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Amazon Fire TV Lawsuit: Did Devices 'Bricked' Early?
17 Apr
Summary
- Amazon faces a lawsuit claiming early Fire TV Sticks were made obsolete.
- Plaintiff alleges devices performed poorly to force hardware upgrades.
- Class action suit targets owners of first and second-gen Fire TV Sticks.
Amazon is currently facing a proposed class-action lawsuit in Los Angeles County, California. The suit alleges that the company intentionally made earlier generations of its Fire TV Stick devices obsolete before their expected useful life. The plaintiff, Bill Merewhuader, who purchased second-generation Fire TV Sticks in 2018, claims these devices later exhibited slow streaming, menu navigation difficulties, and long load times, eventually becoming inoperable.
The complaint asserts that Amazon failed to disclose that the devices would lose functionality over time and that their performance did not match marketing promises. This alleged strategy aimed to prompt hardware upgrades by "bricking" older devices. The proposed class action is open to US residents who owned a first- or second-generation Fire TV Stick as of specific dates in 2023.
