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

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

and turns your normal TV into a smart TV.

Which means you can watch all the usual TV channels live and on catch up, but also YouTube, Netflix etc.

Plug it into the HDMI port on your TV and an electrical socket.

 It connects wirelessly to your wifi so you don't need an aerial or Sky box.

It has a proper remote control.

It also lets you connect your phone to the TV, 

on my phone 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 waffle... I'm an idiot with these things,

I was looking at smart TV's with no idea where to start.

Any info seemed to be aimed at people who are really into tech, I couldn't give a stuff.

I wanted a TV that I could watch YouTube and Netflix on,

the regular TV channels as they are broadcast and also the catch ups like iPlayer and my5.

And I wanted a remote control,

as I didn't want to only be able to control the TV from my phone.

And can't this all be done just through your wifi?

A friend on a group chat asked if anyone wanted a TV, it was free from a moving neighbour and when I said no it was a smart TV 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.

I bought the Roku one 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 TV, don't buy 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 the next blog post).