2023 Jeep Grand Cherokee 4xe Amazon Fire TV: How Well Does It Work?
The Jeep Grand Cherokee SUV has a well-documented history of being an excellent family vehicle thanks to plenty of room for people and stuff, plus easy car seat accommodations, and the plug-in hybrid 4xe model that Cars.com purchased has decent fuel economy for a vehicle its size. But road trips can tax even the most seasoned family vehicle (and parent). Travel with kids requires a bag full of tricks that include a go-with-the-flow mindset, low expectations, plenty of snacks and even more things to keep them busy.
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Falling into the latter category are screens and devices, such as those in our 2023 Grand Cherokee 4xe with the optional Amazon Fire TV rear-seat entertainment system. I put the system to the test with my family to see how well it could entertain my crew on a road trip. After a few initial hiccups, it earned high scores from my kids — as evidenced by the lack of noise coming from the backseat.
What Is the Amazon Fire TV System?
First, there are a lot of screens in this vehicle. In front, a standard 10.25-inch digital gauge cluster sits ahead of the driver paired with a 10.1-inch touchscreen infotainment system. But there’s more: In our Grand Cherokee 4xe, a 10.25-inch screen sits ahead of the front passenger. It’s standard on the Trailhawk and base model and available on other trims; I call it the dad screen (more on that later). When the vehicle is equipped with the Fire TV system, there are two seatback-mounted 10.1-inch touchscreens in the backseat; they tilt and come with a pair of remotes and a Bluetooth connection for wireless headphones.
The Grand Cherokee has an embedded 4G LTE Wi-Fi hot spot. A data plan is required to use the Fire TV system, or you can connect to the internet via a mobile hot spot. The screens also include USB and HDMI ports, as well as a headphone jack for wired headphones.
With the system, users can download a variety of video, music and gaming apps, and the screens can display content individually or be paired to show the same thing. If internet access is a problem, you can download Prime Video content ahead of time to stream on the road; each screen has 9 gigabytes of available storage.
The screens also function as mini hubs for climate controls and navigation, allowing users to adjust some second-row climate settings as well as see the trip’s estimated arrival time when using the native navigation system.
Lastly, the front-passenger touchscreen allows the passenger to monitor content or apps being used in the rear seats, or play and pause content as needed. The front passenger can also watch what’s being played in the back, like a movie, and the driver can’t see the screen at all due to its angle and screen filter.
The system is available on all 4xe trims (base, Trailhawk, Overland, Summit and Summit Reserve) except the 30th Anniversary and is a $1,995 option as part of the Rear-Seat Entertainment Group.
How Well Did It Work?
We initially had a few bumps with it. Since they’re two different units, you need to sign in and set up each one individually. No problem — or so I thought. After activating the free Wi-Fi trial (a 3GB/three-month trial comes with the purchase of the Jeep), I was able to sign in and connect the driver-side screen to my existing Amazon account within seconds. We were then able to launch Prime Video and stream a movie within a few more seconds. Easy!
The other screen gave us a lot of trouble, but I don’t think it’s a problem most users will have. Because we share cars among the editors at Cars.com, my co-worker had already signed into his account on the passenger-side screen. I didn’t have his login information, and signing him out was a complicated and unintuitive process.
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Once we figured out that hiccup, we hit the road, streaming two different movies for my 9-year-old twins. While setting up two screens might initially be annoying, a big pro of this setup is that each kid can do their own thing: One kid easily connected to our Amazon Music account and streamed music while the other watched a movie. They were also able to access multiple different apps separately, such as Netflix or Disney+, to watch all of the things.
One problem that popped up was that the touchscreens were a bit of a stretch for my small kids, but the wireless remotes came in handy for this (when they weren’t getting lost). Another problem presented a bigger challenge: We quickly ran out of data during our trip. In fact, the free trial got us half a movie per kid. Once we purchased a data plan, we were back in business. We had the choice of a $25-per-month plan for month-to-month unlimited data or six months for $120 with unlimited data. We chose the six-month plan for $120 (AT&T is the provider).
But even that didn’t work in some areas. We ventured kind of far off the beaten path in Michigan and occasionally struggled with a strong enough connection for streaming. Cue the dad screen and its role in family road-trip harmony: While I was driving, my husband was able to troubleshoot our data connection issues from the front using the extra screen. For anyone who’s ever had to deal with IT issues on a road trip with kids, it’s a frustrating, back-twisting, patience-challenging process. The front screen made it easy for him to get into their systems and fix things with his sanity intact.
All in all, the system got high scores from my family. While we faced a few hurdles with it, a little extra planning on my part, like downloading content ahead of time in preparation for the data dead spots, should make things go smoother for our next trip.
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