Amazon’s new Fire TV adapter seems fast, but it faces a limitation

Amazon has finally updated its Fire TV Stick, moving away from the old micro-USB port. The new second generation Fire TV Stick HD now uses a USB-C port, which seems to be good news. But in classic Amazon fashion, there’s a catch that may disappoint anyone expecting fast speeds.

You see, Amazon quietly released a matching USB-C Ethernet Adapter With new stick. As noted AFTVNewsIf you check the description, you’ll see that it says “up to 480Mbps”.

Of course, 480Mbps is much less than the 1,000Mbps you can expect from Gigabit Ethernet. This is actually the maximum speed for USB 2.0.

If you don’t know, Amazon has not included a USB 3.x port in the new Fire TV Stick HD. It is believed to be using the same hardware from the last six years, just with a different connector. Since USB 2.0 tops out at 480Mbps, even if the adapter can handle gigabit speeds, the port limits it. In actual use, you’ll probably get around 350Mbps. This is better than the older 100Mbps Micro-USB adapter, but still nowhere near true gigabit speeds.

So why did Amazon create a faster adapter? This is mainly to prepare for the future. When Amazon finally releases a Fire TV with real USB 3.x ports, this adapter will work at full speed. At the moment, people with new HD sticks only get half the speed.

As expected, this USB-C adapter does not work with older Fire TV models, as they use Micro-USB. It also won’t work with higher-end devices like the Fire TV Cube 3 or 4K Max Stick. This only works with new sticks.

Interestingly, Amazon isn’t calling this adapter “gigabit” anywhere. It seems the company is avoiding this topic, perhaps because it would reveal the older hardware inside.

To be fair, most people don’t need 1Gbps – it only takes 25Mbps to stream a 4K movie. But if you run a Plex server or want fast local network speeds, you may be disappointed.