Non-expensive Alternative to Firestick?

by segaman1

Hello, I have a firestick which provides very jittery stream in kodi with vaders. I have 100mb down/10mb up on comcast internet. It was recently brought to my attention that the jitteriness is due to firestick not being powerful enough for something as intensive as streaming on kodi. It also overheats and kodi crashes continuously. It drives me insane.

What other alternative is there for android box without spending a fortune? ...that eliminates Shield, which is always recommended in these sorts of threads. I don't want to use Stbemu. Xiaomi Mi Box 3 is another recommended product. What about regular firetv? I already have dreamlink in main room so getting another dreamlink or mag isn't an option (vaders only allows 1 MAC).

Does anyone have experience with various different boxes? I will be using wireless-n on kodi, and I do need a halfway decent controller.

Greencon10

Everybody is always so quick to point the finger at throttling, but those claims almost always boil down to a shitty internet connection and the wrong assumption that the "paying for" speed is what your device is actually working with. Especially among those insisting on not going hardwired.

It's either that or it sounds like you have more of a faulty firestick issue then a lack of power one, as for the most part a second generation firestick on a solid 100mbp internet connection can handle most of what kodi has to offer just fine. At least in video playback terms.

That said, the Xiaomi Mi has always been notably better at picking up a solid wifi signal at a more then a right next to the router distance then any of my Amazon devices.

IPTVsubs

There are plenty of inexpensive boxes that're more powerful than a Stick... Never get a Stick.

blondedre3000

Seems like Kodi needs a whole bunch of RAM and storage (currently at 2GB used on a Mi Box), but Comcast could also be a factor here. Someone commented just the other day about how they suspect they're throttling IPTV traffic because the issues weren't there over VPN. I'll see if I can find the post.

FYI I have a Mi Box running Kodi 17.3 and while it's stable running streams, it does occasionally crash on startup or when configuring things. I've already had to upgrade the storage, but surprise, Kodi can't use adoptable storage so I had to put everything else on the USB drive so Kodi could run. I'm considering getting a shield pro because it's probably the one STB device that'll run Kodi like butter. Overall experience with Kodi + Vaders on a Mi Box is pretty fantastic though.

LitIPTV

I got my minix at geekbuying, take a look at what they offer

Blue-Thunder

Go to freaktab.com and look at any of the boxes that xannytech has roms for. I used to recommend the Beelink Mini M8S II from Beelink, but they recently have started making clones of it which are utter garbage.

http://freaktab.com/forum/tv-player-support/amlogic-based-tv-players/s905x/others-aml-s905x/firmware-roms-tools-bx/614237-rom-xannytech-custom-mod-rom-twrp-recovey-built-in-for-minim8sii-and-other-devices-see-first-post

Go there, and he has some of the boxes that work with his rom listed on the first page.

  • Tanix TX5 Pro with AP6255 wifi chip
  • Mini MX + S905x 1Gb
  • Sunvell T95x 2gb/8gb and generally on any MINI M8S II clone
  • X96 this is the remote.conf
  • Nexbox A5 2G/16G
  • Nexbox A95x s905x 1g 8g

Just get a box with 2 gigs of ram. 1 gig will make you pull out your hair.

EverydayApe

The Amazon Fire TV box can be connected by Ethernet for higher speeds whereas the Fire Stick uses your Wi-Fi connection.

The Fire TV box is set up for 4K & UHD whereas the Fire Stick is limited to 1080p.

If you don't want any lagging whatsoever, stick to a box such as the Fire TV or NVidia Shield.

You can read my full article at - https://www.everydayape.com/is-fire-stick-worth-it/