Amazon has just released the Fire TV Stick Basic Edition and is making it available in over 100 countries and territories. While it may look like the original 1st generation Fire TV Stick that was released 3 years ago, it is not. It’s actually identical to the current 2nd generation Fire TV Stick, but it includes the original non-voice remote instead of an Alexa voice remote.
None of the hardware released today is new, but Amazon is repackaging existing hardware so that it can be made available across the world. The actually Fire TV Stick included in the Fire TV Stick Basic Edition package is the exact same Fire TV Stick that was released a year ago. The key difference is it comes with a non-voice remote, since supporting voice search, yet alone Alexa, in over 100 countries would be a monumental task.
Other than the inclusion of the old non-voice remote from the original Fire TV Stick, the other difference will be the software. While core functionality, like playing videos and running apps, will be present, you can expect some Fire TV features to be unavailable, like Alexa, FreeTime, and Shopping.
The release of the Fire TV Stick Basic Edition should mean that those of you with full-fledged Fire TVs and Fire TV Sticks might start to see better support for your imported devices in countries where the regular hardware is not available.
The Fire TV Stick Basic Edition is available to purchase today for $49.99 USD from the United States, for $49.99 CDN from Canada, and for €59,99 EUR from France, Italy, and Spain. It will be available from Amazon’s Mexico and Brazil websites at a later date.
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Wow, about friggin’ time. Perhaps Amazon is realizing that Google is beating them to the punch in other countries.
If I have the one with Alexa already will this work in France now?
If I have the one with Alexa already will this work in France now? Not the voice bit, but the rest?
Wow! $10 more and less functionality? Count me in! (NOT!)
This should be $10 less, not more..
This is actually an incredibly good deal for Canadians. With exchange this is at about the 39.99 rate. Plus not having to use a US re-shipper (I have Canadian Prime so free shipping).
Boo hiss! The question is, will fire tv’s say purchased in the U.S and brought back to Canada work with prime in Canada now?
Nope! Still says its locked to a different region and puts up an error code. Anyway to get out of this region locking? Don’t want to have to buy this device again now if I already have the exact same one!
ARggg, I was hoping our FireTV 2s that some of us brought up last year would magically be enabled now too. Hopefully a workaround or official software update.
Soooo spent a long time on the phone with Amazon Canada. What they said is only this new basic device will work in this region. Anything earlier, and from the U.S will never work out of the U.S for PRIME video.
I made the case for any other streaming device from Apple to Roku I can purchase in the U.S and set up an account in Canada and use. I asked if I could trade in my device for a basic. He said the best he could do is give me $20 off to purchase a new basic one. Hopefully some people who also bought these from U.S retailers and brought them back to their homelands find this info useful. He also said there is no way to change the software, update or get these devices to work outside the U.S with Prime. AFTV NEWS I present to you a challenge!
I wonder if there is a way to download/sideload the software that will come with this basic model and load it onto a previously purchased Fire TV Stick 2. It probably wouldn’t work for the Fire TV 2 though.
I have 2 of those, plus a Fire TV 2 in my house. I have been using them for Kodi, Netflix, and Plex, but would love to be able to use them for Prime Video content in Canada.
Thanks for the heads-up. They only gave me 25% off – about a $13 discount but I felt it was reasonable enough to not argue the point further. $42 with taxes delivered today.
I’m irritated that I can’t use my US purchased FireTV’s for Prime Video in Canada but, in truth, Amazon has always been pretty good to me and I get that there is probably some regulatory nonesense involved. Maybe something to do with our privacy laws or accountability to content owners, I don’t know.
I found a workaround, but it only works for me using my Android based products (Nexus 9, Nexus 6P) and won’t work using my wife’s iOS products.
Using the Android Prime Video app, if I start a video and then choose to cast it to a Fire TV, it will play no problem. I just can’t start or resume the video using the Fire TV. It has to be initiated by the phone or tablet.
I have app on both an Android phone and the Fire tablet but neither give me a cast option (Fire tablet used to but then just stopped)……. Why is this so hard for Amazon to sort out…?
I was on the phone with Amazon.com Fire TV support, and asked them to change the country my devices are associated with (1x Fire TV Stick 1st Gen, 2xFire TV Stick 2, 1xFire TV 2nd Gen) based on a comment I found on Reddit by a user in India that was able to get Indian Prime content by calling Amazon and having the US purchased Fire product changed on Amazon’s backend, not under your account location settings on Amazon’s webpage.
In any case, I’m not sure what she did exactly, but I now have access to non-georestricted Prime Video content on all of my devices.
Where are you from? I suppose you are outside of the few countries that Amazon supports, I’ll try to do the same
amazon wouldnt do anything for me, only that they are working on it with not ETA.
“Not for now. We are receiving a lot of feedback regarding this type of issue so we are starting to work on this”
Note.. it’s not ~60 euro for us Euro-people. You also have to include ~17 euros for VAT, import duties and shipping, so it’s about 77 euros.
Yes it is €59,99 EUR.
Well, even though my fire tv stick 2 appears on the primevideo.com devices page, I’m still unable to use Prime on the stick. Error 5505…
I have the same issue
Same deal here. Primevideo.com works fine, but on the new stick it throws this error (I believe it’s the same error I got when trying to watch prime content on my US FireTVs).
When you say new stick, do you mean the basic on that just got released? Or a Fire TV Stick 2 previously purchased?
Awesome. Wish they sold those in the US. I miss the old remotes. New ones feel cheap and wake up the whole household when pushing buttons.
Will I finally be able to download apps from the Amazon Appstore on my imported 1st gen Fire TV stick?
Have you tried getting the app through the website first?
Let mw know if anyone can get their US stick to now work properly in Canada
I wonder if someone can extract from the Canadian Fire Stick the Canadian Prime Video APK and make it available so it can be sideloaded to the Fire devices bought in the US.
Yah, I won’t be holding my breath for Amazon to make their earlier devices like the Fire TV 2 work in non-Amazon account countries. Taken them ages to get even this far.
Best solution for me, never buy ANY Amazon hardware. Plenty of other devices out there that DO work with Amazon Prime in different countries without being hamstrung by Amazon’s crap software AND without shoving bucket loads of Amazon content in your face that you can neither a) hide or b) access. While there’s devices like the Nvidia Shield TV and Xiaomi Mi box out there, Amazon can shove their junk where the sun don’t shine!
I dont get it.
Whats the difference between this and the regular 2.gen fire stick?
Why should I pay 10€ more then for the regular 2.gen?
The regular one works just fine outside the EU countries.
I have raised the issue of fault 5505 with Amazon. See reply:-
“I’m Sidharth from Amazon Customer Service.
Thank you so much for giving us a detailed information of the problem with videos on Fire TV Stick.
To help you with this, I’ve checked and see that this is an ongoing issue and our technical team is already working to fix it at the at the earliest.
Please be assured that once we resolve this issue, I’ll send you an email regarding the same as I’ve decided to personally follow up with you to ensure this issue gets resolved to the bets of your benefit.
Please be assured that I’ll personally follow up with this issue and update you once I receive a feedback from our technical team.
Rest assured we’re always here to help you with the best of our abilities.
Thank you for your patience and understanding. We hope to see you again soon”
We will see…….
That is a really odd way of pricing.
In the same market – EU – they want 60 € for this basic version in france, while the one with the alexa remote is for sale at a regular price of 40 € right next door, in germany.
https://www.amazon.fr/dp/B01ETRGE7M/
https://www.amazon.de/Fire-TV-Stick-mit-Alexa-Sprachfernbedienung/dp/B01ETRIS3K/
Aside from the fact that nobody can stop an amazon customer in france to order the better stick for less from germany. All this does is pissing customers off, what gives?!
Has anyone found a way to flash the Fire TV Stick Basic Edition’s firmware on to a “Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote”? That would theoretically make the stick work with the international Prime Video service.
They seem to be the same hardware, but is the Fire TV Stick Basic Edition’s firmware available, and is it technically feasible to flash it on the other model?
I think it is not necessary.
Extract the standalone APK and sideload it into the Alexa-enabled Fire TV should be enough.
When you mention “the standalone APK”, would that be the Fire TV Stick Basic Edition’s firmware?
Where can I find it?
To clarify: what I want to do is convert a “Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote” that I already own, into a “Fire TV Stick Basic Edition”, so that I can use it with the international “Prime Video” service.
The “Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote” can be used with the “Amazon Video” service only in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, and Japan.
If I can convert into a “Fire TV Stick Basic Edition”, I can use it in over 100 countries with the international “Prime Video” service, which is what I want to do.
And what I’m trying to say to you is that, differently from the regular Fire TV Stick, the Prime Video is just an app that comes installed in the new Fire TV Basic, rather than a functionality embedded in it.
Thank you for your tips and clarifications, but it’s not what I want to achieve. I want a full conversion to the Fire TV Stick Basic Edition’s interface, not just loading the Amazon Video app.
From https://developer.amazon.com/docs/fire-tv/device-specifications.html:
“How Basic Edition Differs from Gen 2
From a hardware perspective, the specs for Fire TV Stick Basic Edition and Fire TV Stick (Gen 2) are largely the same except that the Basic Edition doesn’t ship with an Alexa Voice Remote. Fire TV Stick (Gen 2) is available in US, UK, Germany, Japan, and India, whereas Basic Edition is available outside these areas in more than 100 countries or territories (see the full list here).
The user interface for Basic Edition is also simplified in some ways, making it more of an app-centric experience. For example, the “Recommended By Your Apps” rows that is normally populated through Recommendations isn’t shown on Basic Edition. The tabs on the top row are simplified, and you find apps by browsing the available categories rather than using search. Customers can set their default language as Spanish, Italian, French, Brazilian Portuguese, German, or English.”
So it seems the hardware is “largely the same”, but the user interfaces are different.
Hi, yes it should work but from my point of view doesn’t because despite changing my country settings to France where I live, it still thinks I am in the wrong country, error 5505. Amazon are supposedly looking into this, but judging by other people’s comments. i am not alone. Desperate to get it working
It’s available here in Brazil for BRL 289 (USD 89).
https://www.amazon.com.br/dp/B01ETRGEIG
Anyone been able to get amazon to get FireTV 2 etc to work in Canada or similar limited supported country? Just tried and amazon support was apparently unable to, last person I talked to simply pointed me to their supported devices page.
Hopefully someone somewhere has the steps documented that can be passed to amazon techs as they all seem to scratch their heads other than having me unregister and reregister my device to my account.
Just a heads up. I received the Canadian edition of firestick basic edition today and it does not have appstore or music or anything other than prime video. The setting menu is completely stripped down. There is no developer options and I cannot seem to figure out a way to load kodi. I have rooted gen 1 AFTV boxes and loaded every version of AFTV there is. This new Canadian basic edition is locked down tight. FYI only Canadian edition OS will work for Prime video in Canada no way around it with a US device. I verified this through Amazon.
Can’t you just sideload Kodi or SPMC?
Can you install the Downloader app and use it to download and install Kodi?
It’s been about six months since the “basic” edition hit Canada. Has anyone been able to get Prime Videos to work on non basic hardware?
Try the new Android TV version:
http://ul.to/k24n78sa
It works for some people here in Brazil (unfortunately not in my AFTVS1).
I’ve tried this from a couple of sources and while it loads & I can link it to my account nothing plays. Every video says “we are unable to play your video at this time.”
Actually, if I go to the silk browser and then to primevideo.com and start a show I can return to this apk and it will continue running. But I can’t start anything from the start.
Strange.
I’m from Sri Lanka, prime video on my phone works well with indian content, so I got a firestick 2nd gen, it doesn’t support in my country. Any options to make it work in my country.Will firestick basic edition do the job for me.
I noticed this this weekend.
I have three Fire TV 2 sticks. On all three of them, ‘adb shell pm list packages’ shows a package called com.amazon.amazonvideo.livingroom.firetv.
However, I can only launch it from two of the three devices. The only significant difference in the output of
‘adb shell dumpsys package com.amazon.amazonvideo.livingroom.firetv’
is that the working devices have
User 0: installed=true hidden=false stopped=false notLaunched=false enabled=0
and the non-working device has
User 0: installed=true hidden=false stopped=false notLaunched=false enabled=2
lastDisabledCaller: com.amazon.tv.launcher
I’ve tried ‘adb shell pm enable com.amazon.amazonvideo.livingroom.firetv’, but I get the following error:
Error: java.lang.SecurityException: Permission Denial: attempt to change component state from pid=13586, uid=2000, package uid=32046
I’ll appreciate suggestions on how to enable com.amazon.amazonvideo.livingroom.firetv
Here’s how this would be amazing add a Alexa button under the pause button and hide the microphone somewhere in the remote when you click it for the first time it has a language select then if you select English it does nothing it has Alexa now if you click a other language they should put a translator on Alexa and the content so it is the selected language. Then it should come with a two QR code’s one for Android one for iOS if you scan the iOS one you will see the fire stick remote app Same thing on the android one except it opens google play and maybe a fire os one.
This is my prediction if a second generation of the the basic edition comes out but maybe without the QR code’s volume and power buttons not needed since old TVs have those on the tv too also on the remotes but if you are on a smart if you use It on a smart tv you need to use its remote.
Correction
This is my prediction if a second generation of the the basic edition comes out but maybe without the QR code’s volume and power buttons not needed since old TVs have those on the tv too also on the remotes but if you use It on a smart tv you need to use its remote.