Skip to main content
Tech Radar TechRadar the technology experts
Sign in
  • View Profile
  • Sign out
RSS
Asia
flag of Singapore
Singapore
Europe
flag of Danmark
Danmark
flag of Suomi
Suomi
flag of Norge
Norge
flag of Sverige
Sverige
flag of UK
UK
flag of Italia
Italia
flag of Nederland
Nederland
flag of België (Nederlands)
België (Nederlands)
flag of France
France
flag of Deutschland
Deutschland
flag of España
España
North America
flag of US (English)
US (English)
flag of Canada
Canada
flag of México
México
Australasia
flag of Australia
Australia
flag of New Zealand
New Zealand
  • Phones
  • Computing
  • TVs
  • AI
  • Streaming
  • Health
  • Audio
  • VPN
  • More
    • Cameras
    • Home
    • News
    • Reviews
    • Opinion
    • How to
    • Versus
    • Deals
    • Coupons
    • Best
Tech Radar Pro
Tech Radar Gaming
Trending
  • Back to school
  • Nintendo Switch 2
  • Best VPN
  • ChatGPT
  • NYT Wordle today
  • Best laptop
  • Best web hosting
Recommended reading
Father and son using a tablet to control a smart light in a kitchen
Smart Home Not ready for a full smart home refit? Here are three simple smart home hacks to make every day easier
LG G1 OLED TV hero image sustainability week 2024
Televisions How to buy a good secondhand TV, or make your old TV last longer
The Amazon Fire TV Stick HD on a pink background with text saying price cut.
Streaming Devices Make your TV smarter for under $20 with this Amazon Fire TV Stick HD deal
Person using smartphone app to control various smart home devices
Smart Plugs 11 great uses for a smart plug: upgrade all the 'dumb' devices in your home for an easier life
Split image showing retrofit smart lock, curtain puller, and switch pusher
Smart Home Build a zero-waste smart home by automating your existing hardware
The Hisense 85-inch U6N Mini-LED QLED 4K TV on a pink background with text saying Big Savings.
Televisions This massive 75-inch Hisense Mini-LED TV is now a bargain at under $600 on Best Buy
Couple arriving home to find smart lights illuminated
Smart Home Think smart home tech isn't for you? Here are 5 easy ways it could change your life
  1. Televisions

How to turn your dumb telly into a smart TV

News
By Carrie Marshall published 4 November 2015

The simplest, smartest and cheapest ways to make old TVs smart

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

Making your dumb TV super smart

Making your dumb TV super smart

Despite all the hype about smart TVs, most of the televisions in the world are still pretty simple: they don't do iPlayer or Netflix, and they don't know what apps are.

That's largely because people tend to hang onto their TVs for a long time: nine years on average, compared to three years for computers and 18 months for smartphones. A TV made nine years ago doesn't know about iPlayer, because iPlayer is only eight.

If you have a TV you can't bear to part with but you wish was much smarter - maybe you want to stream to the shed, or let the kids watch Netflix on an old set, or maybe you've got a superb-sounding Sony you don't want to replace with the weedy speakers of so many LED TVs - then there are plenty of ways to smarten up even the simplest sets.

It's easier and cheaper than you might think, and of course it's good for the environment too. Here are 10 ways to make your TV set smarter.

Page 1 of 11
Page 1 of 11
Give it some stick

Give it some stick

If your TV has a spare HDMI socket, a TV stick such as Amazon's Fire TV Stick is one of the simplest ways to make your TV smart.

The device costs £35 (£45 if you want the Voice Remote, which you can shout at) and it provides access to iPlayer, Demand 5, BBC News and sport, STV, YouTube, Vimeo, Netflix and Amazon's own video service. We like it a lot. As with all TV streamers, some services such as Netflix also require a separate subscription.

Page 2 of 11
Page 2 of 11
Box it up

Box it up

Set-top boxes can be really cheap - the Now TV box, which gives you Freeview plus three months of subscription channels, is currently £10 on Amazon - or they can be really clever, such as the £77 Roku 2 streamer or the new £129 Apple TV.

There are some notable omissions among the apps - BBC's iPlayer is conspicuous by its absence from the Apple TV, and Amazon Instant Video doesn't support Roku - but they're particularly good for Netflix and other streaming services.

Page 3 of 11
Page 3 of 11
Connect a console

Connect a console

The Xbox 360 and PS3 both offer decent TV services (the Wii wasn't quite so good due to its lower spec, although it does do iPlayer if you've got one lying around), and it isn't hard to find decent used examples for less than £100.

Their successors, the Xbox One and PS4, are better still - although if your TV isn't huge you're probably better off with the old ones unless you also desperately want to play next-gen titles such as Halo 5.

Page 4 of 11
Page 4 of 11
Use something ancient

Use something ancient

Remember XBMC, the open source software that turned original Xboxes into media centres? It's called Kodi these days and runs on all kinds of everything: there are versions for OS X, Windows, Linux, iOS and Android.

With Kodi installed you can watch content stored on the device or on a local network, and it's a great way to turn an obsolete computer or mobile device into a useful part of your home entertainment system. You can use it to play games, too.

Page 5 of 11
Page 5 of 11
Unearth that old iPod

Unearth that old iPod

iPods have been able to output video for years, so you can easily copy iTunes purchases or home movies to your iPod and watch them on TV.

If you have an iPod touch, iPod classic, 5th-gen iPod or 3rd-gen iPod nano, the Apple Universal Dock - about £29 on eBay - enables you to control it with an Apple Remote and connect to a TV using either the Apple Composite AV Cable or Apple Component AV Cable.

Apple has produced a comprehensive guide to what works with what on the Apple support website.

Page 6 of 11
Page 6 of 11
Add some Android

Add some Android

We mentioned TV streaming sticks earlier, and if you're an Android user the new and improved Chromecast streamer is a great option for HDMI-enabled TVs (and a handy thing to travel with, as it can turn hotel TVs into Chromecast TVs).

But that's not the only Android option. There's Nvidia's excellent Shield, which is great for gamers as well as a superb TV streamer, while for tighter budgets there are stacks of cheap and cheerful Android-powered TV boxes for around £50, usually running Kodi.

Page 7 of 11
Page 7 of 11
Link your laptop

Link your laptop

It's not the most elegant option unless you hide your computer behind the TV, but running a cable from your PC or Mac into the back of your TV adds a whole world of entertainment to your television: if you can get it on your laptop, you can watch it on your TV.

If you've got a smartphone, an app such as Unified Remote enables you to control the laptop or PC without having to get off the sofa.

Page 8 of 11
Page 8 of 11
Buy Blu-ray

Buy Blu-ray

Blu-Ray players aren't just about higher resolution movies. Smart Blu-Ray players also have internet connectivity, so you can add them to wired or wireless networks and then take advantage of online streaming.

They're not as pricey as you might expect, either: for example a Samsung Blu-Ray player with the ubiquitous iPlayer and Netflix is just £49. If your TV doesn't support Blu-Ray's higher resolution (1080p), you don't need to pay for pricier Blu-Ray movie discs: the players are backwards compatible with DVD.

Page 9 of 11
Page 9 of 11
Make it a node on your network

Make it a node on your network

If the video you want to watch is stored on a local machine - a Mac, say, or a Windows PC - then there are several ways to get it onto your TV. Windows PCs really like streaming to Xbox hardware, while Apple devices like to share with the Apple TV and Android phones like Chromecast.

There's another option, too: DLNA, which is a standard for streaming media across home networks. Windows, OS X and Linux can all stream DLNA, which you can then send to a £20 DLNA receiver, or a box such as a Roku box.

Page 10 of 11
Page 10 of 11
Sign up for Sky

Sign up for Sky

The set-top boxes offered by Sky and Virgin are much smarter than the ones of just a few years ago: not only do they offer must-have features such as pausing and rewinding live TV, series linking programmes and so on, but they offer lots of video on demand options too.

If you're a parent, don't underestimate the power of on-demand Peppa Pig and Mr Tumble; if you're a grown-up, automatically downloading every new Orphan Black is pretty amazing too.

Page 11 of 11
Page 11 of 11
TOPICS
Xbox
Carrie Marshall
Carrie Marshall
Social Links Navigation

Contributor

Writer, broadcaster, musician and kitchen gadget obsessive Carrie Marshall has been writing about tech since 1998, contributing sage advice and odd opinions to all kinds of magazines and websites as well as writing more than twenty books. Her latest, a love letter to music titled Small Town Joy, is on sale now. She is the singer in spectacularly obscure Glaswegian rock band Unquiet Mind.

See more Television News
Read more
Father and son using a tablet to control a smart light in a kitchen
Not ready for a full smart home refit? Here are three simple smart home hacks to make every day easier
LG G1 OLED TV hero image sustainability week 2024
How to buy a good secondhand TV, or make your old TV last longer
The Amazon Fire TV Stick HD on a pink background with text saying price cut.
Make your TV smarter for under $20 with this Amazon Fire TV Stick HD deal
Person using smartphone app to control various smart home devices
11 great uses for a smart plug: upgrade all the 'dumb' devices in your home for an easier life
Split image showing retrofit smart lock, curtain puller, and switch pusher
Build a zero-waste smart home by automating your existing hardware
The Hisense 85-inch U6N Mini-LED QLED 4K TV on a pink background with text saying Big Savings.
This massive 75-inch Hisense Mini-LED TV is now a bargain at under $600 on Best Buy
Latest in Televisions
Samsung S90F Tizen smart TV homescreen
Samsung's 2024 TVs are getting a great free upgrade we've been waiting for
Sony HT-S2000 lowest price deal image
Good news, movie fans! Sony's gone deals-crazy with its soundbars, and I'd rate these 5 as the best affordable home theater upgrades
The Samsung 65-inch S95D on a red background with text saying Lowest Price.
Don't wait! It's your last chance to get this five-star Samsung OLED TV for a record-low price before Prime Day ends
85-inch TV Prime Day roundup
Big TVs, smaller prices - get 75 and 85-inch screens for under $1,000 with these tempting Prime Day deals
LG C4 OLED TV
I'm still stunned by this epic record-low price for the LG C4 OLED TV – but you're running out of time to get it this cheap!
TCL F35 Series 55
You can now get a 55-inch 4K TV for under $200 thanks to this bonkers deal at Best Buy
Latest in News
Dominic McLaughlin dresses as Harry Potter
HBO’s Harry Potter TV show begins production, and one first-look costume is already spot-on
Elmo gets hacked
Elmo didn't love this – hackers took over his account and it's probably because of a mistake you can easily avoid
The Dynamic Island on a yellow background
The iPhone’s Dynamic Island will get a “significant evolution,” one leaker says, but I’m skeptical about their claims
A PC gamer celebrating, sat in a gaming chair in front of a monitor
Nvidia's free speed boost for all PC games is no longer exclusive to its newest GPUs – here's which older cards are about to get it
6-year-old Falcon stuck underneath the UFO balloon
Trainwreck has dominated Netflix’s top 10 for weeks, but Balloon Boy might be the series’ most unhinged installment yet
Giant eye watching at man working at the computer. Surveillance, hacking, internet security concept. Flat vector illustration.
The Spanish Government wants Huawei to monitor for system wiretaps
LATEST ARTICLES
  1. 1
    Google Gemini can be hijacked to display fake email summaries in phishing scams
  2. 2
    HBO’s Harry Potter TV show begins production, and one first-look costume is already spot-on
  3. 3
    The top 10 most-streamed TV shows of 2025 so far are missing some of my favorites – here are 5 series you shouldn’t ignore
  4. 4
    This Bluetooth DAC and headphone amp with cool VU meter looks like super-luxe audio upgrade, but it's actually stunningly well-priced
  5. 5
    No trade needed - one of last year's best foldable smartphones is free with a plan at Total Wireless today

TechRadar is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site.

  • About Us
  • Contact Future's experts
  • Contact Us
  • Terms and conditions
  • Privacy policy
  • Cookies policy
  • Advertise with us
  • Web notifications
  • Accessibility Statement
  • Careers

© Future US, Inc. Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street, New York, NY 10036.

Please login or signup to comment

Please wait...