Along with the new 3rd generation Fire TV, Amazon has released their own official Fire TV Ethernet Adapter that also works with the 2nd generation Fire TV Stick. It’s a fine adapter if all you want is to add Ethernet capabilities to your Fire TV or Fire TV Stick, but most people will be much better off buying this UGREEN Ethernet Adapter w/ USB Hub along with an OTG Adapter.
Amazon’s Ethernet Adapter is the best option if all you want to do is add wired connectivity to the Fire TV 3 or Fire TV Stick 2. I recommend it over the similar UGREEN Ethernet Adapter that I recommended in the past before Amazon released their own adapter. The problem with Amazon’s Ethernet Adapter is that it has OTG capabilities built-in, which means you cannot use it with additional USB devices.
If you want to connect additional USB devices to your Fire TV 3 or Fire TV Stick 2, the UGREEN Ethernet Adapter w/ USB Hub is the way to go. It gives you an ethernet port as well as 3 additional USB ports. I’ve verified that it works perfectly with both the new “pendent” Fire TV 3 and the newer Fire TV Stick 2. Fire OS, the Fire TV operating system, recognizes the UGREEN adapter in the exact same way as the official one from Amazon. No ethernet adapters work with the 1st generation Fire TV Stick unless you root the device.
Since the UGREEN adapter doesn’t have OTG capabilities (which is a good thing), you’re going to need to use an OTG adapter to connect it to the Fire TV or Fire TV Stick. Either this Generic OTG Adapter or this Angle OTG Adapter will work. The generic OTG adapter gives you a bit more cable length and flexibility with positioning, but the angle OTG adapter gives you a cleaner setup with fewer cables. I’ve verified that both work with the Fire TV 3 and Fire TV Stick 2, so the choice is yours.
By having a USB hub built into the ethernet adapter, it allows you to connect things like USB drives, keyboards, mice, game controllers, and more. Amazon’s ethernet adapter does not allow for that flexibility. If the 3 USB ports on the UGREEN adapter are not enough, you can connect any USB hub to it to gain additional ports. If the devices that you connect to the UGREEN adapter require more power than the Fire TV supplies, you can optionally add this UGREEN Power Supply which connects directly to the ethernet adapter.
The UGREEN Ethernet Adapter w/ USB Hub and OTG Adapter together are currently less expensive than Amazon’s own $14.99 Ethernet Adapter. The last time I wrote about new ethernet and OTG accessories that can be used with Fire TV devices, the increased traffic to those products caused their prices to increase. If that happens again, you might find the UGREEN Ethernet Adapter w/ USB Hub on eBay or the OTG Adapter on eBay to be less expensive.
@AFTVnews
AFTVnews
Cool device, but sad that we even need something like this. Hopefully Amazon has another box in the works, that isn’t a step backwards.
For now I’ll stick to my FTV2s, and consider re-buying a Nvidia Shield if there are any deals in the coming months.
Yeah, I have Ethernet wired in my house for a reason, wifi just can’t compare. Any traditionally stationary network device that lacks Ethernet is objectively inferior to one that has it.
Is there a speed comparison for these dongles, HDMI and USB, to actual native Ethernet?
I don’t really understand this reasoning. I also have Ethernet to every room, but I don’t bother to hard wire my FireTV (or my Xbox for that matter). Why? Because I don’t routinely copy multiple gigs of data to the device, and even if I did both wifi and Ethernet are capable of saturating the write speed of the built in flash so what will it really gain me?
The only use case I can come up with is people who live either with a really old access point/router (seriously, save the money on this and just get a cheap AC capable one), or people who live in very dense apartments/condos where interference is a major issue (and again, get an AC router so you gain the 5Ghz frequencies).
Yes when I’m copying large files between my desktop and my NAS it helps to have Ethernet, usually I’m adding video content do my Plex server. But there is almost no use case for that with a video streamer or console, and wifi is more than capable of handling all the use cases those are designed for…
The advantage of having an ethernet port is that you always have the option should you need it.
I have a decent router (Asus 88u) but the nature of wifi can make it unreliable in certain parts of the house and Im looking to get ethernet installed.
Things like the Fire Stick (I own the first one) are ok while travelling, but the lack of ethernet made it useless to me a couple of months back when I was in a certain part of the house and had to use my PS3 as it had ethernet.
Then Wi-Fi is great for you but not for everyone. “Wi-Fi is subject to a lot more interference than a wired connection. The layout of your home, objects blocking the signal, interference from electrical devices or your neighbors Wi-Fi networks—all these things contribute to Wi-Fi being generally less reliable.” There’s also latency differences so online gaming via Wi-Fi is generally not quite as reliable as wired. In my case I have a great access point/router with fiber gigabit internet but have a fairly large two-story home so I see a noticeable drop in both speed and reliability in certain areas. Plugging in the cat5 cable always resolves the issue for me.
In my case, the wifi enabled Firestick just one floor above my router, an Asus RT-AC66U, does indeed do just fine feeding a 1080p TV.
However, my FireTV 2 is on a 4k TV and is maybe 35 feet away with a bathroom and stairway between its direct line of sight. With that, I got buffering trying to stream my bluray rips and 4k over wifi.
That’s my reasoning.
Not to disparage anyone’s individual use case or experience, but I’d point out the following things –
1) Most of these scenarios could be solved more cheaply by simply adding a second AP to your WiFi setup. Cheaper, less hassle, and most of the equipment these days supports roaming from one AP to another. Plus it solves for a lot more equipment since an increasing amount of devices do not come with Ethernet ports.
2) I have seen the usage stats. The use of Ethernet on these types of devices is in the low single digits. Given that adding Ethernet ports adds cost, should every user pay for the very low percentage who actually use the feature? I saw this debate over phones with SDCard slots when that was still a fight. I know there were a few power users who used them. I also knew from my own company’s stats (we have some extremely widely deployed applications in the consumer space) that less than 1% of users ever actually plugged in a SDCard during their ownership of the phone. Should everyone pay for that?
Tradeoffs are difficult and nobody is always happy. The vast majority of users of these devices do not own their home and have the option of running Ethernet everywhere. Of the ones who do, a very small percentage would even attempt to or bother. There are devices that do cater to these users, and I have no problem with people saying “Yeah, my use case justifies going with a different device.” But then extrapolating that decision into a major loss for Amazon (or Google, after all they don’t have Ethernet on theirs either) is silly, and simply corner case users projecting their own situation on others. A situation they are declining to rectify via other available means that do not put the cost on everyone else.
Anyway, to each their own. I’m just explaining why this debate seems silly to me.
You’re not disparaging until you whip out the word silly, I guess you respect the “silliness” of our positions. ;-)
Again, in my case, yes, I could buy, and setup, and maintain, and conceal a second AP to give a device reliable wifi capability.
Or I could plug in an Ethernet cable.
As Clocks said, one option seems more like a step back than the other.
I understand and agree with your point about economy of scale with Ethernet support. I’m just saying that I am only looking for a device on my living room TV that supports the bulletproof simplicity and worry-future-proof bandwidth of Ethernet.
I accept I’m going to pay more for it. I have a 70 inch 4k TV with a 5.1 surround sound system. I feed it uncompressed blu-ray rips and 4k steams. I’m not looking to some $29.99 Black-Friday special to power that. I’m looking for a device that has Ethernet, and a reasonably powerful cpu and gpu, and firmware support and so on. IOW, I’m probably looking for a flagship product. And anyone that knows enough to know that they are looking for those features knows that such products cost more.
Those of us out here, and there’s enough to have kept the undeniably niche Nvidia Shield a viable product over two versions, merely ask, perhaps sillily, that companies be willing to take our money by maintaining one product with the features we say we want.
Yes but surely the fire tv is hard wired with a eithernet cable? Have you been in to your router settings to make sure you’re running 5gig not the old 2.5 gig Internet connection? There’s so many things you should change on your standard router out of the box settings before you even think about using it as you’re Internet source. Put your router make and serial number in to Google or YouTube and type HOW TO MAKE ROUTER FASTER and you can squeeze another 70% performance out of it and also you should never get more speed from a wireless connection over a hard wired eithernet connection!!! If you are there’s something wrong. On a normal day via eithernet I’ll get 170mbps compared to as low as 90% slower using wireless. When I’m using my iptv plus vpn and sharing with 3 other hard wired connections I can stream 4k on every wired connection all day without and buffering or lag at all but when using wireless we are fighting over who streams what because most of the time 3 out of the 4 wireless connectionsdroo within 30 seconds and that’s if you can get anything to start streaming at all or a partial stream ie no sound or terrible pixelation. If you want to stream 4k even 1080p you must have a device which will accept eithernet simple as that. The only way you should even consider buying a WiFi only streaming device is if the router is a up to date router and has the fastest newer WiFi signal and if the router is in the same room and 5ft away maximum not bouncing off every wall in the house before it reaches your device. Has anyone noticed that you never see the newish BT advert when he goes up in the helicopter? They were made to stop using it because the 30 football pitch coverage claim was totally misleading in every which way and you would in fact be lucky to get the 18 yard box coverage.use ethernet over wireless every time it’s a no brainer.
@Adam – The word ‘silly’ wasn’t directed at people with specific needs, it was directed at those who try to make broad claims about the marketability of these products because of the one specific niche feature they personally use. The market did not care when cell phones lost removable batteries, SDCard slots or apparently headphone jacks (seriously?). I don’t always agree with those decisions, like you I am a power user who actually does occasionally need those features (although not so much from my FTV). But I am aware that in most cases I am a corner case and that designing a product just for my needs only makes it more expensive for the other 99% with no added gain.
I would quibble with some of what you said about the complexity of Ethernet vs wifi, your statement assumes that you actually already have Ethernet jacks available. Granted you and I do, but when discussing a feature on a device what matters is what percentage of the market has Ethernet or would consider wiring up Ethernet for this one device. The answer, of course is decidedly small, and if someone is in that position for the vast majority tossing a second AP in their home is far easier, even with maintenance, than rewiring their house to have Ethernet.
Hopefully Amazon releases a high end FTV soonish, like you I’m hoping this does not go like the Fire tablets where the 95% use case ends up eliminating the higher end capabilities that users like us actually utilize. I guess we will see.
@Adam & Anthony –
For both of you, I’d suggest checking out Ubiquity equipment. Their current range of AC compatible access points are very competitively priced, will easily blanket most homes, and if they don’t simply adding a second AP on another level or at the other side of the house is cheap and easily creates a single large wifi network. I can’t recommend them strongly enough, especially for the price. They aren’t spec monsters like some of the consumer grade equipment you see out there, but they are extremely stable, reliable, and fully featured enterprise class WiFi access points that will make you hate the consumer crap.
Top three products at this link are strongly recommended: https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=uap-ac
I have two of the UAC-AC-PRO-US models covering my house, nobody ever has unstable wifi. The Lite model is cheaper and more than enough for most people (833Mbps for the Lite vs 1300Mbps for the Pro). They are also power over Ethernet, so you can put them in the optimal position for maximum coverage (ceilings like a smoke detector) and only need to run a single Ethernet cable to a closet with a switch and PoE adapter (included in the package). Ubiquiti also supports these for an ungodly long time, firmware updates still come out for their nearly 10 year old 2.4Ghz N class equipment even today (find a consumer AP that does that).
And no, I don’t work for them, but those I’ve set up with these never want to go back. Good review here:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/10/review-ubiquiti-unifi-made-me-realize-how-terrible-consumer-wi-fi-gear-is/
Unless you are a huge gaming fan the Nvidia is not worth getting the amazon fire tv box is the better option for tv ie apk’s & iptv apps they run so smoothly on the fire tv whereas the Nvidia gas far too much Ram for a tv only box and hardly worth the extra £100. Keep your money in your pocket for a rainy day because the amazon fire tv 2 is a very good device and is never caught short with the ever so important Ram when multi tasking or using big files. I have used all the main Android boxes and for smoothness and glitch free usage you simply cannot go wrong with the 2nd gen fire tv box which goes way way past its price tag it’s a huge bargain
To me it is ridiculous that in 2017 a company makes a device with only 5GB available for app storage. So they use a lower end SoC, remove the ethernet port, use the same storage size as the version they put out over 2 years ago while removing anyway to expand it. Basicallt a lower end product all around and it is only $20 cheaper. It is basically an oversized overpriced stick in a dongle form.
This setup would be cool to kick up the stick a notch. The dongle is easy for me take a pass on. I’m waiting for the cube that will give me my first real Echo experience and hopefully updated processing and all the ports.
You screwed up BAD Amazon. I’m going to Nvidia Shield.
I recently got one again as my Fire TV 2 was feeling inadequate for my needs, with the addition of Amazon Video my biggest complaint is gone.
That said, it is still officially missing some other vod services from what I can tell (e.g. 4od) but Im hoping to try side loading them and use the game pads mouse emulation.
4 on demand is there pre loaded in to Amazon’s app store and always has been.
I was referring to the shield/google.
When I look at those pictures in the above setup, all I can think about is that strain on the HDMI port.
Yeah, I’d probably use a short extension cable so that the heavier stuff rests on a flat surface, not hanging. A three foot one would be long enough since I have my TV on a stand. For people that wall mount with no shelves nearby, it would probably be a good idea to attach it to the back of the TV. Some Velcro would be the simplest way, or maybe a short extension cable that’s threaded through the VESA mount in a way that the cable takes the strain, not the HDMI port.
Maybe Amazon will learn something from this.
If we have to use a dongle to get an Ethernet port for our devices, the the company that makes a powered one with usb ports for expansion will make the sale.
Why is it a good thing that this hub does not have usb otg built in?
I have the new box and it is great btw… hooked up my current otg adapter to it and have all my storage. It’s lighter faster and cheaper… and with the otg attachment what really is there to complain about?
The complaints are that it is slower, and missing some decoders over and above the hardware that was dropped.
The complaints are because this has been marketed as a replacement for the Fire TV 2 box but in reality it is an oversized overpriced stick in dongle form. People who have bought this have been hosed. If you seriously need 4K HDR spend the extra money and buy a Shield Android TV or a Roku Ultra. Alot cheaper than people suggesting buying new routers, access points and whatever else in order to get this dud to meet their needs. I love how Amazon boasts about how many apps they have available to download than release a gimped box with only 5GB of available storage. I will wait until Amazon releases a serious successor to their 2nd generation box. Until then second hand market Fire TV 2s, Nvidia Shield Android TVs & Roku Ultras are the only serious options currently. available
I purchased the first adapter you recommended for use with the Fire Stick 2 .
It never worked as a Ethernet adapter, and as an OTG adapter worked for a while, and then used to continuously reboot the Fire Stick, which otherwise works fine.
I cannot begin to wonder why people buy the inadequate firestick when there are cheaper much more advanced alternatives or just pay the few pounds more fire tv box which has the ever so important eithernet capabilities
Are you sure this works? I have just purchased the above adapter and OTG cable. The network port on the USB hub will only become enabled when the hub is connected to a PC via USB and not the Fire TV (through the OTG cable). The network port won’t enable at all when just connected to an Ethernet cable. I have the USB power adapter as well so the unit is powered.
hey
also for me.
i connect . and it doesnt identify the lan and udb
only powering for fire3
i have ugreen the same but its turn on the amanzon fire3 but not reconize the lan and usb.
i plug the ugreen to amazon ac , and the mincrousb fire to ugreen.
i see blue light
i need maybe power ac for ugreen?
I’ll confirm that this ugreen network adapter does not work for me with the new fire tv, I even have the ugreen powered with a ac adapter. I think the issue is the network adapter doesn’t send power through to the usb cable that connects to the firetv (only the extra usb ports) so the firetv isn’t getting powered. At least that is the issue I have.
the Lan does not appear to work on multi hub attached to 2nd Gen Firestick.
have tried every combination will I need to root the stick to get Lan Working ?
USB devices are fine.
Hopefully this helps someone else. I purchased this and it didn’t work for me either. Some research in the Amazon listing lead me to this from a UGREEN rep…
Dear Customer,
Thank you very much for your inquiry.
NO, this adapter does NOT support all-new fire tv (2017).
For you needs, you can search for urgeen 30985 which supports all-new fire tv (2017)
If you have any questions or problems, please feel free to contact us.
We will try our best to help you in 24 hours
Thanks for your all support to Ugreen.
Any more information, please feel free to contact us.
UGREEN GROUP LIMITED see less
By zhang qingshen on November 20, 2017
Awesome information, thank you!
One question,does anyone know if this UGreen adapter would work the same? https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00LLUEJFU?psc=1
It has 1000G Ethernet. Just. Curious if it is compatible as well, and take advantage of Gigabit speed.
This article and its steps are just weird and frustrating to me… I ordered all these parts, and they don’t even configure together. i.e. Starting at the FireTV pendant, I have the micro USB port connected out to the micro USB male connector of the generic OTG adapter as instructed. From there, I have to get the OTG adapter to connect to the UGREEN adapter. The only connection that “fits” is the female USB on the OTG adapter to the UGREEN male USB. Now what? The UGREEN needs that male USB for power, so the chain linkage is incorrect, but… there are no other options. Then, to read that what this post recommends doesn’t actually work with the UGREEN adapter it tested and says to use, EVEN if there is some magical way they all connect. I must be missing something in how these things fit together, otherwise what a big waste of time and money.
Forget about the UGREEN for a second. The OTG goes in between the Fire TV and it’s power cord. So the power cord for the Fire TV plugs into the female micro usb of the OTG then the male micro usb of the OTG goes into your Fire TV wherevthe power cord would have gone. Now you’ve effectively added a standard female USB port in between the Fire TV and it’s power cable. Now you can use that standard female USB socket to plug whatever you want to into the chain. In this example that would be the UGREEN USB hub/Ethernet adapter.
Hi, I am just using the otg for usb connectivity and not for ethernet (yet). When I use ES File Explorer (pro), it does recognize the connected thumb drive(s)… I was able to transfer some files from usb thumb drive, to the download folder of the Fire “TV” (3rd generation – I put “tv” in quotes, because in my opinion it should be labeled as a “stick”). But, unlike with the 1st gen Fire TV, when I plug in a thumb drive formatted in FAT 32, it does not show as “recognized,” by the AFTV-3… Anyone have any suggestions? I am wanting to connect my internet/ethernet directly to the AFTV-3 and was just about to go and buy the UGreen USB hub with ethernet… But, after reading the comments I don’t think I will. This AFTV-3 is my neighbor’s. I’m doing some configurations on it with Kodi and whatnot. I will wait until Amazon comes out with a new actual “Fire TV” or get the NVidia Shield…
Hello, does anyone know if the OTG cable being USB 2.0 or USB 3.0 is a factor?
“SuperSpeed OTG devices, Embedded Hosts and peripherals are supported through the USB OTG and Embedded Host Supplement[4] to the USB 3.0 specification.”
My question is this: If I’m going to connect a USB 3.0 device to the OTG cable and then to the Fire TV 3, will the specs of the OTG cable matter? Is there a USB 3.0 spec’d OTG cable I can use? I haven’t been able to find one.
I have the same concerns and I couldn’t find OTG cable with usb 3.0.
Please let me know if you find one.
Is this information still good, is it still the best option for Fire TV? I have the newest version (3.0) and I’m still considering the option displayed here. Thanks!
Originally had the Amazon Fire TV ethernet adapter, which I couldn’t get to work. I bought this to work with my new 4K Fire TV, figuring ethernet and 3 usb ports for less money is a better deal. In the questions section, it says this adapter can’t be used with the Fire TV, but elsewhere there are reviews that say it works with the Fire TV. So I plugged this adapter into my FIRE TV and no joy – was still connecting to WiFi. The USB ports worked, but no ethernet. Tried and tried, but no joy. Was about to return in when I had a thought – tried one last time and it worked! The key is this:
1 – plug the ethernet cord into the UGREEN adapter. (Obviously other end of ethernet needs to be plugged into router, switch, etc.)
2 – plug the UGREEN adapter into the USB slot on an OTG adapter.
3 – Plug the Micro USB cable that came with the FIRE TV into the OTG adapter.
4 – plug the USB side of the micro USB cable that came with the FIRE TV into the power brick that came with the FIRE TV. One blue light
on the UGREEN adapter should light up.
LAST, plug the OTG adapter micro USB into the Fire TV.
Wait for FIRE TV to boot up and you should get 3 blue lights on the UGREEN adapter, indicating ethernet connection (verify on FIRE TV network settings). The key seems to be to have the UGREEN adapter powered up BEFORE the FIRE TV.
THEN, plug in any USB devices to the ports on the UGREEN adapter. Doing it in this order allowed me to get the ethernet working, as well as a USB thumb drive and FLIRC controller. All off of the FIRE TV power brick, no extra power needed.
2 issues that have occurred to me – 1. If you lose power, you will probably need to repeat this process to get the ethernet to work, and 2. make sure that you are not using a Samsung OTG adapter, as the pin outs are different. I know that my OTG adapters work on Sony and Motorola phones, but not Samsung phones.
I only have a Fire TV 4K, so I cannot test that this adapter works for Fire Stick, or older Fire devices, but it should if you follow these steps. Hopefully it works for you like it (eventually) did for me.
Hi, can you please share the model names/numbers for the Ugreen device and OTG device you’re using? Or if it’s easier, the links to the devices? Thank you.
This is the one that I got:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LLUEJXW/_encoding=UTF8?coliid=I2F20D6PFLWRK&colid=GBO71H8WONO4&psc=0
Thank you Jimmy.
Just like to add that this adapter worked well for me also. Pay attention to comments by Jobie and Jimmy. Thanks everyone!
All,
I have used the OTG/ethernet/USB adapter set very succesfully…until recently when my firestick began sporadically rebooting itself. I had a Logitech keyboard dongle and a San Disk 64GB, FAT32-formatted thumb drive in there. It is a great set-up. Keyboard works well, inlcuding Kodi. When I remove the USB/ethernet adapter and replace it with an Ethernet adapter WITHOUT USB ports, the rebooting issue goes away. So I wonder if it is destined not to work long-term or if it is the adapter I am using that is the problem. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IJU0K2Q/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Used the setup described and it works. I actually used the UGreen 3.0 USB hub instead of the one in the instructions.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00LLUEJFU/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Have you had any issues by using the usb 3.0 hub after. I am considering trying the same. thanks
Would this work with the new firestick 4k in the same way also does it matter if you get the ugreen adaptor with usb 2.0 or usb 3.0 as there is not much price difference on amazon. thanks for any help offered.
I have 6 Ugreen 3 port ethernet hubs connected with OTG cables. The problems I’m having is difficulty is connecting some, of them. I have 3 Model 20265 black with three lights, three gray CM286. Two of each are working, but had to wiggle USB connections for them to work. I had a 20256 connected to a firestick 4K, was working fine, connected it to a 4K Max it wouldn’t work switched it to the gray CM286 now it’s working. Bought a new CM286 because I couldn’t get 20256 working, but neither working, switched out OTG cables and adapters nothing works. Only when connected to my laptop.
Anyone having these problems or solutions? Tired of scratching my head!!!!