Saturday 22 May 2021

HOW TO TURN AN OLD TV INTO A SMART TV... OR HOW TO WATCH TV WITHOUT AN AERIAL

This £30 streaming media player from Roku plugs into your TV

and turns your normal, standard television into a smart TV.
This means you can watch all the usual terrestrial channels live and on catch up,
but also YouTube, a host of extra free channels and any subscriptions you have such as Netflix or Prime, you can even link anything you are watching on your phone to it.

Plug it into the HDMI port on your TV and an electrical socket.
 It connects wirelessly to your wifi so you don't need to have an outdoor aerial or Sky box.
It has a proper remote control.

To connect your phone to the TV,
I tap on the mirror share icon and it finds the TV and connects, so whatever you are looking at on your phone screen can be seen on the TV.

If you want to keep your aerial or Sky box, you can, it can run in conjunction with it.


The longer detailed explanation.

I'm an idiot with these things,
I was looking to upgrade my small television to a larger smart TV and I had no idea where to start.
Any info seemed to be aimed at people who are really into tech and I couldn't give a stuff about tech.

I wanted a TV that I could watch YouTube and Netflix on, regular terrestrial TV channels as they are broadcast and the catch ups like iPlayer and my5.
And I wanted a proper remote control,  I didn't want to only be able to control the TV from my phone.
And could this all be done just through your wifi?

A friend on a group chat asked if anyone wanted a TV for free from a moving neighbour, another friend piped up and said wasn't I looking for one, when I replied it was just a smart television I was after.
The error of my ways was pointed out (and saved me at least £200).

Arvin Olano's interiors YouTube channel.  I hold him responsible for large gold mirror and blossom branch obsessive hunt.

So I got the larger free television, (thank you friends neighbour) bought the Roku streaming stick as above.
Plugged it in,
and gave up on aerial TV for good.
I love it!
The Sky box has been put in a cupboard,
the aerial to the dish, wound up and hidden in a basket.

You can get all the channels you want,
and non of the ones you don't.
You just look for the channel you want in the search bar and click install (that simple).
And any channel you don't want,
you can click to uninstall.

And radio and Spotify etc are all played through it.

So if you have a TV and it's not a smart television, don't buy a new one, buy a Roku £30!!!

(If you are wondering about the untidy pile of old DVD's under the TV, I attached the wall bracket myself and I don't entirely trust my skills, they are there for added support 😅 I have photo's of that bodge for another blog post).
Contains affiliated links.

Also if you are looking to put a TV where there isn't an electrical socket I have written a blog post about that - How to put a TV where there is no power.

More money saving posts.


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