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Alternatives to TV Browsers

What's the issue?

Not all TV browsers can show our dashboards, play notifications or YouTube videos. We currently recommend TVs running on Android or LG smart TVs with WebOS 5+ (produced in 2020 or later).

Even though we have a native TV app for Samsung TVs, we do not recommend to use it. A known issue is that Samsung TVs are not capable of rendering dashboards well enough, nor can they show some types of notifications like, for example, YouTube videos. It's all because the browser rendering is too slow.

If your TVs have trouble displaying dashboards or notifications, you can consider alternative methods.

Display your Plecto dashboards on TVs using Google Chromecast

If your TV is set up with Google Chromecast, you can install the Plecto app through Google's App Store and activate your Plecto dashboards from there.

We have tested it with the most recent Chromecast (the one with a remote), but it might work with earlier Chromecast versions as well.

Go to the Google App Store on your TV and search for Plecto - if you can find it, that means your Chromecast supports this alternative TV activation method.

Looking for how to set up Chromecast on your TV? Read Google's setup guide.

Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K

The Fire Stick is a media streaming device that runs on Android, and it can turn your regular TV into a smart TV. The Fire Stick has a well-functioning browser called Amazon Silk. If you use the Stick, you will have to install the Amazon Silk browser on your TV from the App catalog.

How to set up Amazon Fire Stick

  1. We recommend you create a new Amazon user for your Fire sticks.

  2. Plug the Fire Stick into your TV and connect it to power.

  3. Turn on your TV using your regular remote and switch the input mode to the one your Fire Stick is plugged in. You will have to use your Fire TV remote from now on.

  4. Press the home button on your Fire TV remote and follow the instructions to get started.

  5. Once you're set up, download Amazon Silk from the app catalog.

  6. Open the Silk browser, then go to tv.plecto.com and follow the instructions.

  7. Once you see the dashboard, you're good to go!

Open your TV settings and disable the screensaver to ensure that you always see your dashboards.

Enable autoplay for YouTube videos

When a YouTube notification shows for the first time, you might have to start the video manually with the remote. After that, the autoplay should work automatically.

Privacy

On some devices, such as tablets, Amazon Silk has an option to offload some of the work of rendering a webpage to Amazon servers. It means that the contents of those webpages are shared with Amazon. It is our best assessment that this is not the case with Amazon Fire TV Stick.

According to Amazon Silk's terms and conditions, the website history along with other data is only collected on the device.

Disclaimer! Plecto is not responsible for the use of a Fire TV Stick 4K or any other similar devices, or any incidents directly or indirectly caused by the use of such devices.

Use Raspberry PI to run Plecto

This is an advanced option that requires technical skills to set up. If you're interested, you can learn more at Raspberry Pi's official sites. Plecto does not provide support to set up.