My TV is not a smart TV but has hdmi inputs. Are there any non American alternatives to the Amazon fire stick?
Short answer: no.
Setting up and connect a whole system is not comparable to 40 euros for a all-in-one usb-pen-like device working out of the box imoYou can make a replacement for like 100€ with a Raspberry Pi, a lightweight Linux distro with KDE and Kodi.
A Raspberry Pi and Kodi.
And being tech savy, spend time on it, and be ready to update when it’s needed. Not necessary bad things, but it a completely different solution, not a “European firestick”
Raspberry pi kind of sucks ime. I had the 4 and it seemed underpowered. It’s more worth it to buy a used minipc if you can spend some more money. Plus you then have fully functional pc to use on your TV that can do anything at all. I used to have mine auto boot kde plasma to a specific desktop with Kodi full screen. Then another desktop with a full screen browser, and another one for steam or whatever. Custom keyboard shortcuts on a rii mini handheld keyboard and a single button would toggle desktops/apps.
Also it’s not really an option for people that don’t know how do technical computer stuff.
It really depends. For the purpose of “SmartTV” the Pi 4 with 4GB of RAM served it’s purpose. If you wanna do more, then yes, it is underpowered. For usual Kodi functions that arent just TV/streaming, you may need something better.
Now that I think back… Some of my issue had to do with streaming from nas.
Kodi is not a replacement for an amazon fire stick, but a replacement for streaming in combination with piracy
You can install Prime Video and other apps on Kodi itself with the right repos.
My workplace is giving old mini PCs to the employees. I put a linux distro on that and use it as a media pc. You can get them on ebay or similar for ~30 €, so it’s basically the same price as a TVStick. I reccommend getting a bluetooth keyboard as well.
If you want another stick then there’s also Roku.
I’ll have a look at Roku thank you because it needs to be user friendly for the family.
Roku is also American though.
Using a browser isn’t family friendly enough? :D The only thing that needs fiddling is the setup.
I might think my family are more retarded than they are, I’ll test them out on my pc and see how they do. If they do good I might be able to use the raspberry pi someone has suggested.
Roku is headquartered in California. If we’re prioritizing user friendliness over location (nothing wrong with this!) I’d go with a Google TV box or something like the Google streamer. Since it’s Android based you can (with a little bit of a workaround) change the launcher and ditch the ads. With Roku you’re stuck with whatever they give you; and they just “accidentally” tested ads on startup before you even see the home screen.
Roku is the easy way out for sure, even though I (and the other Linux homies) will espouse the Linux way
Stremio with torrentio addon has a simple user experience
I use a 2nd hand thin client with a bluetooth keyboard
That mostly depends on what you’re trying to run on it, or rather where your media comes from.
A Playstation can also stream all kinds of stuff but it is much more expensive.
Thomson is a french company. Never used them though.
I have a firetv stick and a playstation hooked up to my TV (which is smart, but horribly slow) and would never choose to stream something on my playstation if it’s about usability. Maybe a playstation remote might make a difference but still
I‘d complain about it running Google but honestly I’ve not managed to de-Americanise my streaming services yet anyway so this could work well. I’ll try and remember its existence when my firestick dies. Thanks for sharing.
Thomson
A great answer to the question
