The FLIRC Universal IR Receiver for the Amazon Fire TV is on sale for $13.99 at Tanga.com with free shipping. This is the new lowest price that it has ever been and is $1 less than the price was this past Black Friday. FLIRC lets you control Fire TVs and Fire TV Sticks with any IR remote in your home. You plug it into a PC and teach it to recognize any button press on a remote you already own and assign an action to each button. FLIRC stores all of those learned buttons and associated actions on the device itself so that when you plug it into a Fire TV, it performs the actions (e.g., up, down, play, pause, menu, etc..) when it detects the corresponding button presses from your IR remote. It’s essentially a way to use the remote you already have to control your Fire TV device. FLIRC works with the 1st and 2nd Gen Fire TV without anything extra, but you may want to use a USB extension cable to position it in a spot that your remote can see. FLIRC also works with the 3rd Gen Fire TV and 2nd Gen Fire TV Stick, but you will need to use an OTG cable.
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So I can use this to control my FTV with a Roku remote?
Yes, if it’s one of the IR remotes. They’re not all IR based. Also be aware that your Roku will still respond to remote presses if it is turned on and in range.
Thanks for the heads up. I’ll pass.
Any reason to buy this when I already have a first gen? I don’t see anything compelling about it.
If you have small children in your house, it gets expensive to replace the original remote, which breaks too easily for a $30 product. I’m thinking of buying it.
Anyone have experience with the harmony companion and fire tv 2nd Gen. When pressing a button on the remote it seems like there’s a lag
I find the whole Harmony experience wanting. I have two hubs for two different TVs and it is a hit or miss experience. I have never had much success with Flirc either for what it is worth. My TVs are using the FireTV remote coupled with the SideClick. Works great for everyday viewing although the original remotes are nearby in case I need them (mainly for audio receiver actions).
Perhaps my issues stem from the fact that one of my tvs, a Vizio,uses a direct control (bluetooth I believe) so putting it into IR mode to get the codes is not straightforward. The Harmony hiccups here as well. The other is an older Olevia TV that Harmony codes don’t match very well. I’ve spent hours setting up activities and the voice control through Alexa. Constant glitches. It is not worth my time to continue to wrestle with the Harmony hubs and remotes.
The learning remote of the SideClick solved most of these issues. Plus once my wife learned how to use it, it solved the two remote problem. On the new Vizio, it even turns on the TV by long pressing the FireTV remote home button. I’ve programmed the “B” button to turn on audio receivers (which normally has the correct input unless I’ve Airplay music to the second zone (fix this already Yamaha!) so not an issue. Not sure why “input” concept is so hard for family members to understand.:)