I watch Netflix at home on computer and thru the dvd player.
When I am on the road I would like to watch it on something besides my little tablet.
Most hotel rooms I stay in have an HDMI port for the tv. Can anyone recommend a device or way I could hook up maybe a tablet or even my smart phone so I could watch Netflix thru the wifi into a device and then on the hotel room tv?
What sort of tablet? If it has an HDMI port, you probably just need the appropriate cable.
Roku has full-function sticks down to about $25. Plug in and go.
Chromecast is an option for most things you can view on your phone, but you’ll need to keep the phone plugged in for continuous operation.
A cable/adapter is a simpler option that supports even non-streamers like The CW.
Personally, I’d pick up a cheap Roku stick and remote, put it in a baggie and make it part of my luggage. Of course, all of these depend on decent WiFi for operation, unless you’re willing to use that much phone data (either directly or as a hotspot). Many hotel WiFi services suck deeply.
What do you mean by plugged in and continuous operation?
The majority of hotel rooms I’ve stayed in don’t have enough bandwidth to stream movies.
Most phones need to be plugged into a power source to keep running long enough to watch a movie. At least, after a typical day of operation and without ending up pretty dead and useless.
Bandwidth is probably going to make this unpleasant if not impossible. As dougrb says, most hotel internet connections will not provide enough bandwidth for an acceptable streaming experience.
Also, many hotels require you to sign in on a login page before accessing other internet resources. If you use a Roku, you will need to get a model that supports the “Hotel & Dorm Connect” feature.
–Mark
My experience is that casting has a negligible effect on battery life.
There are two completely different mechanisms to cast video from a phone. DIAL (Discovery and Launch) is a protocol where a phone simply tells a video streamer to start playing a stream from a particular URL. The player then streams the video from a remote server. After the stream gets started, the phone is not involved and can even be completely powered off without affecting playback. This obviously uses negligible resources on the phone and doesn’t affect battery life much.
Miracast or (AirPlay, a similar technology on Apple devices, because Apple doesn’t play well with others) is a technology where the phone actually encodes the contents of the phone’s screen into a video stream and sends it directly to the streamer. In this case the phone, not a remote server, is providing the video (although the phone itself may be simultaneously playing a video from a remote server). This requires MASSIVE resources on the phone and will definitely drain the battery quickly.
–Mark
As Markn+ already said, if the phone is just a controller, it’s no big deal. More direct streaming/casting when the phone is processing the content, or when using an HDMI cable to connect, electrons escape at a pretty quick rate on battery.
Right, but if you’re using the phone to cast from a netflix or youtube app to a chromecast stick, you’re pretty much only ever going to be using the DIAL method. The only time that Chromecast will do it differently is if you use the googlecast extension to cast an entire tab and the device will have to encode the stream itself.
That seems to be all the newer ones, even some version 2’s. But it’s a good point.
I shudder to think what viewing quality is like on that setting.
I’m not sure what you mean by “that setting”. Hotel & Dorm Connect in itself has no bearing on video quality. It just temporarily allows a browser on your phone to get passed through the Roku so that it looks to the hotel network like the Roku is accessing the login page. After the login is done, the Roku directly uses the hotel network normally and the phone is no longer involved.
But as mentioned earlier, in general hotels don’t provide much bandwidth to each room, so it’s certainly questionable whether you’d get an acceptable streaming experience.
–Mark
Oh, missed the context. I assumed it was a low-bandwidth/poor connectivity mode. But I understand the login problem; been bitten by it a number of times when not using a standard UI device.
Roku sounds great.
Is it about the same as thisAmazon firestick?
They’re very comparable products in almost all ways. Roku just released an entirely updated line, and model for model, Roku is a little cheaper than Amazon.
You can buy their new, low-end but fully functional Express model for $25 now. Try it out. Doesn’t work out for you? Give it away. Or buy a faster unit with more features, all the way up to 4K/UHD and remote listening features.
The Fire TV Stick is a much more general device. It runs a variant of Android so you can run an incredible number of Android apps on it. One of the most popular apps, of course, is Kodi. It can be sideloaded for free or a pay version from the Amazon app store. Kodi cannot be installed on current Roku devices.
And of course both support NetFlix.
The issue with hotel/etc. logging in requirements with Fire TV devices has been fixed.
I’ve been to hotels where the quality was fine- and then I’m suddenly kicked off the wifi and can’t get back on. The first time I didn’t know what was gong on and I asked at the desk- and was asked in return " Were you streaming?" Apparently they can detect it somehow.
You’ll may have to get the upgraded wifi package. They may offer basic for free and a higher bandwidth for a fee.
But one problem you’ll likely have is that most hotels require you to validate through a web page to authorize your device. If you remember, you connect to the hotel wifi, but when you try to go to a web page, it redirects you to their custom page. That’s not a problem on devices with browsers like phones, tablets, and computers, but a device like a Roku or Chromcast won’t be able to connect to the hotel login screen.
What you’ll need to have is your own router–a travel router. You setup your travel router in your hotel and you use your computer to connect to your router so that it can connect to the hotel internet (wifi or ethernet port). Then you use the browser on your laptop to login to the wifi. Then you have your roku or whatever connect to your travel router. Since your router has been validated, all devices connected to it will be validated.
You can also sometimes enable your laptop as a wifi hotspot instead of using a router. Then you have the roku connect to your laptop’s wifi. I tried that once but couldn’t get it working.