If you’ve ever been in a situation where your parents or grandparents bought a new piece of tech without knowing how to use it, you’ll know the self-inflicted challenges that come with gifting a streaming stick to an older, less tech-savvy relative. It’s a thoughtful purchase, of course, since streaming is now the default way to enjoy your favorite movies and shows, but often the people who set up these devices didn’t have your mother in mind when they programmed the settings.
The hardware is far less important than the 30 minutes you spend with it before wrapping, even if it’s worth being choosy now that prices have crept up (Amazon raised the price of every Fire Stick in August, with Roku following suit), and this is our guide to getting the settings right before handing it over at Christmas.
For simplicity, I’ll mostly refer to the hypothetical recipient as a ‘parent’, though many of us have tech-savvy mothers and fathers (and grandparents, aunts, and uncles) who cope just fine.
The streaming stick I’d buy for my parents
It’s all about text size
Roku is the most tempting option here, since it’s been the default choice for less techy relatives for years, with a home screen that remains super-plain and easy to navigate. Roku’s accessibility page, however, says text resizing and interface customization aren’t available on its players or TVs, which is a real limitation if your relative already needs glasses to read what’s on screen.
Amazon has recently gone the other way, with its new Adaptive Display setting arriving over the summer, letting you enlarge text, icons, and menus across the Fire TV home screen and settings (at two levels, Large and Larger) without affecting posters and artwork. It’s only available on the two Fire Sticks running Amazon’s newer Vega OS, though, which right now means the Fire TV Stick HD and Fire TV Stick 4K Select.
It’s the main reason I’d buy the $39.99 Fire TV Stick HD, or the $49.99 4K Select if their TV is 4K. As we pointed out when Adaptive Display was first announced, Amazon has been pretty reliable on accessibility.
Vega OS has its limits, of course, since apps only come from the Amazon Appstore (and it’s thinner than on older Fire Sticks), but that won’t bother anyone who just wants Netflix and YouTube. To be safe, check with the recipient which apps they use the most.
Equally, if they’re used to Roku and small text isn’t an issue, I’d still go with the Roku Streaming Stick Plus, arguably the only Roku worth buying right now at $60. Meanwhile, Google TV has the cleanest home screen of the lot thanks to Apps-only mode, though the $149.99 Google TV Streamer is a harder sell as a gift.
You only need one remote
Instead of juggling multiple
In my experience, most “I can’t get it to work” calls are really just the TV being on the wrong input, and HDMI-CEC fixes that by letting the stick turn on the TV, switch to the correct input, and handle the volume. As we’ve argued before, HDMI-CEC is perhaps the most important TV setting most of us aren’t using.
Of course, you need to switch it on at both ends. On the TV, it’ll be tucked away under a brand name like Anynet+ on Samsung, SimLink on LG, or Bravia Sync on Sony.
On the Fire TV, meanwhile, go to Settings > Display & Sounds and turn on HDMI CEC Device Control, then go to Settings > Equipment Control to get the remote’s power and volume to work with the TV. On a Roku, it’s Settings > System > Control other devices (CEC) before turning on 1-touch play.
It goes without saying you should test everything properly by unplugging the TV and checking that one press of the remote brings up the right screen.
Strip back the home screen
No one wants those autoplaying trailers
Pretty much every platform fills their home screen with recommendations and ads, and our own editor didn’t hold back when Roku’s redesign arrived, calling it an ad-infested mess. Unfortunately, you can’t remove it all, but you can calm things down.
To do that on a Fire TV, go to Settings > Preferences > Featured Content and turn off Allow Video Autoplay and Allow Audio Autoplay, so the big banner at the top shows a still image instead of a trailer with sound. I’d also move the three or four most-used apps to the front of the row, so they can always find what they’re looking for.
On a Roku, Settings > Home screen lets you hide the recommendation rows and Quick Access, and setting Tile size to ‘Larger’ makes the app tiles easier to pick out, which helps make up for the lack of bigger text. We’ve covered these Roku home screen tweaks in more detail before.
On Google TV, Apps only mode is under Settings > Accounts & Sign In, then their profile. It also turns off search and Google Assistant, which is good if you only open the same few apps.
Switch on what helps, and turn off what doesn’t
An accidental screen reader is a classic support call
On a Fire TV Stick HD or 4K Select, Adaptive Display is under Settings > Accessibility, and I’d try Large first before jumping to Larger. The same menu has ‘Text Banner’, which shows the name of whatever’s highlighted in a fixed box, and it’s useful if your parent has a narrower field of vision.
Then there are the shortcuts that cause trouble. On a Roku, pressing the Options button (marked with a star) four times quickly switches the screen reader on, which is easy to do by accident with a remote down the side of the couch. You can turn off that shortcut in Settings > Accessibility, which I’d recommend. On a Fire TV, holding Back and Menu for two seconds turns on the VoiceView screen reader, so make sure they know that the same two buttons turn it off again.
If they’re using subtitles, crank up the caption size while you’re in there. On Roku, that’s under Settings > Accessibility > Caption style.
Do the final setup on their Wi-Fi after you sign in to all the apps they’ll use. That means they won’t be met with any login screens (until they’re inevitably logged out after an update), and barring any big software updates, they can just get on and use it. A stick that restarts itself on the first evening makes a very poor first impression.
Finally, I’d leave a sticky note on the remote with an arrow pointing at the Home button. It’s rather patronizing, until you realize it’s why the phone doesn’t ring the day after Christmas.
