How To? - Setting up a Firestick Out-of-the-Box and Adding Kodi

In this article I show you how set up a Firestick including how you can use Kodi on a Firestick.

As a good example of devices with limited interfacing capabilities, we’ll use the Amazon Fire TV Stick. Contrary to other similar devices, the Fire TV Stick has no USB port so you can’t connect it to a computer and you can’t connect some external storage device–such as a USB key or external USB hard disk to it to assist in the setup. The only thing you have is a WiFi connection with very limited local network access capabilities.

Here are the steps for setting up a new Firestick "out of the box" with Kodi

1. Plug your Firestick into an Hdmi port on your TV
2. Connect to your Wifi access point
3. Add your Amazon account and register the device (create a new account if needed)
4. Using the supplied "appstore" application, search for the app "Downloader" and install
5. Go to the internet and grab a link for the Kodi app - go to the downloads section of "kodi.tv". You need the link for the Arm v7a 32 bit Android version of Kodi. Something like "https://mirrors.kodi.tv/releases/android/arm/kodi-21.2-Omega-armeabi-v7a.apk?https=1"
6. In order to download the app using Downloader, you have to enable the "Developer" option on your Firestick. To do this go to Settings on your Firestick - select "My Fire TV" and and click "About" 7 times or until the Developer options" menu appears. Note - you may need to go out and back into the submenu to see the Developer options menu.. Now enable Donwloader under the "Install Unkown Apps" submenu in the Developer options menu.
7. Launch the Downloader app and place the download address for Kodi you found above into the Downloader app. The app will download the Kodi installer and automatically start the install for Kodi (you now have a local copy of the Kodi installer saved in the "Files" section of Downloader on your Firestick)
8. You now have the Kodi application on your firestick and you can simply launch it and configure it as you like (refer to other articles on how to configure your Kodi installtion).