Firestick, signing onto voom

[Ron Donze]

So I'm in a suite on Oasis of the Seas so I am lucky have free streaming zoom. Brought a recently purchased 4k firestick. I managed to get it plugged in despite the TV not pivoting from the wall. The TV was "hanging" on its wall mount in a recessed wall. 

To get room to reach behind the TV, I  had to grab the TV on the sides and lift slightly while sliding it left. Left because the HDMI inputs are on the right. Then pulling from the bottom gave just enough room for an arm to fit between the TV and wall. Quite the guessing game to fit the firestick in HDMI 1 slot. It was just above the wired input already there.

Turning on the TV the menu allowed you to select "Live TV" which brought to all the channels. Channel 0 was listed as HDMI 1. So select channel 0. 

Now turning (plug in) the firestick on and go to settings, then network. Click on WiFi-Guest-Oasis. This will connect you to the ship but not sign you in. It will say "no internet " under the WiFi-Guest-Oasis at the network menu.

What I never found described by any other post was, what do I do to get signed in.  Note the 4k firestick, when connecting to WiFi-Guest-Oasis, did not ask me to input a user name and password. All the ship IT would tell me was I needed a browser. Well Silk Browser is all I had installed. 

So how do I start it when I have no internet. You can't. I tried opening settings, "Manage Installed Apps". Then scrolled down to Silk Broser. When I  clicked on it, "Launch Application" was not there.

After a couple days I stumbled upon trying "Downloader" app which I had installed before coming on board. This app did allow launching and it acts like a browser sort of. Anyway it allowed me to type in login.com and that was the trick to getting to enter user name and password. Wahla Firestick got up to 88mph and I saw some serious shit. (Back to the future reference....anybody?) 

Below are some screen shots to hopefully help you out. I bet there are more screen shots I should have taken but didn't get so sorry in advance.

As you may know, when you get Voom you can only use it on one device at a time. You have to switch between your phone, tablet, computer or Firestick.  So If you use a VPN on your Firestick, make sure you verify that it will launch the same way Downloader was launched from the manage apps listing within settings. I used Nord VPN and I found out that having started the VPN and then later switching use of the internet back to my phone (without having disconnecting the VPN), the next time I wanted to switch back to the Firestick, Voom wouldn't let me sign in the Firestick while the VPN was running. So if you can't turn off the VPN while not being connected to the internet, you will have defeated yourself. Maybe I got lucky. Nord VPN was launchable in the manner that Downloader app was launchable. So I was able to recover. 

Just another detail that will probably only be more confusing to you.

Edited December 11, 2022 by Ron Donze
Added screen shots and VPN use warning

[Villageidiot]

Glad you found a solution. When I traveled a lot for work I carried a small travel router that allowed me to overcome this issue. The router connected to the hotel and then the Firestick was easy to connect to my router. You can also use a laptop with HMDI out and plug that into the TV.

[jbrinkm]

1 hour ago, Ron Donze said:

So I'm in a suite on Oasis of the Seas so I am lucky have free streaming zoom. Brought a recently purchased 4k firestick. I managed to get it plugged in despite the TV not pivoting from the wall. The TV was "hanging" on its wall mount in a recessed wall. 

To get room to reach behind the TV, I  had to grab the TV on the sides and lift slightly while sliding it left. Left because the HDMI inputs are on the right. Then pulling from the bottom gave just enough room for an arm to fit between the TV and wall. Quite the guessing game to fit the firestick in HDMI 1 slot. It was just above the wired input already there.

Turning on the TV the menu allowed you to select "Live TV" which brought to all the channels. Channel 0 was listed as HDMI 1. So select channel 0. 

Now turning (plug in) the firestick on and go to settings, then network. Click on WiFi-Guest-Oasis. This will connect you to the ship but not sign you in. It will say "no internet " under the WiFi-Guest-Oasis at the network menu.

What I never found described by any other post was, what do I do to get signed in.  Note the 4k firestick, when connecting to WiFi-Guest-Oasis, did not ask me to input a user name and password. All the ship IT would tell me was I needed a browser. Well Silk Browser is all I had installed. 

So how do I start it when I have no internet. You can't. I tried opening settings, "Manage Installed Apps". Then scrolled down to Silk Broser. When I  clicked on it, "Launch Application" was not there.

After a couple days I stumbled upon trying "Downloader" app which I had installed before coming on board. This app did allow launching and it acts like a browser sort of. Anyway it allowed me to type in login.com and that was the trick to getting to enter user name and password. Wahla Firestick got up to 88mph and I saw some serious shit. (Back to the future reference....anybody?) 

A few questions because I've never used a Firestick, only Roku and Chromecast...

When you say you needed a browser, does that mean on your phone? Or on the TV with Firestick (plugged in, on channel 0)? Do you control the Firestick from your phone? I'm wondering how that might relate to a Roku, which I think might be more similar to the Firestick than Chromecast. Would that also mean that the "Downloader" app is also on your phone? And what is Silk browser/would that be equivalent to Chrome or "Internet" that Samsung phones come with? And where did you find Downloader/how does it act as a browser for you to type in "login.com"? 

Thanks for this info! Seems really helpful if I could understand it...

P.S. any chance of screenshots?

[ScottD]

11 hours ago, jbrinkm said:

A few questions because I've never used a Firestick, only Roku and Chromecast...

When you say you needed a browser, does that mean on your phone? Or on the TV with Firestick (plugged in, on channel 0)? Do you control the Firestick from your phone? I'm wondering how that might relate to a Roku, which I think might be more similar to the Firestick than Chromecast. Would that also mean that the "Downloader" app is also on your phone? And what is Silk browser/would that be equivalent to Chrome or "Internet" that Samsung phones come with? And where did you find Downloader/how does it act as a browser for you to type in "login.com"? 

Thanks for this info! Seems really helpful if I could understand it...

P.S. any chance of screenshots?

I'm not the OP but will give my best answers here... I would think you need a browser on the firestick, Silk is the amazon brand browser, so yeah...like Chrome but just the Amazon version instead of the google version. I'm not sure why that didn't work for the OP, as it should have opened up like a web browser and allowed them to access the login page. Roku and firestick are very similar, a firestick does come with its own remote to access all of the content, so you don't need to use your phone to control it. Downloader is an app within the firestick, once a firestick is plugged into the tv and powered on, you will see a list of pre- loaded apps, and downloader would be one of them...but again, this is the part I'm not 100% sure on, which is why that was needed instead of just the browser. Hope I helped a little, and for both of our knowledge (I'm sailing in 6 weeks and planned of bringing a firestick) hopefully the OP can jump in on the stuff I wasn't sure of. 

[twangster]

My very old Firestick can't deal with the captive portals where you need to enter credentials.  I've tried all the hacks to load browsers and such.  It simply doesn't have enough memory to install them.  

That's the thing with Firesticks.  They were never meant to handle captive portals.  Folks have found ways around that by using a browser trick but it wasn't and isn't something that Amazon ever intended them to do originally. YMMV.

[FSUFAN]

I tried and failed to connect a Roku device on our October sailing on the Voyager.  I bought a cheapo universal remote in hopes of changing the input on the TV. I fussed around with it for about an hour and then gave up.  I was able to get the remote to connect to the TV, but it wouldn't change the input. 

I ended up streaming my laptop and watched some college football games as I have YouTube TV and can run that from the laptop.  It was very glitchy and about every minute or so would go into a signal spin trying to stream the live show/game. It would have been nice to have the picture on the larger TV screen rather than my 15" laptop screen.

[smokeybandit]

There are a couple lightweight browsers you can install onto Firestick from the Amazon app store.

[Ron Donze]

On 12/7/2022 at 6:37 PM, jbrinkm said:

A few questions because I've never used a Firestick, only Roku and Chromecast...

When you say you needed a browser, does that mean on your phone? Or on the TV with Firestick (plugged in, on channel 0)? Do you control the Firestick from your phone? I'm wondering how that might relate to a Roku, which I think might be more similar to the Firestick than Chromecast. Would that also mean that the "Downloader" app is also on your phone? And what is Silk browser/would that be equivalent to Chrome or "Internet" that Samsung phones come with? And where did you find Downloader/how does it act as a browser for you to type in "login.com"? 

Thanks for this info! Seems really helpful if I could understand it...

P.S. any chance of screenshots?

Silk Browser and downloader are apps on your firestick. To sign into Voom you are doing that through a working browser app on the firestick. A remote control comes with every firestick and that is how you control the firestick apps and settings etc. You are of course viewing all this on the TV.

Downloader is an app that you install when you have internet access (at home). Their are other browsers like Chrome or opera etc that may work (or may not if they don't launch) but I had not loaded them at home.

Screen shots would have been nice but so far I haven't. On the last day of the cruise so I guess tonight is my last chance. Check back in a few days. 

[Ron Donze]

On 12/8/2022 at 6:37 AM, twangster said:

My very old Firestick can't deal with the captive portals where you need to enter credentials.  I've tried all the hacks to load browsers and such.  It simply doesn't have enough memory to install them.  

That's the thing with Firesticks.  They were never meant to handle captive portals.  Folks have found ways around that by using a browser trick but it wasn't and isn't something that Amazon ever intended them to do originally. YMMV.

And that's why I posted because with the 4k version I didn't need a travel router.

[jbrinkm]

Yay! Screenshots appeared!! Thanks.