So, we have 3 Firestick TV’s set up at our AirBNB house, but when I put in a PIN in Parental Controls it prevents any app from being launched on Amazon Prime without the PIN which isn’t going to work.
Not only that, I can speak to the Alexa through the remote and tell it to order “paper towels” and it put $38 worth of bounty paper towels in my Amazon shopping cart. Then Alexa says, “say buy it now and the purchase is complete.”
I looked in my cart and sure enough the paper towels were in there. I had to manually delete them.
I understand this is a unique feature of the Amazon Firestick. I was on tech support and turned off 1-click purchasing, but you can still put stuff in the cart from the Firestick.
Anybody else had this issue?
Netflix does not have an option to purchase anything additional. The most you can do is alter your subscription but you’d have to do that from a computer.
I believe Hulu is similar or the same (but I’m not a regular Hulu user).
As for Amazon Prime, it would be impossible for a guest to order themselves a product via Firestick (similar to Alexa) and have it ship to their own house. You can “order now” (which you may be able to turn off), otherwise you have to log into your account and complete the order. That said, I don’t see guests wasting their time doing this unless they’re out to get you.
It sounds like you already solved Prime Video using parental controls.
I don’t log into any of the apps. Guests can use their own credentials. I have yet to get a complaint.
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I recently purchased a Roku TV for the guest room, hooked it up to the guest wi-fi (I created a separate user profile from my own for security reasons), set up the Roku guest profile (lets you choose login/logout dates) and since I always check the TV, I can set it up for the next guest’s visit and it automatically logs them off the morning they leave.
So far, everyone has liked that they can do their own thing with their accounts and know that they’re logged out that morning (several have checked).
It gives everyone peace of mind and I don’t have to worry about Alexa. Mostly because I won’t have a (well, another) tiny surveillance device in my home.
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Yes, I realize that they cannot order products and have them delivered to their house, I just don’t want them, adults or children,to use the Alexa feature to put items into my cart.
We were told by a tech that allowing guest to login to say their own Hulu account is doeable. They just have to remember to remove their login information afterwards. Guess that would be their responsibility.
If you are cleaning the place after they leave, put “log out guests from TV” on your checklist. It’s the first thing I do when walking into the bedroom. That way it’s not YOUR fault if their login is used by anyone else.
It’s also the first thing I show guests - how to use the TV and if they want to login to their apps, when it will expire from the guest login.
That’s a good idea. Unfortunately I will not be there when they arrive. They have a self check-in.
I will have to do it in writing.
Have your cleaner at least make sure the previous guest was logged out. Put in writing the guest login instructions.
I don’t check this. As I don’t do the cleaning. You can remotely log out of netflix and hulu. So guests can do this from home if they forget.
I’m not aware of how to disable the Alexa feature on the FireStick (I just checked my Alexa app and don’t see the option) but since it’s not a real threat (just a minor inconvenience) I personally wouldn’t spend energy worrying about it. If it becomes a frequent problem I would probably just look into another alternative (such as Roku).
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are you required to sign into Prime account to make the TV work?
Another example of why I chose to provide Apple TV for my guests.
I don’t advertise to be a nanny for my guests.
This is what I do. Only takes a second to check the TVs and log out.
I’ve been surprised at how many people don’t log out of their accounts, even though I have a reminder on the instruction sheet for the remote.
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So is this the typical senario that guests login to their own streaming services and then log out afterwards?
I will find out today.
I assume they get some use, as occasionally when restocking supplies i will turn the TV on, and it is set to Roku, as opposed to cable. I think with larger groups, at least someone in the group has an account for a streaming service.
We just came back from Best Buy and they said that we should not even provide basic cable because a high tech person could log in to our account and change the settings.
It seems like there should be a way to lock the settings and still allow guests to login to their own streaming devices.
I will check with out Internet and cable provider today and see what they say.