Amazon Fire-TV Stick & Continuum

[Black3ternity]

Hi there,

I've got my Microsoft Continuum Dock in the mail yesterday and tinkered around with it.
I like the quality of it and the functionality is good.
I've tried simple Miracasting / Continuum with my FireTV Stick from Amazon but I can't seem to get it to work properly.
I don't need any heavy lifting.
What I really wish is this:
I want to be able to show Pictures and Videos from my Phone on the big screen but without the hassle to power up a "huge" device that just consumes power like my xbox 360 or my MediaCenter-PC.
My TV is an older Samsung TV (one of the first LED generations) which only have basic "app" functionality like weather, so no smart thingy there.
My Receiver is a Pioneer and is only working with DLNA for Music from my Desktop-PC.

I immediately thought of the FireTV-Stick because it's always there, uses less power and should be capable of displaying my stuff.
When I use the Continuum App on my Lumia 950 XL, it shows the FireTV Stick properly when in "Mirroring" mode. It shows my desktop but will stop to react to my touch input when I try to open any app on the start menu or something like that. It just freezes. The phone is fine - I can disconnect and reconnect but only for a short amount of time. Is there another possiblity to just "play" the pictures and videos to the FireTV Stick?
I've read that I can only use "Miracast" with the continuum-app instead of enabling a second desktop. How can I set that up?

PS: I know that Amazon says "Miracast" but in reality it's pretty limited and not officially using Miracast-standard that allows everything to connect flawlessly, but because I can connect and see my stuff but it just "dies" a few seconds afterwards, there seems to be too much processing required for that or something like that. I hope anyone can help me because my 7 inputs on my Receiver are fully used and I really want to use existing equipment instead of jumping the hoop again for another "gadget" for one single purpose

Kind regards,

 

[ashram]

Sorry, but the firetv stick has quite possibly the worst Miracast implementation. It's horrible unless you are using another Amazon fire anything. I got one hoping to kill 2 birds with 1 stone.... The birds beat the stone to death.

 

[Chris Phelps]

I bought the amazon fire TV hoping to kill two birds with one stone and have Miracast as well... The fire TV won't even show up on my phone when I try to connect.

I don't regret my purchase... I have had a ton of fun with the fire TV and it is an outstanding product, but a great Miracast device, it is not.

 

[Black3ternity]

Chris Phelps:
Exactly that. I bought the Stick in a sale for 19 bucks, so a fair deal and I have fun with it, despite some of the gripes like no exit confirmation when accidentally pressing the home button and stuff like that. But it's sad that Miracast is a pain.

I'm thinking of getting the Microsoft Wireless receiver - does it work flawlessly? Is there any better solution than that? Not sure about Roku stuff - because I'm in germany. Have to look for that.

Kind regards,

 

[Josh Harman]

Chris Phelps:
Exactly that. I bought the Stick in a sale for 19 bucks, so a fair deal and I have fun with it, despite some of the gripes like no exit confirmation when accidentally pressing the home button and stuff like that. But it's sad that Miracast is a pain.

I'm thinking of getting the Microsoft Wireless receiver - does it work flawlessly? Is there any better solution than that? Not sure about Roku stuff - because I'm in germany. Have to look for that.

Kind regards,

It works as good as any miracast I've seen. However, no miracast device will work as good as the Dock - there will be a little lag under heavy load with all miracast devices.

 

[jhoff80]

No, that's completely untrue. The Fire TV is an absolute garbage implementation of Miracast.

Wi-Fi Display dongles and associated latencies

For best luck, get the Actiontec Screenbeam Mini 2 (whether the Continuum edition for its USB Y-cable, or the standard version if you're going to use Bluetooth peripherals or buy your own Y-cable instead). It has had firmware updates specifically to support Windows 10's improvements on Miracast.

For for a close second, get the Microsoft Wireless Display Adapter. About the same latency, but it hasn't been updated since Windows 8.1.

 

[Black3ternity]

Thanks for the quick answers, and thanks for the link.

Regarding the latency and stuff:
To be able to use any Miracast-device as a Continuum dock would be sweet, but additional. All I want from Continuum / Miracast is the ability to show and stream my pictures and videos, which sadly can't be done with the FireTV. There should be the ability to just "miracast" my phone screen instead of using the second display as a monitor expansion, but unfortunately, that is not the case for the FireTV Stick.
Because of this, I'm looking into the Wireless Display Adapter so I can duplicate my Phone display and / or stream pictures and videos that I took with my phone. I hoped that I could have spared my last remaining HDMI Port, but it seems that I need to plug my seventh and last HDMI port in order to just show my stuff on the big screen. The Display Dock is sadly no option because it would require a 12m Cord to be moved from one side of the room to the other and unfortunately, I can't find any USB-C to USB-C Cable in that length ;-)
Otherwise, I would have done that immediately.

Regards,

 

[Josh Harman]

No, that's completely untrue. The Fire TV is an absolute garbage...

I'm not sure if that response is to me or who, but I was talking about the Microsoft display adapter.

 

[jhoff80]

I'm not sure if that response is to me or who, but I was talking about the Microsoft display adapter.

Ahh, I misunderstood because you quoted the whole post, my mistake.