TV with no aeriel

[audi321]

Hi all, my parents have a tv in their bedroom with no TV aerial (or any easy way to put one in) but they have wifi. It's not a smart tv.

They only want to receive BBC, ITV and basic channels on it. Is there such thing as a HDMI dongle or something which plugs and plays? Elderly parents, so must be easy to operate.

Thanks for any advice.

[Shuvi McTupya]

I would have thought a powered indoor antenna would do the trick.

[Mammasaid]

Fire TV stick should do the job;

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Amazon-Fire-TV-Stick-Stre...

[tribalsurfer]

Mammasaid said:

Fire TV stick should do the job;

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Amazon-Fire-TV-Stick-Stre...

That's not going to stream freeview though. Is there an app that you can load onto it. Thinking about what needs to be achieved I would suggest a legal app for firestick, namely not one you have to sideload.

[audi321]

Thanks all. I fear a Firestick is going to be too complicated for them.

Looking for something plug and play. Might go down the powered aerial option, although my previous experience of internal aerials was not positive, but maybe they're improved these days?

[Mammasaid]

tribalsurfer said:

Mammasaid said:

Fire TV stick should do the job;

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Amazon-Fire-TV-Stick-Stre...

That's not going to stream freeview though. Is there an app that you can load onto it. Thinking about what needs to be achieved I would suggest a legal app for firestick, namely not one you have to sideload.

It will do the main 4 though (BBC, ITV, C4 & 5) once set up with accounts by a helpful son

Then it's just a case of saying Iplayer, All4, etc, and clicking live.

If my MIL can use it, anyone can!!

[Shuvi McTupya]

audi321 said:

Thanks all. I fear a Firestick is going to be too complicated for them.

Looking for something plug and play. Might go down the powered aerial option, although my previous experience of internal aerials was not positive, but maybe they're improved these days?

I guess it will depend on which one you get and where they live. I have a fairly good one and live in rural Scotland. For the most part it works fine but it struggles with HD channels.

[BigTZ4M]

Do they have an aerial socket that works somewhere else in their home? If so you could try something like an HDHomeRun which basically takes an aerial feed and makes it available over your network to be played by an app. You'd still need a device attached to the TV to access it though which might not be that much more user friendly than just using the free apps to access TV via the internet.

It's only really better if one of the following apply to you:

1. You want to make use of the DVR facilities
2. You have terrible internet which makes live streaming a problem
3. You want to use it to watch live TV on lots of different devices around the house

It's also a bit snappier since it is using an aerial feed instead of streaming so not subject to the vagaries of your internet performance.