The Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K now supports screen mirroring via Miracast. The company has just rolled out an update to Fire OS that brings the new functionality, which was previously available on past Fire TV hardware.
Before, Miracast was built into Fire TV devices, but Amazon dropped it a while ago. Not a lot of people noticed, though, and those that did clearly didn't complain loudly. This is no surprise. Miracast isn't as widespread as other content casting standards such as Chromecast. Still, some of Amazon's Fire tablets retained the feature, allowing users to share their screen using Miracast.
Miracast Returns To Fire TV Stick 4K
The new 6.2.6.3 update is rolling out now, as AFTV News reports. Miracast can cast content from phones, tablets, and computers to the Fire TV Stick 4K. This marks the first time screen mirroring has been made available on modern Fire TV devices since the Fire TV 3 arrived.
How To Use Miracast
To use it, bring up the Fire TV shortcut menu by holding the home button on the remote for a few seconds. Regardless of what's playing, the shortcut menu will appear, from which the user can trigger the function.
Alternatively, users can enable screen mirroring from the Fire TV's Settings menu. Simply navigate to Settings, hit Display & Sounds, and scroll down to the new Enable Screen Mirroring option. Once enabled, the Fire TV will display a message saying it's waiting for a mirroring connection. To cancel, simply press any button on the remote.
For screen mirroring to work, however, the device hosting the mirrored content must support Miracast, which is sadly disappearing from modern devices. Apple devices have never added support for it, and Google dropped it beginning with Android Pie. Most Windows 8 and Windows 10 devices still support the standard, though.
