thestreamable.com