Stream Youtube from phone to Fire TV

Amazon and Google are direct competitors in music, films, TV streaming, online storage services and voice assistants, so it’s no great surprise that for a long time they did their best to ignore each other. Amazon didn’t sell Chromecast or Google Home hardware, and Google withheld the official Youtube app from Kindle Fire, video-enabled Echo devices and Amazon Fire TV. The only losers in this spat were us, the users.

Recently, they’ve shaken hands and made up, and Fire TV can now use Chromecast technology to stream Youtube from both Android and IOS. This phoneto-tv feature was Chromecast’s biggest appeal, so the fact that Amazon’s TV dongle can now do the same saves you investing in both – and is great news if you don’t have enough HDMI ports to host more than one streaming device.

Other Chromecastcompatible apps, like BBC iplayer, still require Chromecast if you want to control them from your phone, but as they’re also available on Fire TV, that’s probably a moot point.

To enable Youtube casting, add the official Youtube app to your Fire TV by visiting www.snipca.com/32562 in a PC or laptop browser, selecting your Fire TV in the menu to the right of the page, and clicking Deliver. The next time your Fire TV connects to Wi-fi, Youtube will be added to your home screen.

Now, to stream from your phone, open the Youtube app on it. Tap the cast icon (a TV screen with a Wi-fi logo), followed by the name of your Fire TV (see screenshot below left). After a second or two, the Fire stick will take over responsibility for streaming the content you’re watching, even if you turn off your phone.