Amazon Fire TV device will stop working in weeks
An Amazon Fire TV accessory will soon be completely unusable, the company has said.
The tech giant is emailing customers saying that support for the Fire TV Blaster will be phased out from January 31.
As much as Amazon has stopped selling tech before, this is the first time they’ve bricked a perfectly functioning smart home device.
The tiny Echo Flex smart speaker, for example, was discontinued in 2021 but still works to this day.
Amazon stopped selling the Fire TV Blaster last year after six years.
An email to people who have bought the gadget says: ‘In the coming weeks, support for Fire TV Blaster will be discontinued, and the device will stop working.’
What is a Fire TV Blaster?
The clue’s in the name as to how Fire TV Blasters work – they emit infrared signals to TV sets, soundbars and satellite boxes.
Fire TV Stick owners can use the device to add hands-free voice control built into a Fire TV Cube.
In other words, you could ask Amazon’s virtual assistant, Alexa, to switch a device off, adjust the volume or change the channel.
But they need to be with an Echo smart speaker and require both the Fire TV and Alexa apps.
To soften the blow, Amazon said it will offer customers a discount on its high-end streaming box, the Fire TV Cube.
UK customers will automatically receive a gift card for the full amount of the £34.99 Blaster and will appear within 24 hours.
They also have the option to post their soon non-functioning Blaster to Amazon to recycle it.
Amazon said there’s not as much of a need for the Blaster anymore as a standalone infrared blaster, given how advanced Fire TV products are now.
However, the tech does not have an infrared blaster – which works like a TV remote does – meaning there’s no real replacement.
The Fire TV Blaster wasn’t the most popular in the world, having a modest 3.8 stars out of 3,600 reviews on Amazon.
The Fire TV Stick crackdown
But the Blaster isn’t the only thing Amazon is looking to discontinue.
The company recently beefed up its efforts to crack down on so-called ‘dodgy’ Fire TV Sticks, which let users illegally stream paid content for free.
Some 1.5 million adults have illegally streamed in the past six months using jailbroken Amazon Fire TV Sticks, according to a YouGov poll.
The police have even carried out raids to find people bootlegging content, while Amazon is working with anti-piracy groups to identify unofficial apps on its stores.
People using the dodgy sticks, also called ‘modded’ sticks, are now being shown a warning if they’re using an illegal app.
While people can still simply close the notification, it will soon be replaced by a pop-up saying the app can’t be used at all.
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