How To Improve Firestick Performance? – 10 Useful Tips

Last Updated on July 21, 2022

A FireStick is a small portable device in the form of a stick that allows you to stream millions of videos or movies from multiple streaming platforms, all on your TV. From its first appearance in 2014, the FireStick became the most used go-to home streaming device.

FireSticks offer various features, but naturally, their performance deteriorates with time. One of the biggest complaints of FireStick users is that the FireStick can start lagging after some time. But there are some things you can do to improve FireStick performance.

Stick with us. We will cover the reasons for what could hinder FireStick performance and how you can fix it.

Why Is My FireStick Lagging So Much?

FireSticks have a relatively strong core and are durable. But, with a lot of usage, especially of sticks with numerous installed and frequently used apps, their performance might lower over time. There are the signs you will notice if your FireStick loses its peak performance:

• Lagging and buffering
• Apps crashing and restarting
• Reduced video quality
• Slow motion
• Sound not syncing with video

If your FireStick lags, it might be due to numerous reasons. There might be a lot of apps running in the background, unfinished and pending updates, and a lot of stored cache, to name just a few.
The next section will cover all of the possible causes of bad FireStick performance and will propose ways to fix them.

How Do I Improve Firestick Streaming Quality?

1. Check the Power source

One of the easiest ways to make sure that your FireStick keeps optimum performance is to use the original charging cable and power adapter that came with the package. You could plug the USB cable into the TV port or a laptop port, but their energy output is way lower than the one coming directly from a wall socket.

So, If you want to be sure that your FireStick works to the right voltage, use its original charger. If you don’t have the original, you can use a third-party manufactured cable and adapter. But make sure that it has the same output voltage as the original.

2. Restart the FireStick

Keeping the Fire TV Stick plugged in and running at all times is normal for most people. But, periodic restarting of the FireStick can do wonders for better performance. It will stop all background running apps and, at the same time, clear the cache, which is unnecessary holding space.

You can do a restart by:

• Unplugging the FireStick
• Restarting it from the Fire OS
• Restarting it using the remote

Restarting by unplugging the device is simple — you just unplug it from the power source, wait for a couple of seconds, and plug it back in.

If you want to restart your FireStick from the Fire OS, follow the steps:

1. Press and hold the Home button
2. Go to Settings on the Home menu
3. Go to Device
4. Press the Restart button

If you want to restart the FireStick using the remote, press and hold the Play/Pause button and the Select button on the remote control. If you’ve done it successfully, there will be a pop-up message confirming that a restart is happening.

3. Conduct Updates

To improve the Fire OS with better, faster, and more secure performance, Amazon is constantly releasing updates.

If there are unperformed updates, these older versions might be causing delays and buffering. So, it’s a good idea to check whether you have all your pending updates sorted. If not, allow pending updates to be done. A simple act like this can improve the performance of the FireStick by far.

Follow these steps to find, check and allow any pending updates:

1. Go to the Home menu of the Fire TV
2. Move to the right with the help of the remote and go to Settings
3. Scroll more right until you get to Device
4. In Device, find Check for System Update button and press it
5. Confirm once a new window opens
6. If there are any available updates, the Fire TV stick will find them and will notify you
7. If there are, press the Install Updates button
8. Wait until all updates are performed

4. Uninstall rarely used apps and add-ons

One of the negative aspects of a FireStick is its low storage. Since the storage you have is limited, it would be a smart move to simply not have any apps that you don’t regularly use. Unused apps do keep space while worsening FireStick performance. Some of them even constantly work in the background.

Programs like Kodi, apps for VPN encryption, or apps that monitor the internet connection in any way, constantly run and thus slow your FireStick down. This issue of less storage space can be resolved with clean master.

This is the process of uninstalling apps:

1. Open the Fire TV Home menu
2. Scroll right and get to the Settings menu
3. Go right in that sub-menu and get to Applications
4. In Applications, move down until you find the Manage Installed Applications menu
5. Once there, you can manually scroll and select the apps that you want to uninstall. On the right side menu, you can see all the details about the size, storage, and cache that a particular app has. This info can be your guide about which app takes more space and can be uninstalled.
6. As you select an app you want to uninstall, a new screen will open and from there you can go to the Uninstall button
7. Once pressed, another pop-up will ask you to confirm your decision. Press Uninstall once more
8. In a couple of seconds, the app will be uninstalled
9. You can repeat this process for every app you rarely use and decide to uninstall

5. Force stop unused apps

Every time you open an app and then exit it by pressing the back button, the app stays and runs in the background. In a way, it keeps taking space and working memory, ready to be up to date when you re-open it up again. Quite similar to what mobile phones do with the apps installed and opened on them.

If you want to boos the performance of your FireStick, you can close the apps that you don’t regularly use and stop them from running in the background.

Force-stopping apps that can’t be uninstalled, or you simply do want to keep, but don’t use regularly can significantly improve FireStick performance.

This is the process for it:

1. Go to the Home menu
2. Find the Settings menu and press it
3. Next, navigate to Applications
4. Once there, go to Manage Installed Applications
5. From the list of apps, find the one you want to stop from running in the background
6. On the right side menu, there will be a Force stop for the particular app
7. Do the same process for every app you want to close from running

6. Turn Off App Settings

With the start-up of the FireStick software and at random times throughout the day, the Fire OS will get in touch with Amazon servers to check for new updates for apps.

Having a lot of apps can cause buffering and delays due to this process. Generally, updates are needed since they improve the speed and the performance of the app. But, if you have numerous apps that you don’t regularly use, automatic search for updates can overload the system at times and cause delays.

1. Turn off automatic updating of apps in the following way:
2. Open your Fire TV Home menu
3. In the menu, scroll right to the Settings button
4. Once there, find Applications and then App Store
5. Find the Automatic Updates button and move it to off.

Please note that updates are needed and this feature can be used only temporarily, to speed up the performance when you need to. Also, don’t do it on apps that you regularly use, since without updates, they can do more buffering in the long run.

7. Clear data and cache

Clearing data and cache is another step you could take to improve the FireStick performance. They have stored information about the usage of an app after you visit it. So, the system stores parts of your previous visit to load faster the next time.

You can delete the data and the cache on almost every app you have on your FireStick, no matter if you use it regularly or not. It might be especially valuable to clear data and cache on apps you don’t regularly use.

Follow this pathway to clear stored data and cache on apps you don’t need:

1. Go to the Home menu of your FireStick interface
2. Scroll right to Applications and then move to Settings
3. Find and select Manage Installed Applications
4. Scroll around the list and find an app you want to delete data and cache from. On the side of each app, you can see the data and cache stored. This can be a valuable representation of which apps take the most space
5. Click the button Clear cache
6. Repeat this process for every app you want to clear from the data

8. Turn off data monitoring

The data monitoring feature is used to check your data usage over time so you don’t cross over your monthly internet allowance. But, this process keeps track of downloads and uploads while taking some system resources.

So, for the time being, you can disable data monitoring. But, do remember to turn it back on after a while, if you have limited internet usage that you need to keep track of.

1. Go to the Home button
2. Navigate to Settings
3. From there, go to Performances
4. Select Data monitoring
5. Slide the Data monitoring button to Off

9. Turn off App notifications

Notifications are the favorite thing ever for some users – it updates them on anything new going on in apps. But, they can also hinder performance.

So, you can turn off notifications by following these steps:

1. Go to the Home menu
2. Find Settings
3. Go to Preferences
4. Select Notification Settings
5. Scroll the bar to Do not interrupt by clicking it

Note that this will turn off all notifications. If you want to turn notifications off on particular apps only, you need to go to App Notification and press the Off label on the app you don’t want notifications from.

10. Do a Factory reset

If you’ve tried everything and nothing works, you might need to perform a factory reset. This gets your Fire TV Stick into its original form. A factory reset will uninstall all apps that didn’t come pre-installed on your stick. It will also get all settings to default.

So, if you do decide to do a factory reset, don’t forget to go over this list again and adapt the settings to your liking.

It’s also important to do a backup of all the needed data from your TV FireStick before resetting it.

1. Hold the Home button
2. Go to Settings
3. Find Device
4. Scroll to the bottom to Reset to Factory Defaults
5. Confirm the decisions with Reset
6. The FireStick will turn off and start rebooting — leave it to finish the process

Other Sources That Might Hinder Firestick Performance

The Amazon Fire TV Stick is not a very high-powered device. So, you can’t expect it to work with the same speed as a smartphone or a tablet. It’s one thing if you notice that the FireStick is getting considerably slower than before. It’s completely another thing if you expect your FireStick to have the same speed as a smartphone.

So, before you label the FireStick as slow, make sure that you’re not expecting too much from the hardware.

Another thing that might cause problems is a slow internet connection – video buffering is a perfect example. If you suspect that this is the case, here are some steps you can take to try and solve the problem:

• Switch to another VPN server, if you use one
• Check the Wi-Fi connection and its speed
• Bring the rooter and the TV as close as possible to each other
• Turn the VPN completely off
• Reboot your modem and router
• Contact your internet provider

Conclusion

Buffering and lagging of streaming content can be one of the most frustrating things ever. A lot of usage, installed apps that run in the background, or unfinished updates are just some of the causes.

When it happens, there are a few things you can do to try and better the performance of the FireStick. This walkthrough guide explained how to improve FireStick performance. If nothing works, it might be best to call Amazon Customer Support and ask for some help.