I need a player for an upstairs bedroom that only has a wired connection. I love Roku but their current offerings are wireless only.
I have an old acer Mini PC that ran windows 7 but I formatted and reloaded Windows and I lost the OEM licensing.
So either I buy a cheap Roku like device with a wired connection or install some alternate operating system on the old PC. I’m fairly technical but don’t fancy the learning curve of Linux unless there is a step by step guide for exactly what I’m doing.
The user interface for the player should be arrow keys, enter and escape. No mouse.
Only need to handle 720p as tv is old and not huge.
The Roku Ultra has a wired ethernet connection available and the Fire sticks (I believe all of them but I know the 4K for sure) has an adapter available for a wired connection. Both of those work quite well.
Also there are many many many Android devices that have a wired connection such as: Ethernet Android box
So you have a lot of choices.
So your wireless network does not reach the upstairs bedroom, or are you worried about it being so far from the router? If you have any signal at all, you might be surprised at how much throughput you may have. I have a gen 1 fire stick on a TV in the basement with the router in the upstairs office. The router has to go through two floors, one of which is concrete, and it seems to work just fine, if a bit slow to startup.
That being said, obviously wired will be much faster! All Fire Sticks are compatible with the adapter, but I’m not a big fan of linking different devices together. You might be better off with a generic Android streaming box like @Elijah_Baley mentioned. When you’re choosing, make sure you find one that is actually using Android TV, and not a tablet version of Android. It really sucks controlling the tablet version with a remote control.
That’s great, thanks. Android TV sounds like a good option, I’m all-in on android and google already. Now my new problem is… soooo much choice. This will be fun.
@Dalmus OK, if it says “android tv” in the description, I assume I’m not getting a “tablet version”. I had to buy a powerline networking system to get internet up to the third floor. 26Mbps now. I bought a roku wireless and it just would not cut it. Bought the roku wifi extender cable which is just a 6 inch cable to move it away from behind the TV, no go. Worked great in the living room but just kept freezing up when taken up two floors.
Is there a brand of android TV that stands out over the rest?
You’ll want to make sure in the details they specifically say Android TV {version whatever} as the OS, not just Android 9 or Android 10.
I don’t know enough about the Android streamers to give you solid info on what brands are good… I suggest you read the reviews looking for key phrases like under powered and awkward controls. I just know the one I bought required alternating use between a normal Roku-style remote and a larger “keyboard” remote that had an air mouse, because the mouse was the only way I could do things in an app that was looking for touch input.
