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Adding TV to bedroom without using mainstream smart device

Sorry if this the wrong place, I couldn’t find an HTPC, home theater, techsupport, or equivalent instance to ask.

The gist is I want to add a TV to my master bedroom for my wife to just browse the web, and for my kids to have something to watch in the mornings while my wife gets out of bed. I have a main pc in my theater room for gaming, and an HTPC on projector for movies and stuff. I don’t want to get a roku or any mainstream smart device, but I’m OK with getting something like a raspberry pi (never done this) to have an air mouse hooked up to the TV so my wife can browse the web, open YouTube, Netflix, steam books, Spotify, as well as access my pc library of content for viewing. Not for gaming. Everything I’m finding online is people connecting their pc to their TV and it’s always for gaming. I don’t need large processing, just enough to watch things, while connecting to my home computers.

Thank you.

StorageB ,

www.newegg.com/p/pl?d=beelink&Submit=ENE&pageTitl…

PoliticallyIncorrect ,

What about Orange Pi+Android?

waratchess , (edited )

Get an n100 mini PC, I bought one with 12 GB of ram and a 512 GB SSD for about $170.

june ,

Have you considered a NUC?

OnfireNFS ,

Any specific reason you don’t want something mainstream? I would recommend a Nvidia Shield (tube). I have one for my living room tv and another for my bedroom and they are great. I also have a shield pro for my theatre room. I used to have a htpc in there but it would occasionally break on updates and wasn’t nearly as user friendly as the shield

ObsidianZed ,

I picked up an Onn 4k streaming Box from Walmart for $20 that uses Android TV. It supports Bluetooth for mouse and keyboard and with a usb hub can handle additional usb ports.

Also supports more advanced tinkering if you’d like to sideload apps such as SmartTubeNext for ad and sponsor blocking on YouTube.

I think you might also be able to load a third party launcher to de-google it more, but I haven’t tried that yet.

pgo_lemmy ,

I’m doing something similar with an android tv, a raspberry 3a and my home wifi network. Antenna hooked to the raspberry using an usb dongle, tvheadend on the raspberry and kody on the android tv placed wherever you need it. Also added clipious on the tv to have no ad playback. I don’t need surfing so my setup is simpler and everything is controlled using the tv remote. Once you have the pi up and running, the bonus is that you can find a client to connect to tvheadend for any platform, so you can watch tv on a smartphone (android or apple), a tablet, a computer, another tv in the basement…

AA5B ,

I got a long hdmi cable and ran it over to te bed in my guest room. I don’t think anyone ever used their laptop in that bed and connected to the TV, but you could

vvv ,

I love it. now I don’t need to bring a controller in ADDITION to my steamdeck when I come visit!

abhibeckert , (edited )

I wonder if a tablet or laptop might be more appropriate for your wife? When I think “web” I want a keyboard or touch screen and a TV typically has neither. But in any case, I think you’re making a mistake trying to have one device that can fit every use case. Your TV will have multiple inputs (and it will also probably be a smart TV).

Plug some sort of Mini PC into the TV for your wife, and let your kids use the TV’s built in smart features to watch TV or buy a set top box such as an Apple TV/Nvidia Shield/etc.

PS: I would 100% use a projector, not a TV. Just project onto the wall (assuming you don’t have wallpaper/etc).

account_93 ,

I just got a Lenovo ThinkCentre tiny pc, different spec variants but it’s just a tiny windows(or Linux if you want to) pc. Super tiny and quiet.

Mines running windows 10 without issue, m710q. Will swap to Linux soon though as W10 EOL soon.

Zoomboingding ,
@Zoomboingding@lemmy.world avatar

If you want an incredibly easy setup, the old Chromecast and the program Airparrot have been working flawlessly for me.

I know you say you don’t want mainstream, which I take to mean you don’t want ads, smart home listening devices, etc. The black chromecast (without the remote) is exacly what you want. You can mirror anything from a PC or phone over your wifi. The slight delay makes it unsuitable for gaming, but you don’t need that anyway.

Also super cheap. $20 for the chromecast and $18 for Airparrot (which you may not even need, the chrome browser has desktop mirroring, but I had some issues with it).

MusketeerX ,

Sounds like you don’t want to do this, but I am loving my Nvidia Shield TV Pro.

I’ve installed Projectivity Launcher on it and all the apps I want. It’s such a smooth, clean experience.

Whether it’s Netflix, Tivimate, Kodi or Plex, it all runs super smoothly, no stutters, no ads. Highly recommend.

The backlit, voice capable remote is really nice too.

Aermis OP ,

I’ve never liked voice activation but my wife might like that. Idk why Nvidia shield keeps coming up, it’s like the only mainstream streaming device that keeps popping up for people who like to stay away from streaming platforms.

MusketeerX ,

For me, I think adding Projectivity Launcher over the top of it took it from a good device to a great one.

It’s let me customise the thing just how I want it.

As for voice, I find it handy rather than typing text with the remote when searching in YouTube etc.

VonReposti ,

I can recommend a Vero from osmc.tv, it runs Kodi underneath.

circuscritic ,

Honestly, you’re better off getting an Nvidia Shield TV, or another premium Google certified Android TV box.

But if you’re deadset against that, then get a used Chromebox off eBay for like $20-40. Just make sure whatever model you get is firmware flashable and supports user installed Linux. Search “Chromebox Linux HTPC”, there’s plenty of resources available.

L0rdMathias ,

Sounds like you already have a solid plan.

If you have any old laptops or desktops you could convert those instead of using a Pi, but the Pi will work wonders as long as it’s not going to be a 4K TV. Your only real concern here is making sure whatever device you use is able to output video at the TV’s resolution and display hertz.

You’ll probably have more difficulty finding a TV that isn’t a smart TV, than finding a home theater device that is capable of streaming nowadays.

Aermis OP ,

I’m thinking of the odrioid N2 after doing a little bit of research. It’s the finding the TV that might be an issue as you’ve said. I don’t want those smart tv’s and their countless user agreements and BS ads. I don’t want ads so bad, I’ll burn my TV down if I see any.

pound_heap ,

I have Odroid-N2 with CoreELEC. Works as my media center in living room, but I use it only to stream video from my jellyfin server.

The only problem I have is that I have to control it from a phone app, not a remote. There are ways to do that, but I couldn’t be bothered

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