[kotaKat]

I'm assuming they've basically replaced the walled garden with a greenhouse with these changes to Vega OS?

At least it (hopefully) means no more stupid "cracked fire TV sticks" on the local market. The end-user-support experience is downright awful and I'm sick of having to explain to people I can't help with them.

[benbristow]

They'll find another Android based device to use instead.

The main reason, at least around the people I know, people buy Fire Sticks is to watch football/soccer at 3pm on a Saturday (there's a UK wide blackout to encourage fans to go to their local game, albeit if you're a fan of a club far away or a Premier League team you're going to struggle to get there, games are still aired abroad, IPTV services skirt round this) and to save money on multiple media subscriptions (IYKYK).

I can only imagine after this change people will stop buying them as they're close to useless as people have Smart TVs for the legal stuff.

[alias_neo]

> people will stop buying them as they're close to useless as people have Smart TVs for the legal stuff

I don't know if by "people" you mean specifically the people who use them for illegal streams, but there are others of us who buy them.

I have a perfectly good high-end LG OLED TV that's now ~7-8 years old, and I wanted something with better performance (and newer WiFi standards) for streaming apps in 4K, I've used a couple of different boxes/dongles in that time and am currently using a Firestick 4K Max, it sort of does the job but of course it's advert-ridden and has AV sync issues, overall performance is ok, but the Prime Video app is still appallingly slow, Netflix runs great, Disney is ok, and the others are a variety of acceptable to poor.

[benbristow]

If you go into any pub in the UK and say fire stick, people assume it's not legit content you're using one for. They're infamous for allowing people to watch football (soccer!) games illegally on Saturday at 3pm when the TV blackout is on, as people outside the country can watch the games.

[alias_neo]

I've certainly heard of the dodgy usage of fire stick for streams but I've never been into football, what's this blackout all about?

[benbristow]

The idea is that between around 3pm and 6pm every Saturday, outwith international breaks when international teams play (e.g. World Cup), no TV station in the UK is allowed to air live football. 3pm is the main kick off time.

The idea is that this encourages people to go to their local football team instead of watching the game on TV.

For a small island, there are massive amount of football teams. If you're American you're probably only familiar with the 'Premier League' with teams like Manchester United/City, Arsenal, Chelsea etc. and maybe the Scottish Premier League with Celtic and Rangers, and maybe Championship thanks to 'Welcome to Wrexham' but there are leagues and leagues below, it goes very deep until you get to teams literally just playing on a bit of grass behind a church in a small village and the local gym teacher being the referee.

The blackout is supposed to mean you go to whatever team is nearest or easiest to get to for you, going to big team Premier League games is very expensive if not impossible unless you have silly money to spend or wait years (I mean like 10+ years for a season ticket).

But it doesn't really work for a lot of people. If you moved away for university etc. you might still want to watch your team but the only local team is your team's rival. Or you would end up watching the village football team game.

Most games are aired abroad for expats and foreign fans, but UK residents are unable to watch those legally, hence the growth in fire sticks.

[alias_neo]

Thanks for the explanation.

I'm British, but having never been into football (or any sport really) I wasn't aware of this TV blackout; given what I do know of people who don't necessarily support the local team, this sounds like madness, also how does this work for away games? I know loads of people who live/work in London now who still support their home town team.

So, to make sure I understand this correctly; if I wanted to watch a particular team, say my local one, without going to the game, there is no actual legit way to watch that match from home?

[neom]

Do people over there generally support this law? It's to my mind a super weird law, but to a degree... I dig it.

[kotaKat]

Yeah I know saying that in hindsight it's just going to go to the ONN sticks instead and stay within Google TV - but it solves the problem Amazon wanted which is to quickly and smartly move the problem away from themselves and onto someone else's loss leader.

(And Walmart already has started doing regionlocking to try to crack down on that, too! Taking an ONN box out of the US will error out in setup and complain it's only for sale in US/PR.)

[benbristow]

They may as well stop selling them. I doubt many people are going to buy a Fire Stick to watch Prime and Netflix when you already can on any standard Smart TV. It's harder to buy a dumb TV now than it is a smart one. Never mind if you also have a game console connected which can run the same apps. Or a set top box like Virgin Media which run apps too.

[cebert]

The nice thing about sticks is when you go on trips or vacation. You’re authenticated into all of your subscriptions already and don’t have to sign in. The convenience of using sticks they eliminate the need to sign in at hotels or other places, which is why I love them.

[mmahemoff]

Yes and combine with a travel router so you don’t have to endure logging into a wifi portal with a soft keyboard on the TV, if the stick OS even allows it. Then having to repeat the process daily due to expiration times, or as soon as you remove the key card from the hotel room slot, causing the router to power down and the TV stick to time out.

[benbristow]

Top tip, if you're in a hotel room you can often put any card like item (e.g. loyalty card) into the slot and it still works.

This works at a lot of chain hotels. Not every hotel, but a lot of them. In the UK this works in most Premier Inns and Travelodges, doesn't work in Point A hotels from experience.

Alternatively ask for two or more cards at the desk.

If the room is cleaned daily the cleaners have a tendency to remove them though. The chain hotels only tend to clean if you ask though, or on a certain few days after check-in.

Helps if you want to keep the air con on or devices powered up.

[alias_neo]

Presumably some services have issues with locale? Does anyone run a VPN to home on these devices? I'd never considered taking my Firestick on holiday but I'll definitely consider that for the future.

[mmahemoff]

Correct. Fortunately a number of streaming services are available in many regions nowadays, e.g., Netflix, Apple TV, Disney, HBO Max or whatever it’s called now.

The content may vary between regions though, e.g., you open Netflix in another country and no longer see a show you’re watching while see other ones appear. This can sometimes feel like a feature more than a bug.

[benbristow]

NordVPN have an app on the Store and so do others.

[la_oveja]

id say is a fairly niche use case, people tend to disconnect outside when going on vacation not watch netflix from the hotel.

[tracker1]

I like to travel, in particular road trips and disconnecting is often part of that. Even then, I'm not much of a nightlife person so will often still watch TV for a couple hours at night before bed.

[shermantanktop]

+1, that’s what I do. Only problem is that the HDMI port can be hard to get to.

[benbristow]

A lot of hotels I've been to recently have a HDMI port baked into the row of plugs and switches above the desk. Handy.

Might be worth getting a male to female HDMI extension cable to make it easier to plug in.

[tracker1]

I won't use my "smart" features in my TVs... I'd get rid of them if I could... The tracking is generally worse than Apple, Google or Roku on them. I know some are using Google or Roku software, but even then, just not a fan. I've been pretty happy with Shield TV boxes for around a decade now.