I know I can set up a Roku app on my phone to use on my TV. I don’t remember from the set-up process how easy it would be to connect it to a neighbor’s Roku-powered TV. Perhaps a neighbor is using some similar app-based technology to mess around with you? Or perhaps, in the process of setting up their app, they simply connected the app to the wrong TV that was in range of their cell phone.
But like visible light they can bounce off reflective surfaces. It is at least possible that a neighbor’s remote is reflecting in.
What brand and model of TV? Is it connected to the internet? If so, if it is a smart TV the owner might have it linked to an app and accidentally turned it on remotely?
Is anything connected to it as an input? I believe some devices can turn on the TV over HDMI.
Yes - for some devices and some HDMI ports. I use my firesticks to turn on my TVs. It even works via Alexa by voice, without a remote control involved at all.
If you have a cable box from a cable provider, like Xfinity, they do a daily update on their cable boxes. I went into the settings on it, and set the updates for 4 a.m. so they don’t interrupt anything. Sometimes, after one of these updates, it sometimes turns the TV on. Perhaps you had an update at this time?
That sounds the closest of all proposed explanations to what could have plausibly happened here.
I can’t count how many times my cat has done this. Stepping on any button on the Roku remote turns the TV on.
Not that I’m suggesting my cat is visiting Johanna while I’m at work.
ETA: That I know of…
I had the same think happen with my TV - a Samsung and searching showed that it happens occasionally with that model, and a series of possible fixes were offered.
My first suspicion was that it was my neighbour who has a similar version tv and whose set pops up when I look for devices to connect, but she denies everything and blames the supernatural. Ghosting in every sense …
Yes it does flip you out the first time at 3AM.
I don’t mean to be a smart -ass but If a TV is just being parked at your house and never used, why is it plugged in?
It’s used on occasion when its owner visits.
In the UK, it’s the other way around. Radio 4 broadcasts secret codes that control domestic electric meters.
This isn’t exactly the same thing, because in our case the TV was already on. Our TV has the cable box as the primary HDMI, and we have a DVD player and a Roku connected to other HDMI ports. If you turn on the DVD player or press a button on the Roku remote, the TV will automatically switch to that device. There have been a few times when my wife and I were watching TV, nobody is within arm’s reach of the Roku remote, and the TV will spontaneously switch to the Roku.
As someone who worked as a CATV technician almost 40 years ago, I can attest that TVs turning themselves on is nothing new. Nobody had a conclusive answer for why except it was always sets with a remote control.
The phone works as a Roku remote only if they are all on the same Wi-Fi network. And it’s pretty cool - no line of sight or proximity required at all.
A lot of so-called smart TVs have non-infrared remotes (some wifi, some bluetooth) and therefore are immune to line-of-sight limitations.
There are several IR remote protocols. The one I’ve worked with the most is the so-called NEC protocol. Each button press sends a 32-bit word, with each bit encoded as either a long flash (1) or a short flash (0). Originally, the code word contained an 8-bit “address” (an ID of the device which was supposed to receive it) and an 8-bit command. The other 16 bits were a pair of 8-bit checksums, one for the address and one for the command. But as the protocol became more popular, the limit of 256 addresses became a limitation, so they expanded the address field to 16 bits and eliminated the address checksum. This greatly increased the possibility that a misread codeword could be interpreted as directed to a different device than intended. I’m not saying this accounts for the OP’s issue, since the description does not suggest that any remote was sending anything at the time, but it is a common cause of a remote accidentally controlling the wrong device.
That functionality is called Consumer Electronics Control (CEC).
It allows CEC-enabled devices to control each other. If it bothers you, there should be options to disable it in your TV’s settings (or any other device). I like it because it makes it easier to switch between my Xbox and cable box.
There were times when it would do it at awkward times, like I’d manually switch to one device and it would switch back on its own, but I updated my TV’s software and that behavior went away; it now behaves more predictably.
I don’t mind it, other than the fact that it switches to another device automatically but I have to manually switch it back.
Probably not applicable, but I recall a time some years back when it was discovered that a key ring being jiggled a few feet from the TV was turning it on. Repeated experiments confirmed the cause-and-effect beyond doubt. Note that a similar sound could be produced by a wind-chime, among other means.
Old (mid-1950s through mid-1970s) TVs had ultrasonic remote controls - if you could afford such a high-end TV. My dad’s boss had one, but we had to walk to the TV and turn a knob. Uphill. Both ways.
From Wikipedia:
In 1956, Robert Adler developed Zenith Space Command, a wireless remote.[15][20][21] It was mechanical and used ultrasound to change the channel and volume.[22][21] When the user pushed a button on the remote control, it struck a bar and clicked, hence they were commonly called “clickers”, and the mechanics were similar to a pluck.[21][23] Each of the four bars emitted a different fundamental frequency with ultrasonic harmonics, and circuits in the television detected these sounds and interpreted them as channel-up, channel-down, sound-on/off, and power-on/off.[24]
Later, the rapid decrease in price of transistors made possible cheaper electronic remotes that contained a piezoelectric crystal that was fed by an oscillating electric current at a frequency near or above the upper threshold of human hearing, though still audible to dogs. The receiver contained a microphone attached to a circuit that was tuned to the same frequency. Some problems with this method were that the receiver could be triggered accidentally by naturally occurring noises or deliberately by metal against glass, for example, and some people could hear the lower ultrasonic harmonics.
Your jiggling key ring or wind chimes probaly had ultrasonic harmonics that the TV picked up.