Amazon Fire TV Game Controller (2nd Gen)

Constant unacceptable connection failures make this useless. They seem to occur after a few minutes of use. I've had problems out of the box. Fresh premium alkaline batteries make no difference. It just randomly stops communicating with my Fire Stick with Alexa and the LEDs flash in sequence constantly until it reconnects. If I remove a battery and reinsert it comes right back online. This appears to be the number one complaint along with battery life critical reviews. I've only tried it with one simple game, so I can't speak to the responsiveness when it does work.From my experience in electronics design, the voltage regulation circuit was faulty in the unit I had. Put in fresh alkalines and good until the voltage dropped by 20%. New freshly charged NiMHs might be good for a few minutes. With proper voltage regulation, it should operate reliably with batteries nearly depleted. With the number of complaints about short battery life and frequent disconnects, I suspect a bad batch at best. A properly designed product these days should work reliably with NiMHs.The prime reason I spent the extra bucks on this controller was to avoid possible connection problems, so this is really disappointing.Pros:First class integration with Fire TV (when it works) so you can use it in place ot the standard controller for Fire TV functions, including Alexa voice commands, so you could have one less controller to deal with.The head set jack lets you use standard earphones to listen privately, but I understand that is a major battery drainer, so pairing a Bluetooth headset to the Fire TV may be the better choice.Uses standard AA batteries. If it would work properly with rechargeables, this is a plus especially the way it is reported to drain batteries.CONS:Random, lengthy disconnects. (I Googled for a solution or even explanation with a variety of queries and not luck other than to tind other people complaining of the same problem).I believe the choice of Wifi Direct for the connection is a mistake and likely responsible for many problems experienced. While this should make for a more reliable connection over a longer distance than Bluetooth, there is a significant power toll compared to Bluetooth. I imagine the vast majority of people play games well within Bluetooth range of their TV. Since I see no way to choose or display which Wifi channel is being used for the controller, the opportunities for channel interference are high. This could be responsible for drop out problems people have experienced. The WiFi connection can provide better quality audio over the headset jack, but I don't any other real advantage to it over Bluetooth.No power switch. With the high battery consumption and apparently a restless sleep pattern, there really should be a way to power off the controler short of removing the batteries.Only compatible with a limited selection of Fire TV devices because of the non-standard wireless protocol.