Streamus Interruptus

March 18, 2025 5:42 AM

My old-ish Samsung TV works fine, but it will no longer "talk" to my wifi. I need a... thing that will talk to both the TV and the wifi. What thing do I need?

I used to work around it by using the DVD/BluRay player to connect to the wifi, but then I upgraded the router and now it won't connect either. It perceives the network, but when I enter the password, it gives me an "unable to connect" message.

Both devices worked on a 2G signal, which my current router does not do.

I phoned my internet provider and they offered me a TV-inclusive deal... but it turned out that the internet cable was too far away from the TV for a wired connection to be practical, and neither one could be moved, so I cancelled it.

So I need a thing to make the TV talk to the wifi... but what thing do I need?

I do not want anything that comes with a subscription or is locked to a single company. Ideally I do not want to install a goddamn app. I just want something where I can give it the wifi password and forget about it, and watch iPlayer in peace. (I'm in the UK, in an urban area with good signal).

posted by Pallas Athena to Technology (12 answers total)

You can either buy a better router that handles both (LAN port on the existing router plugged to the WAN/Internet port on the new one), and daisy-chain that from your existing router. Or you can buy something that also supports the old standard like an Apple TV box and install iPlayer on that and let it take over as the 'brain' of your TV.
posted by Static Vagabond at 6:07 AM on March 18 [1 favorite]

I have an old tv and use a Roku stick to connect to Wi-Fi so I can use streaming services.
posted by theora55 at 6:08 AM on March 18 [2 favorites]

If the TV has a wired network connection, then you can run the network connection over your electric wiring by using this pair of adapters (£39.99). Simply plug them into a spare socket (OK, that might be tricky), one near the router, one near the TV, connect up the included network cables, and press the pair button on them both (optional), and they should connect up fine. You can add extra ones to connect more devices, or if you want to connect your DVD player, this set for £5 more has 2 network ports on the Wi-Fi repeater part.

Some routers don't have a spare networking port on them, and in that case you probably will need to fix the TV player side of things.
posted by ambrosen at 6:39 AM on March 18

Both devices worked on a 2G signal

You probably mean 2.4GHz; 2G is a truly ancient mobile phone wireless band.

The fact that your player sees the WiFi but is unable to connect means that either there's now a mismatch in the authentication protocol or the password string (like the router password containing a special character such as '@' or '#' that the player doesn't send). See if you can change the WiFi password on the router to something that's just letters and digits, see if that works.
posted by Stoneshop at 6:45 AM on March 18

Do you know the model of the TV?

an Apple TV box

A word of caution: subtitles and high definition video apparently don’t work on the iPlayer app for Apple TV due to a cheery little impasse- it requires DVB-DASH, which Apple won’t support, and the BBC won’t move away from.
posted by zamboni at 7:03 AM on March 18 [1 favorite]

Many routers support dual 2.5/5Ghz modes, and can specialize for individual clients.

You might look in the router config to enable 2.5 again.
posted by nickggully at 7:50 AM on March 18

One thing that might help is setting up the router to manage two separate wifi networks, one on 2.4 and one on 5, with different names. That way you can make sure the devices are trying to access the right network. The default config on many routers is to use the same name on both bands, which as you saw makes it difficult to connect old devices.

The other solution is to get a Chromecast / Google TV. It does require learning a new interface, but app is not obligatory, and new ones come with a decent remote that doesn't make you use a phone to control the tv.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 7:56 AM on March 18

Trying to reconfigure your network to bring an aging smart TV back in is a losing game that will gray your hair and fray your nerves, all just to kick the can down the road for a little while.

I'd get a smart TV device that connects to HDMI, whichever one you're comfortable with. Google TV devices do not (supposedly) play nice with iPlayer, and zamboni says above that Apple TV devices can have issues with it, too. So really, you're down to the Amazon Fire Stick or the Roku as your main choices.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:39 AM on March 18 [3 favorites]

Would a wired connection just require a looooong ethernet cable or would it be truly impossible to run said cable? A 10 m cable would cost less than £15.
posted by koahiatamadl at 9:13 AM on March 18 [1 favorite]

Unless you bought a very strange router, you should be able to enable 2.4 on the router. Could you post the model?
posted by Ferrari328 at 11:41 AM on March 18

This is probably due to the TV is stuck on WPA2, and the new router is set to only accept WPA3 logins. WPA2 is insecure (can be hacked pretty easily) so a lot of new routers are set to only allow WPA3 logins. You can force the router to accept WPA2/3, probably in the security settings, and the TV should be able too get back on, but that's not a very good idea in terms of security.

For technical people: https://www.securew2.com/blog/wpa2-psk-is-not-enough
posted by kschang at 12:22 AM on March 19

So I need a thing to make the TV talk to the wifi... but what thing do I need? The thing is a travel router.
posted by StephenB at 10:14 AM on March 19