Something is wrong with my internet service, my smartTV isn't working.

This is a common question we hear. There is likely nothing wrong with the internet service. Smart TVs are not smart. In fact, they are dumb. The TV manufacturer is trying to cram as many features as they can into the TV with as minimal impact on the production cost as possible.

We have a “smart TV” and a “dumb old Plasma TV” in our home. The plasma TV uses a $60 Amazon FireBox. We never have problems with the FireBox based TV. The Vizio smart TV gets occasional updates that seem to add more channels, take away channels, and add new weird features, or break WiFi.

At the moment, whenever we turn off our TV after watching a show, 3 minutes later it turns itself back on.

So, if you have a “Smart TV”, and things are not working, please unplug power from the wall, wait a good 10 seconds, then plug it back in. This normally fixes our smart TV problems like no WiFi connection, no sound, sound out of sync with picture, etc. Just turning it off/on with the remote is not sufficient.

If you consistently have issues with your smart TV, consider getting a streaming box, like a Roku Ultra, or FireBox, or FireStick. When looking at these solutions, never buy the cheapest model; they are cheap for a reason, they cut out functionality/features to get the price lower. I have found that the streaming box solutions rarely have a problem, stream more evenly, and have a more “fluidic” interface that doesn’t frustrate me like the built in “smart TV” menu system.