Any PW member with a Sharp Aquos Smart TV ??

[oldypigeonpopper]

Hello, as above, loosing Channels, Picture, keep having to reboot etc etc, seems I'm not smart enough to sort out, only a few months old, any ideas ?? Help appreciated, going to see if Tesco will Help, !!!   On top of that my brand new smart phone battery does not even last a day 🤔🙄

Edited May 16, 2022 by oldypigeonpopper

[peck]

I should send it back, if its playing up after a few months what's it going to be like just before the guarantee runs out. send it back now.

 

[oldypigeonpopper]

19 minutes ago, peck said:

I should send it back, if its playing up after a few months what's it going to be like just before the guarantee runs out. send it back now.

 

Hello, hoping Tesco will sort out, 🤔

[oldypigeonpopper]

4 hours ago, oldypigeonpopper said:

Hello, hoping Tesco will sort out, 🤔

Hello, got a refund, anyone one recommend another smart TV , that won't break down 🤔

[johnphilip]

3 hours ago, oldypigeonpopper said:

Hello, got a refund, anyone one recommend another smart TV , that won't break down 🤔

Samsung 

[Westward]

15 minutes ago, johnphilip said:

Samsung 

As long as you don't want decent sound quality. LG however tick all the boxes.

Edited May 16, 2022 by Westward

[oldypigeonpopper]

3 hours ago, oldypigeonpopper said:

Hello, got a refund, anyone one recommend another smart TV , that won't break down 🤔

I was looking at a Toshiba WK3C 32 inch smart TV ?

[Minky]

9 hours ago, oldypigeonpopper said:

Hello, as above, loosing Channels, Picture, keep having to reboot etc etc, seems I'm not smart enough to sort out, only a few months old, any ideas ?? Help appreciated, going to see if Tesco will Help, !!!   On top of that my brand new smart phone battery does not even last a day 🤔🙄

Right.   Last summer we bought a new LG oiled 55" tv.  Superb.  Very complicated .  Suddenly there was a CRACK ... LIKE A MARBLE HITTING A WINDOW.!!  Pixelation of the picture.  Jamming up or no picture or sound.  We advised supplier who eventually sent out a technician.   No one had any sensible idea as to the cause.  After a weèk or so I had an e-mail stating that parts ( the whole guts) were not available! !!  So we were to be offered a new unit.  Now bear in mind that it was only a couple of months old.  We had a new model delivered.  It wasn't long before the next one was doing the same thing.  After a lot of internet searching I discovered that the problem which sounds the same as yours is caused by low signal strength.   Hidden in the Menus is a built in signal strength meter.  At certain times of the year tv signal strength is low.  LIKE NOW.  Do a Google search for info.  ....  beat it, swear at it,  threaten it and if all else fails...... go read the instruction manual. or get a new aerial installation. ...Perhaps. 

[oldypigeonpopper]

19 minutes ago, Minky said:

Right.   Last summer we bought a new LG oiled 55" tv.  Superb.  Very complicated .  Suddenly there was a CRACK ... LIKE A MARBLE HITTING A WINDOW.!!  Pixelation of the picture.  Jamming up or no picture or sound.  We advised supplier who eventually sent out a technician.   No one had any sensible idea as to the cause.  After a weèk or so I had an e-mail stating that parts ( the whole guts) were not available! !!  So we were to be offered a new unit.  Now bear in mind that it was only a couple of months old.  We had a new model delivered.  It wasn't long before the next one was doing the same thing.  After a lot of internet searching I discovered that the problem which sounds the same as yours is caused by low signal strength.   Hidden in the Menus is a built in signal strength meter.  At certain times of the year tv signal strength is low.  LIKE NOW.  Do a Google search for info.  ....  beat it, swear at it,  threaten it and if all else fails...... go read the instruction manual. or get a new aerial installation. ...Perhaps. 

Hello, I did check the signal strength and your right but before this it was a constant rebooting of all the channels, once twice weekly the poor picture quality , so I looked online and lots of reviews said same, took it back today for full refund, I fixed up my old telly and got no signal as it's a fault with the communal Ariel, 🤔🙄, John Lewis has a Toshiba 32 inch smarty TV with 5 year free warranty 🤔, so this might be ok, not a great watcher of TV as out a fair bit but it's only been a few hours with out one and getting withdrawal symptoms 🤔🙄😁

Edited May 16, 2022 by oldypigeonpopper

[johnphilip]

2 hours ago, Westward said:

As long as you don't want decent sound quality. LG however tick all the boxes.

Just buy a decent  sound bar ,lots of these large TV's  suffer with poor sound quality .

[stumfelter]

7 hours ago, oldypigeonpopper said:

Hello, got a refund, anyone one recommend another smart TV , that won't break down 🤔

Are you near a Costco? Son in law just bought a cheap brand 32" for the grandsons birthday, five years guarantee, £130.

[oldypigeonpopper]

9 minutes ago, stumfelter said:

Are you near a Costco? Son in law just bought a cheap brand 32" for the grandsons birthday, five years guarantee, £130.

Hello, nearest ones Reading so at least an hour each way, going to look in John Lewis Oxford tomorrow , on the bus free 👍👍

[Minky]

We had a 32 inch in lounge and a 40 in conservatory.   We replaced 32 with the 55 and now a 32 looks like ...small..  it's all moved on and there are hardly any 32's.  They're classed as something you would have in the kitchen.  When we were looking Currys had a sort of display with the different  sizes and I  recon for our situation  that a 65 inch would be optimal. BUT the chimney breast on which would mount it isn't wide enough.

[oldypigeonpopper]

On 16/05/2022 at 09:38, oldypigeonpopper said:

Hello, as above, loosing Channels, Picture, keep having to reboot etc etc, seems I'm not smart enough to sort out, only a few months old, any ideas ?? Help appreciated, going to see if Tesco will Help, !!!   On top of that my brand new smart phone battery does not even last a day 🤔🙄

Hello, updated to this post, I must say Tesco were very good about this despite the time I purchased , got a refund, so back to my old Sony , 👍

[udderlyoffroad]

2 hours ago, oldypigeonpopper said:

Tesco were very good about this despite the time I purchased , got a refund, so back to my old Sony , 👍

If you're happy with the picture on the old Sony, why not get a Chromecast, or an Amazon Fire stick and turn it 'smart' - The menus and software are much more stable with these 'TV Smarteners' as there are far more people working on, and using them, than a here-today-sold-out-tomorrow particular model of TV.

As a bonus, if you decide you don't want to watch or record live TV any more and just use the catch-up/streaming services* on the smart stick, you can stop paying the TV licence.  £12/month saving right there 😉  Also you get to do your part to 'defund Packham'...

*excluding Iplayer.

[oldypigeonpopper]

1 hour ago, udderlyoffroad said:

If you're happy with the picture on the old Sony, why not get a Chromecast, or an Amazon Fire stick and turn it 'smart' - The menus and software are much more stable with these 'TV Smarteners' as there are far more people working on, and using them, than a here-today-sold-out-tomorrow particular model of TV.

As a bonus, if you decide you don't want to watch or record live TV any more and just use the catch-up/streaming services* on the smart stick, you can stop paying the TV licence.  £12/month saving right there 😉  Also you get to do your part to 'defund Packham'...

*excluding Iplayer.

Hello, that's interesting, 👍 it's a Sony Bravia , pictures ok with the communal Ariel but it does cut out now and again due to circumstances in the building but I just bought an in door Ariel, a digital HDTV Antenna, which one do you think would be suitable for the Sony to view on Smart, ? It's for catch up mainly, I get over 100 channels as it is but cannot do BBC catch up only ITV, Channel 5 ,5 but one hour after, also there's more 4 Dramas like Walter presents, I do like TV dramas, and most news channels, so need to keep the licence, 🙄 as you can see I'm not good on this techy things, cheers

[udderlyoffroad]

Forget the aerial OPP, the ‘Smartener’ gets its “signal” from the internet.  So, you need to have a good Wifi connection, which invariably is easier to achieve than a good aerial signal*

Biggest pain I’ve found with using a ‘smartener’ over a smart TV is the fact you need 2 remote controls.  But as stated the user experience tends to be vastly improved over flaky Smart TV software.  I’m actually using an Amazon Fire Stick plugged into my 6 yr old ‘smart TV’ as the Samsung interface is truly awful, and is clearly no longer receiving updates from the manufacturer.  The initial setup process for the various streaming services can take some patience as you’re entering in username/passwords via an on-screen keyboard, but once set up, it should just work.

* Be wary of ‘Wifi range extender’ devices, similar snake oil to TV aerial boosters.  Cannot cheat physics.
 

[oldypigeonpopper]

24 minutes ago, udderlyoffroad said:

Forget the aerial OPP, the ‘Smartener’ gets its “signal” from the internet.  So, you need to have a good Wifi connection, which invariably is easier to achieve than a good aerial signal*

Biggest pain I’ve found with using a ‘smartener’ over a smart TV is the fact you need 2 remote controls.  But as stated the user experience tends to be vastly improved over flaky Smart TV software.  I’m actually using an Amazon Fire Stick plugged into my 6 yr old ‘smart TV’ as the Samsung interface is truly awful, and is clearly no longer receiving updates from the manufacturer.  The initial setup process for the various streaming services can take some patience as you’re entering in username/passwords via an on-screen keyboard, but once set up, it should just work.

* Be wary of ‘Wifi range extender’ devices, similar snake oil to TV aerial boosters.  Cannot cheat physics.
 

Hello, thanks , for now I do have an internet connection but it was not great when WiFi set up to the sharp TV , would a wired connector work from router to TV ?

[udderlyoffroad]

Was that not just the Sharp TV having issues though?  Can you sit in your armchair and watch, say YouTube on your phone at a reasonable quality (over WiFi)?

By the sounds of it, you're in a block of flats so getting a decent signal from your router shouldn't be an issue.  There may well be 'congestion', caused people in other flats all having their own wifi network, so the routers all have to 'excuse me' around each other trying not use an already taken part of the allocated frequency range.  This, rather than actual signal strength might be causing you issues.

But yes, you can buy an additional dongle that will allow the Firestick to connect to your router via an 'ethernet' cable.  £13, IIRC.  I've got one, but then I'm rewiring my house anyway, and putting ethernet cabling to anywhere that I'm likely to want a TV.  Also, my house dates in part from the 1700s so there is a thick stone wall problem...

 

[oldypigeonpopper]

2 hours ago, udderlyoffroad said:

Was that not just the Sharp TV having issues though?  Can you sit in your armchair and watch, say YouTube on your phone at a reasonable quality (over WiFi)?

By the sounds of it, you're in a block of flats so getting a decent signal from your router shouldn't be an issue.  There may well be 'congestion', caused people in other flats all having their own wifi network, so the routers all have to 'excuse me' around each other trying not use an already taken part of the allocated frequency range.  This, rather than actual signal strength might be causing you issues.

But yes, you can buy an additional dongle that will allow the Firestick to connect to your router via an 'ethernet' cable.  £13, IIRC.  I've got one, but then I'm rewiring my house anyway, and putting ethernet cabling to anywhere that I'm likely to want a TV.  Also, my house dates in part from the 1700s so there is a thick stone wall problem...

 

Hello, I don't know if it was the WiFi but always had problems with the Ariel reception , there's a tv booster in the system so it may be that, I think will look at that cable rather than WiFi but it needs a long wire 20 ft plus, what's this cable called and where's the best place for the fire stick, I don't buy off Amazon, what about Tesco ? cheers

[discobob]

Tesco/Argos/Currys sell them as well. Get the 4K one or a Fire Cube - they have more processing power - however, Amazon are making changes with updates to stop a lot of things and without an Amazon account you may find it cluttered with stuff you can't use. A chromecast may be better but I have never used one.

The Sony LCD in our bedroom is 12 years old and runs with one but I do have particular add-ons that I use

[amateur]

3 hours ago, discobob said:

........ Amazon are making changes with updates to stop a lot of things ........

They certainly are.

I have a perfectly functional early Kindle which I can happily load my bedside reading on to.

Amazon have now told me that, as of August, I won't be able to buy books on it, but they will allow me to continue reading the ones that I have!

[udderlyoffroad]

18 hours ago, oldypigeonpopper said:

what's this cable called

Commonly referred to as an 'ethernet' cable.

18 hours ago, oldypigeonpopper said:

where's the best place for the fire stick, I don't buy off Amazon

No idea.  Am sure bricks-and-mortar retailers do them, but I wouldn't know.

There are of course other options for TV 'smarteners' than Amazon's offering, but I have no experience of them.  Chromecast is one, Roku another.  Just make sure they come with an ethernet port, or the option to add one through use of a dongle, if you're going down the wired route. 

I still think you're conflating TV reception with your wifi signal strength though.  Do you have any device (tablet, phone connected through wifi) that you could use to test the quality of the connection where your TV is?  Either an actual speed-test site, or the more unscientific, but more real-world, firing up a streaming service app on said device and watching a programme?

 

[oldypigeonpopper]

6 hours ago, udderlyoffroad said:

Commonly referred to as an 'ethernet' cable.

No idea.  Am sure bricks-and-mortar retailers do them, but I wouldn't know.

There are of course other options for TV 'smarteners' than Amazon's offering, but I have no experience of them.  Chromecast is one, Roku another.  Just make sure they come with an ethernet port, or the option to add one through use of a dongle, if you're going down the wired route. 

I still think you're conflating TV reception with your wifi signal strength though.  Do you have any device (tablet, phone connected through wifi) that you could use to test the quality of the connection where your TV is?  Either an actual speed-test site, or the more unscientific, but more real-world, firing up a streaming service app on said device and watching a programme?

 

Thankyou, I will have to look into this, appreciate your advice 👍

[discobob]

21 hours ago, amateur said:

They certainly are.

I have a perfectly functional early Kindle which I can happily load my bedside reading on to.

Amazon have now told me that, as of August, I won't be able to buy books on it, but they will allow me to continue reading the ones that I have!

That is end of life - comes to everything like that - phones, TV's etc.... it is diminishing returns as they are putting out the updates for free so they call time on it after x years.

The changes they are making is around the sideloading of apps from other sources - initially stopping certain functionality - one in particular is where you can change their home screen to something not full of their adds.