Different devices able to pickup same WiFi signal poorly?

Wifi is very finicky. Here is a very abridged list of possible issues:

1. Most wifi is either 2.4ghz or 5ghz, and a lot of times both at once. Each device chooses which it wants to use in this case. Maybe either the 2.4 or 5 is weak in this room, and your laptop and iphone decided to use the better signal, but the Fire TV did not.

2. Wifi dead spots can be very small, and it's possible that the FireTV happens to be in a very tiny "bubble" of bad coverage. Try moving or turning it, or moving/turning your router.

3. Related to #2, your TV or other electronics near the Fire TV could be interfering with the signal.


Or it might not be the wifi at all. It's very possible that all of your devices are connected to the same speed/quality of signal, but your Fire TV is streaming a 4K version of the video, while the iphone and laptop are streaming a regular HD version. 4K requires a roughly 4X faster connection than HD. Most devices/services will drop the quality if playback suffers, but maybe this isn't happening.

And there are roughly 47 thousand other possible causes. Good luck!

Good points made above. I’d also add, the WiFi card in your Fire device probably isn’t the same quality of an IPhone or laptop nor has the processor power of those devices either.