Robert Hayes Robert is a freelance editor and writer living in Colorado. Read more April 16, 2022

The Amazon Fire TV stick is an extremely handy and highly portable device for getting streaming content on any television. Once you own one, the only other thing you need is a wireless internet connection and a television with an HDMI port. This convenience and portability has led to a lot of people who travel a lot—be it for work or leisure—to take their Fire Stick on the road with them.

With its small size and easy setup, bringing the Fire Stick along means you only need to input the Wi-Fi password of your hotel or Airbnb to gain access to the device; once you’re connected to the web, you’re already logged into your Netflix account, or the accounts of any other streaming service you use. Unfortunately, disaster can strike, and if you forgot to bring the remote control with you it might seem like you’re out of luck. Well don’t worry—we’re here to help.

Not only is it possible to connect your Fire Stick to the internet if you forgot to bring a remote, but you can continue to use your Fire Stick without a remote once you have it connected. Let’s take a look at how.

Are you near a Walmart or Best Buy? Chances are you might be able to pick up a third-party remote, similar to a universal remote, for just a few bucks. These remotes are typically designed to control all sorts of devices, including Roku, Apple TV, and most relevant to this article, Fire TV. Some are more universal, offering their support for all sorts of different boxes, while others are marketed directly for Fire TV owners. You might be wondering how it works, but generally, it’s actually pretty simple, using a universal standard known as HDMI-CEC.

HDMI-CEC stands for HDMI-Consumer Electronics Control, and it is a relatively new standard for consumer electronics, allowing for a high degree of interoperability between devices that connect via HDMI. For example, say you have a Chromecast connected to your TV, and your TV’s input mode is currently set to a DVD player connected on another HDMI port. If you instruct the Chromecast to start playing something on the TV, it will automatically change the input on the TV to the Chromecast’s input without you having to find the remote and change the setting yourself. So how does this help you in your current predicament?

Well, as we mentioned, you might be able to pick up a smart universal remote that does the work for you. If you’re lucky and you’re using a newer-generation of television, you might be able to control your Fire Stick right from the remote your television is using. Although CEC came out with the HDMI 1.3 standard in 2002, not every TV made since then has implemented it, as it is an optional feature. Most high-quality TVs should have it, and if your TV supports it then your troubles are over.

If you have access to a working remote or the ability to control your device over your phone, you may want to check to ensure that it is enabled on your Fire TV Stick. Thankfully, it only takes a couple of steps. If you have a remote available,

You may need to enable CEC on the television as well. The option will be found under the TV’s Settings menu. Unfortunately, most TV manufacturers don’t call it CEC, instead “branding” it with their own made-up and meaningless label. Here is a list of some of the most common TV brands and the name they’ve given the CEC feature:

Enable CEC (by whatever name) on the TV, hook up your Fire TV Stick normally, and you should be able to both set up your Fire TV Stick and control it with the TV remote. You won’t have access to the voice control features of your device, but you’ll be able to get by with the navigational controls on the TV remote.

If your TV doesn’t support CEC, or if for some reason you have it turned off on your Fire TV Stick, then you may be wondering why you can’t just use your phone as the remote for your Fire TV Stick. After all, there’s a Fire TV app for your smartphone, and at home you could use your phone as a remote anytime, even using the voice controls! Unfortunately, there’s a catch. Your smartphone doesn’t talk directly to the Fire TV Stick—instead, they both have to be on the same Wi-Fi network.

Your Fire TV Stick is already set to work on your home Wi-Fi network – which, presumably, you did not bring with you on your trip. And with no way to interface with your Fire TV Stick to change its network connection to that of your local Wi-Fi, they won’t be able to talk with one another, so the smartphone remote control won’t work. But there is a clever way to get it to work.

Here’s what you do.

Now you can use either your second device or your first device as the remote control for the Fire TV Stick! (Note that the reason you need two devices is that a smartphone can’t connect to its own wireless hotspot for its network connection.) As long as you know the SSID and password of the last network you connected your Amazon Fire Stick to, you’re golden.

One interesting possibility with this two-device solution is that you once you have re-established the network connection for your Fire TV Stick, you can use an Echo or Echo Dot to control the Fire TV Stick instead of using your smartphone or tablet. You’ll need the smartphone or tablet to do the initial configuration, as you can’t change the network settings with the voice commands, but once that’s done you can attune your Echo or Echo Dot to the same network and use the voice command feature to control your Stick.

Unlike using a universal HDMI-CEC remote, you can also purchase a replacement remote made specifically for Fire Stick devices that should work right out of the box. You won’t typically find these at your local big box store, but Amazon has the option to pick up a new remote designed specifically for your device. In fact, there are two distinct versions of the Fire remote you can grab online: the first-generation model that includes Alexa built-in, and the second-gen model that adds power and volume controls right to the remote. Make sure you check the compatibility with your Fire Stick by looking at the description before buying one.

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