Xiaomi Mi Tv Stick - €26.69 from DHGate

Suckit

settopbox wrote: »

Paid An Post 16.03 today for it.
I know its a basic model and the reviews are crap but happy I got it, I will make use of it in the bedroom or something.

It shouldn't be too bad with the legal streaming services.
BBC iPlayer, Amazon, Netflix, Disney+ etc..

fdevine

Arrived without any additional customs charge. Setup was straighforward. Only issue was an annoying snowy digital artifact but solved that by adjusting the display to 1080i from 1080p

Heraldoffreeent

Messed about with mine last night. Its a little sluggish and jerky compared to the Mi Box S that I have, and the Shield.

Installed downloader and was able to add filelinked from there, no problem, which I was surprised at. I'm sure I had to use some workarounds on the Shield to get it to work last December.

I've a flymouse on my shield using a USB dongle, no way to do this on the Mi stick without getting a mini hub with mini connector, haven't priced it, but probably 1-1.5 times the price of the stick. Some apps are easier handle with the Flymouse.

So, the stick handles Netflix, Magellen TV, Prime, Disney+ OK in 1080i, "other" apps OK too, but if you are accustomed to 2k/4k, then its a bit of a throwback.

What I found strange was that the setup options for English were US, Canadian and Indian, and there was no option to select Ireland, or even UK, as location.

Played with it last night, and switched back and over to Shield a few times, when I re-selected Mi Stick, it worked fine, was connected to wi-fi etc.

This evening when I selected it, I had to re-enter wifi password again, which was a pain, as its long, had to find where I'd written it down!

Also. on 5Ghz wifi I was getting about 60% of the speed I get on a wired connection on the Shield, and about 65% of the speed on a laptop on wifi.

In conclusion, to me, having gone from Minix boxes back in 2014, to the Shield, this isn't any sort of replacement option. However, I'll probably throw it in the Glovebox and bring it down the country to another house I own and it'll do for a weekend. I've not tried IPTV on it yet, but I've a feeling that may be beyond it without deleting practically every other app.

Marhay70

Ok turns out .mine is not connecting to wifi. I even brought a small tv out beside the router and no go. Anyone else having issues?

Suckit

Marhay70 wrote: »

Ok turns out .mine is not connecting to wifi. I even brought a small tv out beside the router and no go. Anyone else having issues?

Try factory resetting it.

Tefral

Set mine up fine.

It isn't a patch on my shield, but that's the highest benchmark when it comes to these things.

Works fairly well with my Google Home for voice commands.

Happy i got it for the small TV in the kitchen. If anything it will keep my 2 year old happy watching the odd tractor Ted YouTube.

Marhay70

Suckit wrote: »

Try factory resetting it.

Yep, still no go.. In contrast the Firestick has full capability in a remote room in the house while the Mi stick barely registers right beside the router.

Raoul

Heraldoffreeent wrote: »

Messed about with mine last night. Its a little sluggish and jerky compared to the Mi Box S that I have, and the Shield.

Installed downloader and was able to add filelinked from there, no problem, which I was surprised at. I'm sure I had to use some workarounds on the Shield to get it to work last December.

I've a flymouse on my shield using a USB dongle, no way to do this on the Mi stick without getting a mini hub with mini connector, haven't priced it, but probably 1-1.5 times the price of the stick. Some apps are easier handle with the Flymouse.

So, the stick handles Netflix, Magellen TV, Prime, Disney+ OK in 1080i, "other" apps OK too, but if you are accustomed to 2k/4k, then its a bit of a throwback.

What I found strange was that the setup options for English were US, Canadian and Indian, and there was no option to select Ireland, or even UK, as location.

Played with it last night, and switched back and over to Shield a few times, when I re-selected Mi Stick, it worked fine, was connected to wi-fi etc.

This evening when I selected it, I had to re-enter wifi password again, which was a pain, as its long, had to find where I'd written it down!

Also. on 5Ghz wifi I was getting about 60% of the speed I get on a wired connection on the Shield, and about 65% of the speed on a laptop on wifi.

In conclusion, to me, having gone from Minix boxes back in 2014, to the Shield, this isn't any sort of replacement option. However, I'll probably throw it in the Glovebox and bring it down the country to another house I own and it'll do for a weekend. I've not tried IPTV on it yet, but I've a feeling that may be beyond it without deleting practically every other app.

Tried it with IPTV, it is actually running quite smoothly. The IPTV is working more smoothly than say my NFL game pass subscription.

For typing, you can download the android remote for your phone. Very handy.

The location thing seems to be messing me up because I can't log in to my Amazon prime account as it is the American version of Amazon prime. . Anyone got any ideas?

tglynn

Raoul wrote: »

Tried it with IPTV, it is actually running quite smoothly. The IPTV is working more smoothly than say my NFL game pass subscription.

For typing, you can download the android remote for your phone. Very handy.

The location thing seems to be messing me up because I can't log in to my Amazon prime account as it is the American version of Amazon prime. . Anyone got any ideas?

Do you mind if i ask what iptv player you were using?

Raoul

I'll pm you.

fdevine

Marhay70 wrote: »

Ok turns out .mine is not connecting to wifi. I even brought a small tv out beside the router and no go. Anyone else having issues?

Is your router dual band?

Stick didn't want to connect to my 5GHz Sky but no issues on 2.4GHz

Raoul

fdevine wrote: »

Is your router dual band?

Stick didn't want to connect to my 5GHz Sky but no issues on 2.4GHz

Same here.

Grassey

I'm kinda annoyed that

1) postage label is 'From belgium'
2) declared value is $15

Gah I should have argued the toss more that it was shipped from Belgium and pushed the tracking details!

Reckon if it hadn't been for the tiny bit of Chinese beside the description of contents it'd have been grand!

unhappyBB

Is there any way to stream to this if not connected to a WiFi network? E.g. if I want to stream a video to it from my phone when in a hotel.

I heard about Chromecast guest mode but there is no way to enable it on the mi sick in the home app on my phone.

mossy464

Any comeback with DH here with the Belgium thing? Very annoying

Marhay70

fdevine wrote: »

Is your router dual band?

Stick didn't want to connect to my 5GHz Sky but no issues on 2.4GHz

No, standard Vodafone Huawei router

Suckit

unhappyBB wrote: »

Is there any way to stream to this if not connected to a WiFi network? E.g. if I want to stream a video to it from my phone when in a hotel.

I heard about Chromecast guest mode but there is no way to enable it on the mi sick in the home app on my phone.

Not likely.

If you could get some TV shows or Movies transferred to it, then you could watch those, but you would be limited as the full size of the stick is only 8GB, you would likely only get less than 7GB worth of media on it. Unless you compressed them and reduced the quality, you won't get much.

Chromecast requires your phone/tablet/PC to be connected to the same wireless network as the TV Stick.

unhappyBB

unhappyBB wrote: »

Is there any way to stream to this if not connected to a WiFi network? E.g. if I want to stream a video to it from my phone when in a hotel.

I heard about Chromecast guest mode but there is no way to enable it on the mi sick in the home app on my phone.

Why not just hotspot off your phone, or you have a locally stored video on your phone you want to watch?

illdoit2morrow

Has anyone tried using the tg4 or rte player apps that are available on this device?

Spinning circle here when open it.

Nowso

illdoit2morrow wrote: »

Has anyone tried using the tg4 or rte player apps that are available on this device?

Spinning circle here when open it.

go in update it and clear data in apps on them - rte on mi box tends to crash after re use u need to clear data on the app n reboot to fix

ooter

I never ordered anything from dhgate before, would it be normal for a package to be sent from China via Europe/Belgium?

cassette50

A quick review - It's a decent device, worth €26.

Remote feels cheap and the menu system can be a little slow to load/navigate (compared to Nvidia Shield) but works fine with all the usual apps. Picture quality is good.

Easy to sideload apps and IPTV runs without any issues.

Marhay70

Anybody know if you can download the update remotely and apply it to the stick. Mine just refuses to pick up wifi and I'm hoping the update might cure it like it did an older MI box, it's the bin otherwise, not worth the hassle of sending it back.

DopeTech

Marhay70 wrote: »

Anybody know if you can download the update remotely and apply it to the stick. Mine just refuses to pick up wifi and I'm hoping the update might cure it like it did an older MI box, it's the bin otherwise, not worth the hassle of sending it back.

Have you tried it on a hotspot from your phone to see if its the router it has issue with?

Marhay70

DopeTech wrote: »

Have you tried it on a hotspot from your phone to see if its the router it has issue with?

Yep, doesn't see the phone.

Suckit

If anyone still looking for one of these, it's available here for €21.61 with code QPONY828
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001176444488.html

sligojoek

I'm happy enough with it so far.

If nothing else it's freed up my existing Chromecast.

The only issue is I can't get it to pair with 2 different Bluetooth headphones. Connected to a Bluetooth speaker no bother and the sound is top notch. Would be handy if I could connect the cans as I'd be able to watch stuff at night without waking those upstairs.

Marhay70

Marhay70 wrote: »

Yep, doesn't see the phone.

Had another go and managed to connect to hotspot and download the update,
and it will play you tube etc..still won't connect to wifi though.
It sees the router and says" connected successfully" but when I try to play anything it says "not connected to wifi", very annoying and puzzling.

fdevine

Marhay70 wrote: »

Had another go and managed to connect to hotspot and download the update,
and it will play you tube etc..still won't connect to wifi though.
It sees the router and says" connected successfully" but when I try to play anything it says "not connected to wifi", very annoying and puzzling.

Maybe try manually setting it up? I have had issues in the past with certain IP addresses not working or where the device was trying to use an IP already assigned to another

Marhay70

fdevine wrote: »

Maybe try manually setting it up? I have had issues in the past with certain IP addresses not working or where the device was trying to use an IP already assigned to another

What do you mean "manually set it up"?