Smart TV's in an RV, are they worth it?

[Larry-NC]

Right now, we have a somewhat redundant system in the Cherokee 38P. It's permanently sited and DW pays for an upgrade from basic cable to get really fast internet. The TV is connected to a smart Home Theater with 5.1 audio and BlueRay. The TV's three HDMI ports are connected to the home theater, the cable box (for full 1080i), and to a Roku stick. We can actually stream from either the Roku stick or the home theater. There's an S/P DIF fiber cable between the TV and home theater for Audio Reverse Channel (ARC) audio.

DW has some hearing loss (too many rock concerts in her youth) and likes 5.1 audio because I can tweak the settings to set the speaker with the dialog 4 dB higher than the other speakers. The living room/kitchen is probably around 8x20 feet with the original speakers near the ceiling at the four corners. This gives us pretty good special effects sound quality.

Right now there's a 20 inch dumb flatscreen TV for the 22-foot SOB. When it gets back on the road, it will probably get another Roku stick or box--we have a few of these lying around.

[U.S.ArmyVeteran]

We bought a smart blue ray player for under a $100. Trailer did not come with a DVD player. Huh!

I use the tethering feature on my smart phone to watch YouTube or Prime Video. It works great 9 out of 10 times even with only 1 bar on the phone.

If signal not strong enough. We have blue ray movie library.

What campground WiFi???

[TitanMike]

Originally Posted by U.S.ArmyVeteran

We bought a smart blue ray player for under a $100. Trailer did not come with a DVD player. Huh!

I use the tethering feature on my smart phone to watch YouTube or Prime Video. It works great 9 out of 10 times even with only 1 bar on the phone.

If signal not strong enough. We have blue ray movie library.

What campground WiFi???

Chances are that any Campground with a good, reliable, wifi, will be way more than I care to pay for an RV Campground spot. Especially since I rarely use a park space for anything more than dumping and flushing before heading out to another off grid site for another couple weeks.

[Villagerjjm]

I am using a Vizio 24” smart TV as my second in the bedroom. I chose it because it has a good web browser as compared to ROKU and FIRESTICK that are a bit restrictive unless you perform a “breakout” procedure. It works great as long as it has a good internet signal.
Some campgrounds we have been to do have excellent WiFi Internet. They are usually the upscale “resort” campgrounds.

[TexasBob]

I have smart TV's and I use my laptop to connect to streaming services. Then I cast the laptop screen to my TV and use my cell phone data plan instead of RV park WIFI.

[Palinduff]

Mine came with a DVD player, a swivel mounting rack but didn’t even have an antenna or tv lol. Not that it mattered though.

[Theb2b]

Purchasing a smart TV doesn't make sense to me as we spend most of our time at non-WiFi parks. What I do have is a Fire Stick, Hotspot, and a raspberry pi running Kodi with a 3 TB drive with my DVD collection. I already had the fire stick and hotspot for the DW who on occasion needs to work from the 5th wheel. I also have an external cell booster antenna to pull in weak cell signals. So for use the existing TV works just fine.

Like to upgrade to a surround sound system but that is on the future to-do list.

[Dirthawg_]

I upgraded the 50" dumb TV that came with my travel trailer to a 50" Samsung Smart TV for one reason..... To play any video and audio file types I choose from a mobile HDD.

The majority of the time we camp in areas that an over the air TV signal is not available. WiFi or Cell coverage? Yeah that's not gonna happen either.

I bring a 2TB hard drive full of movies and TV shows in MKV format that we can play without any internet, cell coverage or WiFi when it rains. Sure is funny the friends that don't have a smart TV in their camper always end up in our camper when the weather is crappy.

Theb2b is probably the only one that posted above that will understand this point of view. I run Kodi on a fire stick a HTPC and 2 tablets while at home so I don't have to stream anything....it's all stored locally.

[SmackIt]

Buy an Android tablet or phone with a decent sized SD Card and HDMI out. Use any old TV with HDMI as the display for the Android device.

Install Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Apps onto the tablet or phone. When you're at home, or in a place with good WiFi, you can download a whole bunch of movies and shows to watch in places with no or limited internet.

Theb2b's solution with Kodi is a good way to go. I've got something similar with a 43TB NAS running PLEX and Kodi. We don't need internet to enjoy content.

That said, I'd still rather watch the fire.

[flyflotrtim]

Originally Posted by NJKris

Oh crap, I bought one of those for my parents this past Spring. They have it in bedroom and only stream stuff on it, they seem very happy so far, hopefully it continues to be good for them. At least it was very affordable if it does go South. At this rate, it may outlast them!

I have three roku tvs at home, all work great 98% of the time. Very rarely they will drop the wifi signal.

[Johnny Boy]

I’ve had pretty good success with it. Some parks are upgrading their WiFi and making it quite enjoyable to have the option of having a smart tv. My rig is a 2004 coachman cross country that was equipped with the big clunker TVs. I changed them over to flat screen and did so without breaking the bank. Attached with Amazon sticks. It works

[Grumpy7159]

What SmackIt said.^^^^^^^^

[flyflotrtim]

get a roku stick or firestick and see how you like it.

[Bob2019]

Bought a Vizio smart TV a few years back but did not use streaming at home. Finally, when we did, most all the built-in streaming selections are now outdated and do not work. Added a Firestick and have lots of Apps access. They are cheap, and are automatically updated several times already.

For an RV: Wouldn't count on any WiFi to be useful and the campgrounds don't have that capacity - heck you lucky to be able to check your email. I also use the DVR that I bought at Menards on sale for $39.00 and record TV shows on a 1TB portable drive. Lots a shows and specials you can watch at your convenience on any TV at any time. I record shows all year long and watch when I have time.

[pwoods]

The previous owner replaced 2 TVs with Roku. Seems like besides campground wifi I can either watch on my phone and cast to the TV, or run the TV through my phone's hot spot. Both options use the phone's data but is there an advantage to screen casting vs attaching to phone's hotspot?

[RickV]

As most have stated CG WIFI is a joke. What we have is a Screenbeam Mini. It attaches to a HDMI port and you basically stream from your phone. The advantage to this is that with our Cell Plans we get unlimited data (actually 75 gb before they throttle you) and 30 gb of hotspot. So we stream from our phones vs hotspotting we have a PC in there and use hotspot for that. Another advantage is we can download movie, etc. to our phones for playback later in case we are in a cell dead spot. We have a Firestick which we use when we are home and have real WIFI. I am a early riser and have kinda made the 5er my Man cave in the morning so I don't disturb the DW.

[PopFla]

Originally Posted by clives

The Forest River dealer gave me a free 3050DS class C when I bought 3 TV's from them

We have one more TV than people most trips

Our last class C had FIVE televisions! Living room, bedroom, one in each of two bunkbeds, and one outside. And yes - it was usually just the two of us.

[whirledpeaz]

Our mini-lite came with a furrion tv. I wanted to upgrade it for the sole reason that it was so incredibly slow responding to inputs from the remote. Never did before we traded it.

[Comanchecreek]

As others suggested, I have used my Laptop to stream. I have a Sony DVD player that I purchased to replace the cheapy that came in the trailer when we bought it. It has streaming capability, but the RV park WIFI's wouldn't let you sign in using it. I got around that by using my Tablet which for some reason circumvented the sign in most WIFI's required. Only problem was the picture was not that good. I have a better Laptop nowadays so hopefully will improve. I keep the DVD player because it is MP4 capable. The USB on the Summit TV is not MP4 capable. It will not recognize those file types. It will be interesting to see if the RV parks even make an attempt to keep up with the times in regard to WIFI capability. I think it probably won't change until they again have to compete for customers. That may be awhile. I definitely plan to look into cell phone streaming along with my TV search. My plan at the moment is to buy a cheap ROKU Express and do an overall TV upgrade down the road if need be.

[Paulie1138]

My Crusader came with a 32” tv. It was an early version of LCD, which had crappy viewing angles and took up to 20 minutes to auto tune. Best Buy had the Black Friday sale. I for one, will not go stand in line for hours to save a buck with no chance of scoring the 2 that have on special at that price. I went in a few days later and was able to get a 43” 4K smart TV for 169.00. I love the abilities to look at pictures I took or stream any of my services. The viewing angles and image quality are super. Plus, it scans the channels in just a few minutes.