No Ethernet connection on TV

[Ralph]

Currently streaming with WIFI. Would like to hard wire to router. It's a Sharp ROKU TV with no Ethernet connection on TV. 3 HDMI ports, and 1 USB. Any workarounds? Thanks

[verticaldoug]

Currently streaming with WIFI. Would like to hard wire to router. It's a ROKU TV with no Ethernet connection on TV. 3 HDMI ports, and 1 USB. Any workarounds? Thanks

Go driving around the neighborhood before people come home from work. You have two days before Christmas to be a porch pirate and liberate a new flatscreen.

:fight:

[Ralph]

Go driving around the neighborhood before people come home from work. You have two days before Christmas to be a porch pirate and liberate a new flatscreen.

:fight:

Yes LOL.....This was a dirt cheap sale item on Amazon. Should have know better. It works OK....but we only have 100 MBPS service and too much stuff around the house soaking up band width. Occasionally get buffering. Supposedly we're getting 200 MBPS service standard soon.....and a close by neighborhood served with fiber optic claims to be getting 1000 soon. The down load speed wars are heating up. Wonder if the available equipment can keep up?

[tbike4]

You can read a few hundred pages on a lot of websites about a USB to ethernet adapter and how people can/cannot get it to work. Looks like you can buy a Roku box with ethernet and connect it to your Roku TV. Allegedly that will work.

Google is a good thing.

https://community.roku.com/t5/Discussions/Roku-TV-Ethernet-connection/td-p/512999

[unterhausen]

I have an external roku with an ethernet port. I hooked it up to make sure it worked and then disconnected it because I didn't want the TV to be soaking up all the bandwidth.

roku recently sent me an email saying that one of our units is no longer supported. I think they offered me a coffee cup or something. I always wondered about these smart tv's, I think I would rather have a dumb one. There aren't many available now, they are making too much money spying on you.

[verticaldoug]

Next time you are buffering, why not run a speed test on your service provider.

Your issue may not be the wifi.

The other issue is signal strength. How far is the TV from the tower? What signal strength does it show?

[Ralph]

Next time you are buffering, why not run a speed test on your service provider.

Your issue may not be the wifi.

The other issue is signal strength. How far is the TV from the tower? What signal strength does it show?

The TV showed 61 MBPS connection thru WIFI when buffering last night. Which seems like plenty to me. The TV sits about 3 feet from router. A neighbor of mine (a Dell tech) thinks my problem is my leased router. Got 4 other TV's streaming plus the usual assortment of tablets, laptops, and phones on WIFI. Usually can run at least 3 TV's at one time. Lately not. When my current promotional deal expires, gonna make some changes. Just wondering if there is a cheap simple way to hard wire a TV without an input for that. Sounds like a better TV might be cheaper. I'm not a techie....but can usually get my stuff to work.

I don't see how a smart TV can spy on you. No camera's in mine.

[C40_guy]

A neighbor of mine (a Dell tech) thinks my problem is my leased router.
[Snip]
Usually can run at least 3 TV's at one time. Lately not.
[Snip]
I don't see how a smart TV can spy on you. No camera's in mine.

I always run my own cable modem (Moto DOCSIS) and separate Cisco router.

The consumer grade cable modems may or may not give you any performance; they certainly don't give you any control over security.

My old router suddenly slowed to a crawl. I think it was hacked. I reset it and all was good; then I upgraded to a newer model with more recent security controls.

If your performance has degraded, there's a reason...either you're suddenly hoovering up more bandwidth (unlikely) or something's going on with one of your devices or your provider. Check all the connections...loosen, retighten all the cable connections.

And yea, your smart tv will spy on you. It might not have a camera. It might not even have an obvious (or any) microphone. But it sure is reporting back everything you're doing with your remote control -- all the shows you watch, everything. I have a smart tv, but never activated its smartness. I mostly use Tivo for large screen content access.

Hope this rambling helps. :)

[Peter P.]

Cable speed is limited by the number of devices connected to "the pipe". But I'm not referring to just YOUR home, but ALL local users (in your neighborhood) using the same service provider.

If you live in a neighborhood with a lot of bandwidth hogs, you're SOL. With cable, the bandwidth is shared among users. Unless your neighborhood gets that upgrade you mentioned, you may continue to get buffer errors.

For an experiment, you can shut off one of the other household devices to see if the buffering problems go away. Continue to increase the number of shut off devices periodically and see if reaching some point you get buffer-free TV. At least that will tell you whether your usage is part of the problem.

[Ralph]

I always run my own cable modem (Moto DOCSIS) and separate Cisco router.

The consumer grade cable modems may or may not give you any performance; they certainly don't give you any control over security.

My old router suddenly slowed to a crawl. I think it was hacked. I reset it and all was good; then I upgraded to a newer model with more recent security controls.

If your performance has degraded, there's a reason...either you're suddenly hoovering up more bandwidth (unlikely) or something's going on with one of your devices or your provider. Check all the connections...loosen, retighten all the cable connections.

And yea, your smart tv will spy on you. It might not have a camera. It might not even have an obvious (or any) microphone. But it sure is reporting back everything you're doing with your remote control -- all the shows you watch, everything. I have a smart tv, but never activated its smartness. I mostly use Tivo for large screen content access.

Hope this rambling helps. :)

Thanks

[merlinmurph]

Roku makes a box with an ethernet connector, then connect to the TV via HDMI.

I have a smart TV I bought a number of years ago, and the "smart" part was pretty useless - and slow. We only used it for Prime, and then support for the Prime app ended, so we got the Roku box. The box is much faster and has a lot more function.

[Ralph]

Thanks....I do have an extra ROKU Express media player. And my TV, while not having an ethernet input, does have HDMI ports and a USB for power output.

Thanks....hadn't thought of that. Don't guess the built in ROKU and the exterior one will interfere with each other?

I use ROKU on everything because I bought a bunch of the stock just after it went public.....and I like to use products of companies I own part of. (even if my position is a small part of the company's market cap)

[paredown]

Thanks....I do have an extra ROKU Express media player. And my TV, while not having an ethernet input, does have HDMI ports and a USB for power output.

Thanks....hadn't thought of that. Don't guess the built in ROKU and the exterior one will interfere with each other?

I use ROKU on everything because I bought a bunch of the stock just after it went public.....and I like to use products of companies I own part of. (even if my position is a small part of the company's market cap)

I haven't tried it, but I would think that you would just need to set it up as if it were an alternative input (on ours we have OTA Broadcast/DvD player (I'd probably try that one with the HDMI) that you can define in setup), then the menu should load from the external device and use its settings and memory, and treat the TV as a dumb box...

[Ralph]

Cable speed is limited by the number of devices connected to "the pipe". But I'm not referring to just YOUR home, but ALL local users (in your neighborhood) using the same service provider.

If you live in a neighborhood with a lot of bandwidth hogs, you're SOL. With cable, the bandwidth is shared among users. Unless your neighborhood gets that upgrade you mentioned, you may continue to get buffer errors.

For an experiment, you can shut off one of the other household devices to see if the buffering problems go away. Continue to increase the number of shut off devices periodically and see if reaching some point you get buffer-free TV. At least that will tell you whether your usage is part of the problem.

Thanks

[Ralph]

I haven't tried it, but I would think that you would just need to set it up as if it were an alternative input (on ours we have OTA Broadcast/DvD player (I'd probably try that one with the HDMI) that you can define in setup), then the menu should load from the external device and use its settings and memory, and treat the TV as a dumb box...

Thanks