We can manage a Firestick 4K (and other android devices) using ADB. This is an app/service that is run from the command prompt, by manually typing in the ADB commands.
This can be done on the local network (LAN) or on a remote network (WAN) via the Internet.
I am going to show two methods to access the Firestick remotely via the Internet.
I discuss both methods here.
This page covers method 1 (using router Port Forwarding).
To use Port Forwarding you will need to access the router on the remote network where the Firestick is located. Most routers have a port forwarding option.
All routers have slightly different methods but once you have an understanding of the process it is easy to use on any router.
ABD is connected to using TCP port 5555 on the Firestick. We can use the Port Forwarding function on the remote router to send any external internet requests to this internal port to your Firestick.
I advise you to setup a reserved IP addresses for the Firestick before setting up the port forwarding. This will ensure that you do not need to modify the port forwarding rule if the Firesticks IP adderess were to change (it won’t if you reserve one but could otherwise). This is simple to setup. Look at the options in your router.
Port forwarding setup: I am using a Netgear R8000 router and will show how to do this on this router. You can easily use the same process on just about any router, though the steps will be somewhat different they are easily reproducible.
First we need to create a new service (ADB port forwarding is not a standard service).
Click on the Add Custom Service button. This will open a screen that looks like this:
Name the service. You can use any name but make it relevant. I am using ADB. If you are going to set up more than one port forwarding option, if there are multiple Firesticks (or other devices to access) you could name it more relevent (e.g. ADB to Bob).
Change the protocol to TCP.
The external port and internal port should be set to 5555.
The Internal IP address should be the IP address of your Firestick you want to access remotely. The internal LAN IP address of my Firestick is 192.168.1.10. This is the address we will port forward to. You will need to get the internal LAN IP address of your own Firestick. Please ask if you do not know how.
When complete it will look like this:
When everything is completed, click on the Apply button.
The port forward page will now look like this:
That is it all setup on the router now. The Firestick can be accessed remotely now using ADB, including with the Flakie ADB GUI app.
You do NOT use the internal LAN IP of the Firestick to make the remote connection. You need to use the routers external public WAN IP address.
There are many methods to get this. Directly from the routers admin pages. Using an app on the Firestick or by visiting a web site that provides this. Just type in “what is my ip address” into Google (from the Firestick or another device on the on the same remote network).
Then enter this IP address into the Flakie ADB GUI app, Remote IP box and enter 5555 into the Remote Port box and click on the Connect ADB Device button.
If you have multiple Firesticks at the remote location things are slightly more complicated.
For a second device create another port forward rule and set the internal port to the same 5555 but set the external port to 5556. Obviously you set the internal IP address to that of the second Firestick.
Then in Flakie ADB GUI set the remote Port to 5556 but use the same external/public IP address.
For a 3rd device you would use 5557 for the external port, a fourth 5558 and so on (always using 5555 for the internal port).
When you make the ADB connection, a popup box will appear on the remote Firestick asking to ALLOW USB Debugging. You (or the person using the remote Firestick) will have to click on OK to allow this connection. There is also an option to always allow from this computer. If this is selected before clicking on OK, all future connections, from the same remote computer, will proceed without this popup appearing again.
This is not the most secure way of accessing a remote Firestick. But as you need to authorise the remote connection on the Firestick itself, it cannot be accessed unless it is wanted. Unless you want to access the Firestick while it is unattended (no-one there to authorise the connection), I recommend you do NOT tick the box to always allow from this computer. This will make it more secure and prevent unwanted connections.
Method 2 is by using a 3rd party web service (ngrok) that securely relays the commands from your PC to the remote Firestick. This is a more secure method and no port forwarding needs to be setup. It is a more complicated setup but worth attempting if you cannot (or do not want to) use port forwarding.
The ngrok service has both free and paid options.
I have created a separate page dedicated for using ngrok, as well as a video detailing the process (at the bottom of that page and also on the video tutorials page).