Does anyone like smart TV operating systems or do you use a streaming device?

[Z3Dreamer]

I have an LG smart TV. The LG operating system does not have as many channels/apps as Roku and Amazon Fire TV. I don't like the LG layout as much as I do the Roku and Amazon Fire TV. Anyone use their smart TV operating system or do you use a streaming device?

 

[RetiredAndLovingIt]

I have a 55" TCL Roku Smart TV and love it. It's 3 or 4 years old now and the it was the bottom of the line 4 series think.
It also integrates with your local channels if you have an antenna hooked up and even if you don't there are at least 100 free antenna channels streaming in their Live TV Guide

 

[Montecfo]

I have an LG smart TV and I use the native OS.

But on my dumb TVs I use Amazon. I think a lot of folks use their favorite device. I do not find it to be a big deal one way or the other.

 

[njhowie]

I have an LG smart TV. The LG operating system does not have as many channels/apps as Roku and Amazon Fire TV. I don't like the LG layout as much as I do the Roku and Amazon Fire TV. Anyone use their smart TV operating system or do you use a streaming device?

We purchased a LG SmartTV with webOS a year ago for DD. As best I remember, if you have it internet connected, if you go on the antenna channel list and then go to the upper end of the high channels it then adds a ton (well over 100) of internet streaming (IP) channels.

https://www.lg.com/us/tv-audio-video/lg-channels
https://www.xumo.com/lg-channel-plus

Even then, I believe you can still add additional channels and apps.

We've been big Roku fans from the very beginning and have purchased numerous iterations of their devices for all the TVs in our home. However, since we replaced our bedroom TV a year ago with a TCL (Smart TV but does not have Roku embedded), we never use that Roku device any longer. What TCL provides in their OS is good enough in my view. We still have the Tivo for DVR.

 

[Midpack]

Years ago I started streaming using the smart features on our Samsung TV, mostly just YouTube. But once we dropped cable/satellite for streaming (PSV then Hulu+Live) we bought Rokus for our 3 TVs, and we've never looked back. There are so many more channels available thru Roku, there's no comparison with the Samsung Smart UI, we never use it anymore.

 

[donheff]

I use Roku but my TVs have a few years on them. I haven't cut the cord yet because DW insists on watching Washington Nationals games and we haven't found any streaming services that provide them.

 

[pb4uski]

Years ago I started streaming using the smart features on our Samsung TV, mostly just YouTube. But once we dropped cable/satellite for streaming (PSV then Hulu+Live) we bought Rokus for our 3 TVs, and we've never looked back. There are so many more channels available thru Roku, there's no comparison with the Samsung Smart UI, we never use it anymore.

Similar story here. Our LG smart TV OS is ok, but we have Fire TV sticks for each of our TVs... one smart and 5 dumb across our two homes... so that is what we use and these days I never use the LG smart TV capabilities.

 

[VanWinkle]

I find our smart TV to have some quirks- intermittent problems accessing internet. We use multiple ROKU sticks on the TVs and have no problems.

 

[Sojourner]

When I got my 70" Vizio smart TV about 5 years ago, I used the built-in OS for a full year to watch things like Netflix and Hulu. But I noticed right from the beginning that the video playback wasn't nearly as smooth as I was getting with the Roku streaming stick on my bedroom TV. I would see, on a fairly regular basis, video "stuttering", like it was dropping frames every few seconds. So, I eventually got an Amazon FireStick 4K for the new TV, which seemed to completely solve the stuttering problem. My theory is that smart TVs (the cheaper ones, at least) don't have the latest or best CPU/video hardware, so using a good streaming stick is the right approach for optimum video (and audio) playback.

 

[GalaxyBoy]

My 2013 Samsung TV hasn’t been supported for several years so we use a streaming device. If I had it to do over, I’d look at buying a dumb TV or monitor. Electronics go obsolete so quickly and it’s easier to upgrade the streaming device.

 

[ShokWaveRider]

We do not use the Native TV OS for anything other than settings. Our main TV is simply a HDMI Monitor for our AVR to send video to, nothing else, a waste really for a New OLED Samsung. Sound goes to the AVR which distributes to surround sound speakers.

We have at TV in Bedroom which has a ROKU device and we use the Xfinity App for TV. If I want to view content, I simply change the input and receive content from our AVR & Media Player.

I have a Roku TV in my office that is purely used for Xfinit App live TV. so for Us Roku is the best app out there but needs a "Box" to get. But they are very cheap and worth it. Even the very old one do the same thing and they cost pennies.

I find none of the content distributed via native TV apps of any value at all, it is all old and we have seen most of anything we want.

If they had proper live TV (News, Financial, Food, Motortrend, Discovery, NatGeo, BBC America, PBS it would be a completely different story. But they do not. So again they are of no value to us. MMDV

We only have one RF Remote that controls all 3 TVs, the AVR , Cable and Media Systems.

 

[tsoispf]

Just asked DW on her preferences since she uses the LG Smart TV the most. For her, its whatever remote she picks up. But the nice thing with Roku is we can get services not available on WebOS like HBOMax. An additional bonus is the grandson has a Roku at home, so he has an easy time navigating it when he visits.

 

[cathy63]

We have a new-ish Samsung TV, and I do use it for streaming. I just press Home and then right as many times as needed to find the app I want. It's really not any harder than the Roku, but DH prefers to stream from that.

One thing I discovered a few months ago is that the app we use to stream a particular sports channel doesn't geolocate your IP address on the Samsung while the Roku one does. I.e. the Roku app will put up a "blocked content" screen as soon as a game comes on because it knows we're not in the right city even though we have a valid login, but the Samsung app does let us watch the same games. I expect they'll find and fix that eventually, but in the meantime we're enjoying it.

 

[Dawg52]

I use the Sony's OS in my living room. Works very well. In my bedroom I have an older TV and use a Roku device. I really don't use the Roku that much tho as I don't watch a lot in my bedroom. Just enough to put me to sleep.

 

[Zathras]

We use the native streaming capability of our Samsung smart TVs.
We use it to watch YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, Paramount+, Prime, Apple+, TedTalks, and a few others.

In the past, we have used Roku, Apple TV, and Firestick.
We prefer the native Samsung streaming.

 

[Sue J]

I have a Samsung TV from 2015 or 2016 that has the Smart TV capability. I've always found it very awkward to use and difficult to find anything. It's no longer supported for upgrades. We have DirecTV which is very easy to use and has everything we need so the Smart TV stuff on the Samsung was easy to ignore.

Then my son gave me a FireTV stick that he won at a company Christmas party. This is so much more user friendly. It's easy to find stuff, easy enough to operate and it's more current than the Smart TV stuff. I like it so much that I bought another one (on sale and I had a trade-in) for another tv. I mostly use it for Netflix, AppleTV+ and YouTube.

 

[rt-texas]

Residing outside the US for a bit. Use a firestick with a subscription to IPTV for app $8 per month for older "dumb" tv that came with rental house. 1600 channels plus some good movie streaming apps.

Other thing I do is cast from spare mac by hdmi on a laptop with a few pop-up and ad blocks. Makes things painless. Have several good sites with all the latest movies and tv for freebies and really great for youtube.

About the only issue is occasionally firestick buffering when trying to watch Jeopardy.

 

[COcheesehead]

We have a relatively new Sony Bravia. We have an antenna hooked to it for local channels and then stream Hulu. There are apps already resident on the TV, but you can also add apps. We did a free trial of Paramount + and had to add the app. It was easy. We also watch a lot of free YouTube especially when we are researching travels, trails or towns for adventures.
The Sony replaced an older LG that was good for cable, but the smart features of it were lacking. TVs and cars have made big jumps in technology lately.

 

[Luvtoride]

Just asked DW on her preferences since she uses the LG Smart TV the most. For her, its whatever remote she picks up. But the nice thing with Roku is we can get services not available on WebOS like HBOMax. An additional bonus is the grandson has a Roku at home, so he has an easy time navigating it when he visits.

I have an LG Smart TV and the HBO Max app is on there. Just search the apps in the LG menu and "load" it.
The native LG apps work fine for me.

At our 2nd home, where we have Comcast Xfinity Cable TV, we have ONE modem/ cable box on our main TV and have Roku sticks on 3 other TVs. This allows us to get Xfinity Stream live TV on all TVs without having to pay for additional cable boxes. Using the Roku interface vs. the TV's native OS works fine on those TVs.

 

[mpeirce]

We use the Apple TV as our central hub for TV watching. The foremost motivation was to get down to a single remote control. In our last house you needed 3-5 remotes to accomplish various tasks. It was ridiculous.

Now the Apple TV remote is used to power up/down the TV. Our DVR/live TV (OTA) source is the Tablo which is accessed by the Apple TV or iPad - we use that as a “TV” for watching the news at the dinner table at times. All the streaming goes through the Apple TV as well.

Since we only need the TV to act as a monitor, I don’t have it on the network. I did hook it up once to get a software update when Samsung fixed a bug with their HDMI ARC functionality.

 

[ShokWaveRider]

This brings up a good question, another Poll Maybe. By the time one pays all the monthly subscriptions, one may as well have cable.

My neighbor has Netflix, PBS+ and YoutubeTV + High speed internet.

We are stuck with Cable internet where we are and get great speeds for $75pm. He also Pays $65 for YouTubeTV and I do not know the cost of Netflix and PBS+. So his bill is at least $140+Taxes.

We pay $125 all in for our Fast Internet & cable and get basically everything he does including HD. I noticed a lot of his content is NOT HD. Plus We use the Xfinity App for remote TVs and on ALL our Mobile devices.

 

[sengsational]

I never gave my Visio the wifi password. It's an HDMI display only. It's fed by an old XP computer that's got access to 4 OTA tuners and I have software that delivers Tivo type functionality. It's also got a Chromecast tied to an IOT router that works with DWs phone that we occasionally use for Netflix, HBO Max, etc.

 

[calmloki]

We are Roku fans. Faster access to whatever App we want - Netflix, Peacock, Acorn, Amazon - than scrolling through a crawl on the bottom of the screen with the "smart" tv. What we are currently playing with is using Alexa to turn off the tv. Doesn't seem to do much else, and works with our Vizio but not Samsung. Still fun to order the house serf to "kill noise and flashing light box in corner" rather than going to all the trouble of finding the remote and the off button. Remember the primitive times when you had to walk all the way over to the tv and press a button?

 

[T-Minus]

We have two Samsung smart TV’s and only use their “smartness” to integrate with Alexa which, when told “Alexa, Goodnight”, turns everything off except the outside landscaping lights. For streaming, we use an Apple TV in the Family Room and a Roku Ultra in the Master Bedroom. Since Apple has improved/upgraded the remote on the new Apple TV, the Roku (formerly our primary streaming device) was displaced and now exists in a secondary role in the Master Bedroom for watching news/weather before bed.

BTW - my home network has the capability of adding a second, isolated guest network. I’ve named it “IOTnet” (Internet Of Things Network) and put all smart devices there…away from our computers and data.

 

[Qs Laptop]

Multiple LG smart TV owner here. Newest model is from 2016 or thereabouts. I replaced the older LG with a Hisense 4K TV with built in Roku two years ago.

There is no comparison between the native LG streaming apps and the Roku setup. The Roku is much, much faster, more intuitive, easier to use, faster, has more channels which are easy to add and arrange on your home page, is faster to switch between streaming services, the home page is customizable, and the overall experience is faster.

In fact, if I were to name the one thing that stands out between Roku and the native LG streaming apps is that Roku is faster. While the LG "magic remote" and it's mouse like ability to move a cursor around the screen is cool, I cannot imagine going back to the clunky LG app interface.

Another advantage is the Roku app you can download to your phone. This effectively gives you another remote control.