To think smart TVs are a fecking pita?!

[MoiraNotRuby]

Just moved house, am renting somewhere but won't be here long term. It doesn't have a TV aerial. I have a Samsung smart tv. I thought this would be no big deal and I would watch live tv by installing free view app. In trying to do this, I discover this isn't available/possible for my tv. I can go in and out of i player for BBC (and I assume the equivalents for Channel 4, 5 and Itv) to watch live programmes. But its such a bloody faff! Considering how easy it would be for Samsung/whoever to make this possible its surprising how annoying this is. Don't even know if I'm actually making sense.

Mine seems to have a timer set up that makes it switch off and on twice, after 1-2 hours use. I have gone through all of the settings and cannot figure it out.

I am a competent adult, can figure out how to use/fix most day to day appliances but smart TVs and their remotes just leave me scratching my head. The furthest I have got with this issue is pressing pause on the Virgin remote, so that I at least don’t have to rewind what I’m watching while the TV figures itself out.

Ours wasn't 'plug in and play" there was a massive set up

We have a smart tv, but we never use any of the smart features, when we want to watch Netflix, Amazon etc etc we cast it to the Chromecast attached to HDMI2, works fine, and everyone knows how to use it

Easiest thing to do is buy a Roku stick, you'll pick one up cheaply this time of year.
It will have all the catchup channels plus Now TV, Netflix etc

@UntilYourNextHairBrainedScheme

So many people need help to operate their own TV now, which wasn't the case ten years ago. It's a pity that the people least able to operate smart TVs are often the people who can't read or play games or craft or bake to entertain themselves due to health or cognition issues.

Erm... right

To give you examples of the problems I have with my TV:

Randomly turns itself off and then back on

About 1 out of 4 times there is no sound when you turn it on

At least once a day it "freezes" and refuses to do anything or respond to any commands, regardless of what service you are using

Loses connection to the Internet several times a week, when all other internet-connected appliances are fine. Can take minutes or hours to "find" the connection again

Tells me there is no input from the freeview box, but there was input 10 minutes ago and there will be input again in 5 mins

Same with the box and aerial that we have for international channels

All the other appliances in my life I just have to turn on and I can use them. Not sure why the performance of TV sets has declined so much recently.

DP wanted one, I said no.

I have a few friends telling me they are complicated and need updating in the same way a computer does.

I agree with pp saying that tech people have forgitten UI. Either that or they think people enjoy faffing for ages?!

Thanks for making me want pitta bread

Some Samsung TVs listen in to your conversations. In certain circumstances at least.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-31296188

Do you have the voice recognition on?

@UntilYourNextHairBrainedScheme

So many people need help to operate their own TV now, which wasn't the case ten years ago. It's a pity that the people least able to operate smart TVs are often the people who can't read or play games or craft or bake to entertain themselves due to health or cognition issues.

Agree. We have a Roku stick which I think is easier than a smart TV.

I hate our Samsung one. The apps available are pathetic.

MythicalBiologicalFennel sorry I didn't mean posters here - I was being too cryptic! I meant people with care needs, elderly people who's eyesight and physical health are poor etc.

Anything labelled "smart" is a red flag for me now. I don't want a smart thermostat or a smart TV.

(She says, typing from her smart phone)

Just get a fire stick. I have them in both my v clunky smart tv and my new pretty non smart tv. If you have bb a smart tv is redundant if you get a firestick

The latest device that is smart and doesn’t need to be is our electric fire.We gave up a real fire last year, we didn’t want a gas fire cos reasons, so we bought a fancy flame effect electric fire, except it comes with a remote with cryptical labeled keys, a manual thicker than The Hobbits and a thermostat that seems to believe the room temperature is 1,000,000 degrees and so turns off the heat, when in face it’s fairly freezing and the damn fire sits there smirking at us

@TheMoreThisReachesTheMainstrea

The latest device that is smart and doesn’t need to be is our electric fire.We gave up a real fire last year, we didn’t want a gas fire cos reasons, so we bought a fancy flame effect electric fire, except it comes with a remote with cryptical labeled keys, a manual thicker than The Hobbits and a thermostat that seems to believe the room temperature is 1,000,000 degrees and so turns off the heat, when in face it’s fairly freezing and the damn fire sits there smirking at us

I'm amazed anything comes with a manual, normally they tell you to go online!

Totally with you.
TVs give me the rage 🤬🤬🤬

Well if you had a non smart TV, you wouldn't be able to watch it either because you don't have an aerial. Surely that is the problem.

Nobody watches anything on proper live telly anymore, do they?!

I have a smart to from Samsung, bought it in 2012. All of the apps decided to just not work, around about 2016 - I just bought a fire stick, it’s definitely less faff.

It takes me five minutes to put BBC breakfast on every morning. Longer if some bastard hasn't closed off whatever they were watching the night before. Some mornings I just haven't got time to put the news on. Which is completely ridiculous.

We've got an LG oled,it updates itself

It's about £10 to buy an indoor digital aerial.

They're tiny little things now.

YABU - just get one and you'll get all the freeview channels.

Bought a new Samsung smart tv a year ago, supposedly top of the range, it’s a piece of expensive shit, throws me out of apps constantly, I can be sat watching Eastenders or Corrie and it suddenly just throws me out to the Home Screen, it’s particularly enraging when it’s the itv app as I then have to sit through about twenty adverts before I can resume what I was watching, sometimes it will do this 3 times in a row, I really want to throw a brick at it.

We have indoor aerials. The problem is the interference. Every time a car goes by the picture pixellates and the sounds blips. Sometimes our main tv is unwatchable.

Nobody watches anything on proper live telly anymore, do they?!
Of course they do, we only watch iPlayer etc as a catch up if our freeview recording didn’t work.

We find navigating the different apps, getting them to work without randomly crashing (as per a pp) and tracking what is on channels not on the freeview guide just too much of a faff. Want to turn the telly on and watch something, not spend 10 minutes deciding and another 10 minutes getting it to work. Faff is reserved for Saturday movie nights when we can plan in advance and one of us cues up the tech while the other sorts the drinks and nibbles.

I never managed to get free to air TV going in my last place, so I got a Roku and watched the TV through the apps.