Prime Video, Fire TV and the two Amazon addresses

Amazon is unusual in printing two different addresses for two different jobs, and pages that muddle them cause most of the confusion around Prime Video on a TV.

The first address registers a device. The second signs an app in. Both belong to Amazon, both open Amazon’s sign-in page before anything else, and neither involves a fee.

What happens on each side

A Fire TV stick, cube or Fire TV-branded television has to belong to an Amazon account before it does anything else; Amazon calls the shortcut for this code-based linking. During setup the screen prints amazon.com/code and a code, or a square code to scan. Amazon’s page says the address lets a viewer sign in to an existing account, or create a new one, and then enter the code shown on the device. The one Fire TV product Amazon lists as not supporting the code route is the Fire TV Recast, which registers in other ways.

The second address belongs to the Prime Video app on televisions Amazon did not make — a Roku, a Samsung or LG set, a games console. That app prints amazon.com/mytv (or primevideo.com/mytv, which resolves to the Amazon site of the viewer’s country) and its own short code. Read live, both /mytv addresses open Amazon’s ordinary sign-in page — Sign in or create account, a field for a mobile number or e-mail, a Continue button — before any code field appears. The order matters: the account is established first, then the code attaches the app to it.

Because the page is Amazon’s general sign-in, it looks like any Amazon sign-in, down to the Conditions of Use line under the button. It does not look like a video service. That is normal; the registrable name in the address bar (amazon.com, or amazon.co.uk, amazon.in and the other country sites) is the thing that identifies it.

Payment is the point most often misrepresented. Amazon’s own setup page says a default payment method is added later, for buying apps and games, and a Prime membership or a channel subscription is bought inside the account. No Amazon page asks for money in exchange for the code.

Easily confused with

• Addresses that turn the path into a name: amazon-mytv.example, amazoncom-mytv.example, mytv-amazon.example. Amazon’s addresses keep amazon or primevideo as the registrable name and put mytv or code after the slash.
• Pages that offer to register the device on the viewer’s behalf after a payment, or that print a number to ring. Amazon’s page is a sign-in page with a code field; it offers neither.
• Confusing the two Amazon addresses with each other. A Fire TV device that has already been registered will never ask for amazon.com/code again; a Prime Video app on another maker’s TV will ask for /mytv each time it is signed out.

Range

Devices on which this code sign-in appears, as named on the service’s own pages: