Fire HD 8 deal

Woot has "refurbished" Fire HD 8 tablets, 2016 model, for $30. Seem a good deal? Are these good for a dashboard?

With or without "Special Offers"?

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With. Can those be removed? Take a pass on them?

edit: Did a little Googling. Will pass. That's some b.s.

They’re increasingly hard to remove with newer versions of the fire tablets.

You can always pay an extra $15 to remove them. And there are some threads in the ST forum where people explain how they got amazon to get rid of the ads without having to cough up the $.

They’re pretty good for dashboard purposes, and amazon keeps adding features like always-on Alexa voice control, show mode, etc.

Something’s gotta subsidize the ridiculously low cost of the tablets.

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I would just pay the $15. Still a good deal. It's a nice tablet.

In Canada, the ads are automatically disabled, but there also isn't a lower cost option, so Canadian Amazon customers are paying the $15 in the purchase price.

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I saw them but I don't see where it says $15 to turn off "special offers". Or is that some sort of special menu In & Out stuff? lol

From Googling, I gather it's an "option" in the Amazon profile account under some "advertisement" menu, and they charge $15 for "off".

Yeah it’s done from the amazon website, not from the device itself.

Given it's Prime Day, any other input on how well these work as a dashboard? Is it likely the mobile app will be supported even as a side load, or is the Android version too old? Really would rather have an Android tablet, but these seem more likely to stay "up to date" w/o breaking the bank.

The Fire 8 with a mount from Etsy and a recessed plug. Using Fully Kiosk browser. Uses the camera as a proximity sensor to switch from Dakboard and the Dashboard. Great way to add a little bling to your smart home on a budget.

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Where did you get that mount? I doubt I'd do that, too much work for power :slight_smile: But if I ever feel the need...

Thanks for the tip, they even have a FireOS APK that seems up to date. Was there anything special you needed to do? I'd like to avoid needing root.

I found the mount on etsy. There are a few more options there but this is the only one that shipped outside of the US.

There's also a good video on youtube on mounting it.

Here is another video on setting it up. He uses ST and ActionTiles so you can just replace that link in FullyKiosk with your Dashboard LAN link.

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