When content gets sent to the wrong TV
A comical way to watch the NFL Draft
Recently, I was traveling to visit some family. The condo we had rented for the week was fairly well-appointed. All of the modern luxuries were there. Fast wifi. Hi-tech appliances. And of course there were smart TVs. Yes, there were multiple TVs in the unit and they were all Samung TVs. Why does that matter?
Well, it’s very likely that every condo unit in the 5-story complex included a few Samsung TVs. It’s essentially a standard issue in the rental agreement.
Again, why does this matter? What happens when dozens or even hundreds of travelers are attempting to watch content on their smart TVs? They watch movies, YouTube videos, and live sporting events. And they attempt to send these streams from their mobile devices to their smart TVs. Their Samsung smart TVs. That all have the same name…
You probably see where I’m going with this.
I found myself looking to send the live basketball game I was watching on the YouTube TV app to the Samsung smart TV. And I was presented with a list of dozens of potential devices. Most of them were named “Samsung Smart TV”. I made two attempts to cast the stream to no avail. I was likely sending content to a television that was not in range for me to view.
I just gave up. I managed to login to the YouTube TV app directly on the TV to watch what I wanted to watch. Story over right?
Not so fast.
It was a jam-packed week of sports with the NBA playoffs and NFL Draft both streaming live. I was watching the draft through the YouTube TV app on the TV when what do I see?
A black screen interrupts things and tells me that someone’s iPhone is attempting to connect to my TV via AirPlay. After the first time it happened, I just laughed it off. I could relate. Someone must have just tried to connect to that first Samsung Smart TV without giving it much thought.
But these interruptions continued throughout the night. Every few minutes, this same person would try to connect to our TV. The suspense of live NFL draft picks was ruined when the feed turned black and offered up a pairing code that was of no use to me. Can you think of anything more frustrating? It was funny for a bit but it did put a damper on our viewing experience.
Could I have just made the TV “undiscoverable” somehow? Sure, I bet that was possible. But it was a TV that I wasn’t familiar with and like many rental units, the batteries in the remote weren’t fully charged. The system was a bit laggy to navigate and the remote had to pointed in the exact right position. Turning off the ability for someone to connect to the TV just wasn’t an easy proposition.
Eventually, the person just gave up trying to stream on our TV, but they were very persistent!
This just feels like a real-world problem that likely happens all the time when people are staying in rental units with plenty of smart TVs within a tight space.
Can anyone else relate?
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