Picture it: you've just used your Amazon Fire TV Stick to stream from your chosen app or service, and you're ready to turn off the TV. You pick up the remote, only to realize... there's no way to do it!
Actually, there is a way to turn off the Amazon Fire TV Stick, and other Amazon streaming devices, but the technique is a little more hidden than you'd think.
This is presumably because the Fire stick is designed to always be on, ready to immediately boot up your app or service whenever you need it to. But if you want to save energy, or just prefer having devices off when you're not using them, you may want to switch the Fire TV Stick off. That's doubly true of the Fire TV Cube which glows blue.
So here's how to turn off the Amazon Fire TV Stick, and turn it back on again once you're ready to start streaming.
What you'll need
- The Fire TV Stick
- Your Alexa remote
How to turn off an Amazon Fire TV Stick
Simply unplugging your Amazon Fire TV Stick or device from its mains wall plug will turn off the gadget, but we're going to give you a way to turn it off that doesn't require you to return to the wall and plug it back in to turn it back on.
You're going to need to get your Amazon Alexa remote ready, and this technique works on whatever screen you're on, whether you're watching a movie or on the Fire OS home screen.
To turn off your Fire stick, press and hold the 'home' button; this is the one with a little icon of a house. If you're in a dark room and can't see the remote properly, it's worth noting that it has a little bump on it on most remotes, which distinguishes it from its neighbors.
Press and hold this home button until an options menu opens, then scroll along to the 'sleep mode' option which should be the central of the five tiles. Select this, and it'll put your Fire stick in sleep mode, which is the closest state to being off it can enter.
In order to wake the stick and return to Fire OS, press any button on the Alexa remote; you're supposed to have to press the power button, but I've found that any work, even the Alexa button.
Once you've figured out how to put the Amazon Fire TV Stick in sleep mode, you can comfortably turn it off when you've finished watching.
