Get a Mini-PC and put some Linux distro and Kodi on it.
Or even better, get one of the many LibreELEC supported devices (including, as somebody mentioned, a Raspberry Pi 5) and put LibreELEC on it (which is a pared-down Linux with Kodi).
Personally after maybe a decade running successive generations of TV Media Players to play my growing video file collection on my TV, on my latest upgrade I ended up going down the Mini-PC with Linux and Kodi on autostart route (as I used it also as a home server) and am very satisfied with it, though if I wanted to just use it as a Media Player I would’ve gone with LibreELEC and on of the various ARM SBCs they support (maybe the Pi, maybe something cheaper).
There really is no reason to use closed commercial solutions for this.
Edit: If all you do is consume media on it via Kodi, you can use a remote like this one so it’s the same usage experience as with a commercial device, just without the enshittification.
The number one feature in my streaming device is that it has HDMI cec and a one handed simple remote interface. No keyboard. No mouse. Low power usage as a bonus.
How can I make both happen?
I’ve tried so so many couch keyboards and they are all miserable even with a track pad or track ball. I also have a unified remote on my phone and I still hate having to go find my phone and unlock it. Then it occasionally doesn’t connect for reasons beyond my understanding so I have to take half an hour to debug.
Duck even if I could use my xbox controller for everything, id be happy but no it only works in games reliably.
Don’t really know about the HDMI cec, but I use one of these remotes which works perfectly with Kodi (it seems to just work like a wireless keyboard that just sends keypresses for shortcut characters corresponding to the function of each button, and those shortcuts are some kind of standard that Kodi supports, so this kind of remote - that also works for Android stuff - works fine with Kodi).
The only quirk it has versus the remotes that come in commercial solutions is that whilst the Power button in the remote will switch the Mini-PC OFF, it won’t switch it back ON (for the obvious reason that it uses a USB dongle and the PC when switched OFF won’t recognize input from the dongle).
I first got one which had even more buttons (also working fine with Kodi), but the remote’s build quality was shit and it didn’t took long for some of the button on that one to stop working reliably.
This one has been working fine for about a year now.
I do have a keyboard and mouse attached to that Mini-PC because it doubles up as home server and once in a while I have to do something on it which is more easilly done directly there with a UI rather than remotelly on the command line via SSH (or I simply don’t want to boot my main PC to access the Mini-PC remotelly), but to just consume media via Kodi nothing else beyond that remote is needed.
Back to Kodi
I wonder where they would draw the line? Smarttube? It’s not piracy but circumvents ads. Mayby Jellyfin or Plex? They are not piracy specificly but it’s how I consume?
Well if they drop Jellyfin, I know at least one friend that would rather drop their Fire TV than go without. Here’s hoping this backfires and just drops Amazon’s TV user base with no positive tradeoff for them.
Most interesting part of this article is the mention of VegaOS, which I hadn’t heard of. Not because I approve of anything Amazon does, ever, but depending on how much of a Linux it actually is, the jailbreaking / homebrew potential is intriguing.
Tivotization? Doesn’t that shit runs Linux?
AH FUCK I FORGOT. Yeah Linus Torvalds decided he didnt want GPLv3 on Linux…
Fun indeed.
Fire tv sucks, get anything else
Just buy android TV box like tanix u will be fine
