OnMyOwn Posted October 24, 2016 Share Posted October 24, 2016 We have an area in our basement with a treadmill and some other equipment. I was thinking about getting a tv to hang in the wall. We do not have cable, but we do have Netflix and amazon prime. Is a smart tv the thing I should buy or should I get a regular tv with a roku box? Or, I also saw something called a roku stick, I think, which sounded more appealing than a roku box. I definitely thought I would get the smart tv, but when I started looking, I came across an article that said they are going to be completely obsolete within a couple of years and they are a security risk because of the cameras on them. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Epicurean Posted October 24, 2016 Share Posted October 24, 2016 (edited) I would get a Kindle Fire Stick. I have a smart tv, fire stick, and chromecast. My smart tv stopped connecting to our wifi about a year after we bought it, and customer service said it was a software problem that could only be fixed by a technician (which wouldn't be worth it because its no longer under warranty). Even when it did work, it was sooooo slow and glitchy. I hear that's pretty common for smart tvs. So now we use the fire stick in the same tv, and it works fine. The only cons are that our cable provider doesn't play nice with Amazon so we can't use HBO go etc. with it (we were able to use it with the smart tv). But that doesn't apply to you. I still wonder if we should have gotten an Apple TV instead because we use Apple devices, but the price difference was too great for me to justify it. The chromecast works great for mirroring things on our computers, though we honestly don't use it much. Edit: You will need a HDMI compatible tv for the fire stick, which most relatively new tvs are these days. Edited October 24, 2016 by Epicurean 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KatieJ Posted October 24, 2016 Share Posted October 24, 2016 I have two Visio smart Tvs for quite a few years now and both work very well for me. On an a rare occasion Netflix will freeze up and not want to play,but not often. We do,have ROKU in our den for DH tv watching and we have about as many Netflixx freeze ups with that set up. I bought the smart tvs as they were cheaper than a regular TV at Costco at that moment in time and I didn't have to have another device and remote sitting around 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joules Posted October 24, 2016 Share Posted October 24, 2016 We just got my dad a Roku TV from amazon. It seems to work great. It's great for him because there is only one remote and the interface is similar to the Roku he was familiar with. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spryte Posted October 24, 2016 Share Posted October 24, 2016 (edited) I would go with a tv and an Amazon fire stick. We have Apple TV and Amazon fire sticks, and unless you use iTunes, I prefer the fire stick. I have read the same thing about smart TVs soon being obsolete. Eta: we take our fire stick on vacations, too. :) Edited October 24, 2016 by Spryte 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arcadia Posted October 24, 2016 Share Posted October 24, 2016 We have a 40" 4k LED smart TV that was the same price as the usual TV when on sale during Memorial Day. My kids can pipe their laptops to the TV screen through wifi. We watch YouTube on the TV too. We watch free to air TV channels using a flat stick to the window pane antenna, so no Roku, chromecast, netflix, fire stick for us. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JudoMom Posted October 24, 2016 Share Posted October 24, 2016 We have 3 Vizio smart TVs. We ended up hooking Rokus up to them for ease of use. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J-rap Posted October 24, 2016 Share Posted October 24, 2016 (edited) I have a Vizio that includes Amazon, Netflix, etc, and we use them quite a bit. Later, we got a Chrome connector, which has been really handy. That way we can watch on TV anything that we can watch on my laptop. It has to be a TV that can sync with that. I think the Chrome works the same way as the Amazon Fire Stick. I don't know if one is better than the other. My parents have Roku because it can add closed captions to nearly everything. I have no idea which of these is best or if any of them is best. There are glitches with all of them. Even our plain old TV is an HD TV, and shows seem to freeze up or turn to static with a gentle breeze outside. Nothing seems to run as smoothly as just a good old-fashioned television. Edited October 24, 2016 by J-rap 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pawz4me Posted October 24, 2016 Share Posted October 24, 2016 We have several smart TVs. One is a Vizio but I'm not sure what the others are. I'm not much of a TV watcher, but DH and the boys really seem to like them. They've never had any trouble connecting to Netflix or Amazon Prime. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shawthorne44 Posted October 24, 2016 Share Posted October 24, 2016 I'd get the smart TV. You can get them for the same price. If at some point the smartTV function isn't working for you, then don't use that. Having a smart TV doesn't preclude you from using roku or whatever other method you'd use if you didn't have a smart TV. We have a SmartTV that also has a Roku4. DH says that the forwarding sometimes isn't very good on the Roku. You get a black screen and all you have to go on is the progress bar. One thing that can effect play quality is the download speed, regardless of SmartTV or a box/stick. So, if at all possible I'd get a network cable to the TV. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gardenmom5 Posted October 24, 2016 Share Posted October 24, 2016 we go through a dvd player/receiver for all screens. my kitchen "tv", is 2ds old flat screen computer monitor. I like being able to reach youtube in addition to netflix and amazon streaming. (and playing dvd's when wanted.) only one has cable - so dh can watch football. he hasn't figured out how to get it streaming. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lailasmum Posted October 24, 2016 Share Posted October 24, 2016 (edited) We have a samsung smart tv. I like not having extra things to hookup or find power sockets for. It has worked fine, no problems with apps and they get updated automatically as stuff changes. Ours doesn't have a camera, I think that's an extra you can buy with other things like keyboards. Edited October 24, 2016 by lailasmum 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaz Posted October 24, 2016 Share Posted October 24, 2016 I agree about smart tvs being slow and glitchy. We have to wait for ours to warm up before we can switch to Amazon, Hulu, etc. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lanny Posted October 24, 2016 Share Posted October 24, 2016 Our TVs are Samsung and they are "SMART". I believe the price differential between a "SMART" TV and a DUMB TV is minimal. Approximately USD$50 or less? If we went to buy a new TV today, it would be a Samsung and it would be "SMART'. GL with your decision! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OnMyOwn Posted October 24, 2016 Author Share Posted October 24, 2016 (edited) Well, thanks for all the feedback. I just saw a smart tv at Walmart for a little over $100, so I'm not worried about cost as much as obsolescence. However, it sounds like I can still get the fire stick or some other stick and use with the tv as long as I have an HDMI port, so we may try the smart tv and see how we like it and then get a fire stick if we don't. I do like the idea of being able to bring a fire stick on vacations. Edited October 24, 2016 by OnMyOwn 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kroe1 Posted October 24, 2016 Share Posted October 24, 2016 I really enjoy my Apple TV, but I do not know enough about the others to recommend one over the other. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shawthorne44 Posted October 24, 2016 Share Posted October 24, 2016 Well, thanks for all the feedback. I just saw a smart tv at Walmart for a little over $100, so I'm not worried about cost as much as obsolescence. However, it sounds like I can still get the fire stick or some other stick and use with the tv as long as I have an HDMI port, so we may try the smart tv and see how we like it and then get a fire stick if we don't. I do like the idea of being able to bring a fire stick on vacations. More than one HDMI port was something I looked for. I got a nice Samsung from Sam's. If you don't have a membership. you can pay someone with a membership to buy it for you online and have it shipped to you. If you can wait, TV's seem to be big black friday items. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slartibartfast Posted October 24, 2016 Share Posted October 24, 2016 (edited) We have a smart TV but it doesn't seem all that smart, w use our Xbox for Netflix, Hulu, and such. It doesn't seem like the wireless in the smart TV is as nice as the one in the Xbox and it doesn't work as well. It lags and is glitchy. Edited October 24, 2016 by Slartibartfast Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gingersmom Posted October 24, 2016 Share Posted October 24, 2016 Our smart tv picks up and drops the connection too often to be useful. Fire stick and Roku don't work in our house either. Good thing I don't watch a lot of television :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lanny Posted October 24, 2016 Share Posted October 24, 2016 We have Netflix (we are in Colombia) and my wife views movies on the SMART TV. Occasionally, she selects a movie that she thinks I will enjoy and I do enjoy them. Personally, I don't know how to do that, but my wife is "a queen of remote controls" and she knows how to configure things. Regarding the HDMI input. About one month ago, my wife hooked the TV in the bedroom up differently. From the TV box we have from the phone company (we have ADSL and get TV service with that) she hooked the SMART TV to the TV box with an HDMI cable. I watch a news program from the states on that TV. I noticed the difference in the quality of the picture! It is not FHD (Full High Definition) like the display on the Dell Mobile Workstation I'm typing this on, but it is HD (High Definition) and the video quality, IMO, is just about "Broadcast Quality" that one would see inside the studio of a TV station. So, I vote for hooking up with HDMI... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lizzie in Ma Posted October 25, 2016 Share Posted October 25, 2016 We have an LG smart tv and a Chromecast. Never have any issues with it, our wifi set up is pretty great. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LadyR Posted October 30, 2016 Share Posted October 30, 2016 (edited) I also saw something called a roku stick, I think, which sounded more appealing than a roku box. We just cut our cable and now have just wifi, a Roku 3, Netflix, and a Playstation Vue subscription to live-stream all the channels we watched with cable. We were going to go with the Roku stick, but were told by the FIOS installer that if we had a lot of devices using the wifi it would be better to go with a Roku box since that can connect directly to the TV using a CAT-5E cable and would free up the wifi. Not sure if it really would have made a difference but it did make sense so we followed his advice. Edited October 30, 2016 by LadyR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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