I replaced my Fire Stick with a spare Android phone. Here’s why.

For months, I had been searching for a worthwhile project for my spare Android phone. After a week of browsing ideas online, I settled on something surprisingly straightforward yet highly practical. I hooked the old handset up to my television and effectively created a smart TV from a standard display. The setup demanded some patience, but the payoff made every minute count.

My enthusiasm isn’t just about the thrill of experimentation. I genuinely enjoyed the process and the final result, but the real win was realizing I never need to purchase another streaming gadget again. The timing was perfect, since I was already hunting for a replacement for my Fire Stick. After wiring my old phone to the TV, I made the switch permanent.

Here is why I retired my Fire Stick for good.

My old phone outperformed my expectations on the big screen

The Fire TV ecosystem is built on Android, specifically Fire OS, a fork of the Android Open Source Project. While it shares roots with Android, the differences between the Stick and my phone are substantial. Fire OS relies on the Amazon Appstore, not the Google Play Store, which means a far smaller app library. Workarounds exist to sideload the Play Store, but official support is absent. That limitation alone drove me to convert.

Running Google’s most popular apps on a Fire TV felt tedious. My Android phone, by contrast, offers more raw power and lets me run virtually any Play Store application on the television. The gap became obvious only after I made the connection. With my phone, I can pull up Google Maps, check Gmail, or play mobile games on a larger screen. These are tangible perks I genuinely appreciate, and they are not the only reasons I recommend this approach over a Fire TV Stick.

I no longer waste time checking whether an app has a Fire TV version. That little bit of research used to eat up my patience, but now it is a non-issue. This shift in mindset has stuck with me, and I doubt I will ever go back. Amazon’s recent move to replace Fire OS with Vega OS only deepens my uncertainty about the platform’s future. I prefer sticking with what I know unless something truly unique comes along, and so far, Vega OS does not offer that.

Turning my phone into a Fire TV replacement required some tinkering

The right accessories made the whole setup work smoothly. I connected my Samsung Galaxy phone to the TV, and while wireless casting via Smart View was the easiest route, I chose a wired connection for lower latency and a more traditional setup feel. Along with a USB-C-to-HDMI cable, I added an old wireless keyboard with a trackpad. A gaming controller would have been more convenient, but that meant a new purchase. If you already own one, I highly recommend it over a keyboard.

That was the entire kit. After plugging in the cable, I tapped the Mirror Switch notification in the Notifications panel and followed the prompts. Next, I installed an app called Screen Orientation Control to force apps into landscape mode on the TV. Audio is a non-issue, since standard HDMI cables carry both sound and video, and your TV speakers will handle playback automatically.

My spare phone is the Fire TV Stick that never was

I have not missed my Fire TV Stick since the setup was complete. What makes this even more exciting is that the device remains a phone at its core. A phone is not designed to be a Fire TV Stick, and it never will be. But thanks to Android’s versatility, it does not need to be one to transform a regular television into a genuinely useful smart TV. I am not going back.