I want my tv to turn on instantly; not to wait for a pc to boot, have to log in, and only then opening my streaming app. Such a hassle.
I personally have a tcl with custom launcher, debloated the most I could, on a network with adguard, streaming only from jellyfin (Wholphin client) and Navidrome (Chora), and sometimes Youtube (Grayjay).
I click the power on button, it instantly turns on into Wholphin most often, then I click the play button. Litterally 2 seconds. What’s the big deal? Ok, it still has traces of google and other stuff, but it sounds like a decent compromise. Ofc, if someday somebody out there makes a custom rom I’ll be the first one to install it, but until then…
It literally has a peak consumption of 15W, though I seldom see it go above 10% CPU usage (which is nice because even the small fan it has almost never goes on) so even when I’m actually using it as a TV box it consumes a lot less than 15W. It consumes even less when idle.
So it’s always ON.
As a side benefit it’s my home NAS and a bittorrent server managed via a web-interface, both things for which it makes even to have a machine always running.
Haven’t actually seen any difference in my power bill.
That’s cool that you’re using it as a nas, and I’m glad it’s working out for you
Myself, I want something easily controllable from a remote, so that when I come back from work I can just relax without seeing a keyboard and having to work with a pc.
I tried Librelec and lineageOS TV into a mini pc, but they all had various quirks, so I’m sticking to my TCL for now.
Absolutelly, if you can’t use it with a remote and have to use a keyboard and mouse it’s not the same thing.
However, my setup is easilly controllable with a remote: I have Kodi running always on top in it and use one of these.
With that the sofa experience is the same as with a dedicated TV Box (except that the remote can’t power it ON, only OFF, but for me it’s fine since I leave it always ON) because that remote just sends the right “keypresses” to control Kodi (apparently the shortcut keys are standard) so from a user point of view one interacts with it the same as with a TV Box or Smart TV.
The PC-ish stuff (such as managing the bittorrent server) I do remotelly from my main PC via SSH and web interfaces.
Mind you, I have a keyboard and mouse connected to it because sometimes I want to use the browser, but if all you’re doing is watching stuff like with a TV Box, that’s not needed.
Suspend the PC instead of shutting it down. It will use almost no power and wake up in a couple of seconds. Whatever you left open will still be running.
I want my tv to turn on instantly; not to wait for a pc to boot, have to log in, and only then opening my streaming app. Such a hassle.
I personally have a tcl with custom launcher, debloated the most I could, on a network with adguard, streaming only from jellyfin (Wholphin client) and Navidrome (Chora), and sometimes Youtube (Grayjay). I click the power on button, it instantly turns on into Wholphin most often, then I click the play button. Litterally 2 seconds. What’s the big deal? Ok, it still has traces of google and other stuff, but it sounds like a decent compromise. Ofc, if someday somebody out there makes a custom rom I’ll be the first one to install it, but until then…
I use a Mini-PC with an N100 CPU.
It literally has a peak consumption of 15W, though I seldom see it go above 10% CPU usage (which is nice because even the small fan it has almost never goes on) so even when I’m actually using it as a TV box it consumes a lot less than 15W. It consumes even less when idle.
So it’s always ON.
As a side benefit it’s my home NAS and a bittorrent server managed via a web-interface, both things for which it makes even to have a machine always running.
Haven’t actually seen any difference in my power bill.
That’s cool that you’re using it as a nas, and I’m glad it’s working out for you
Myself, I want something easily controllable from a remote, so that when I come back from work I can just relax without seeing a keyboard and having to work with a pc.
I tried Librelec and lineageOS TV into a mini pc, but they all had various quirks, so I’m sticking to my TCL for now.
Absolutelly, if you can’t use it with a remote and have to use a keyboard and mouse it’s not the same thing.
However, my setup is easilly controllable with a remote: I have Kodi running always on top in it and use one of these.
With that the sofa experience is the same as with a dedicated TV Box (except that the remote can’t power it ON, only OFF, but for me it’s fine since I leave it always ON) because that remote just sends the right “keypresses” to control Kodi (apparently the shortcut keys are standard) so from a user point of view one interacts with it the same as with a TV Box or Smart TV.
The PC-ish stuff (such as managing the bittorrent server) I do remotelly from my main PC via SSH and web interfaces.
Mind you, I have a keyboard and mouse connected to it because sometimes I want to use the browser, but if all you’re doing is watching stuff like with a TV Box, that’s not needed.
Whoa, that’s cool. For the power-ing on, I know that its possible to do via bleetooth, my steam deck does it.
It’s USB rather than bluetooth, though maybe there are bluetooth versions.
Suspend the PC instead of shutting it down. It will use almost no power and wake up in a couple of seconds. Whatever you left open will still be running.