The perfect match will result in you pairing your smartphone screen with a smart TV. Connecting your phone to a smart TV is a perfect way to watch images, movies, videos, music, photographs, sports, online TV shows, apps, and more. There are several ways you can connect your phone to your smart TV. But wirelessly, is the most common way. The type of phone and TV you have decides how you are linking the two devices. Here are numerous ways to connect your telephone and TV, and what you need to know about each. Depending on whether you have an Android phone or an Apple phone, and if you have a Smart TV or normal HDTV, the procedure can be slightly different.
There are occasions when you watch something on your phone and you want to share it with the house, or even watch it on a larger screen. Those with Android devices have a variety of options including built-in software and applications from third parties. Let’s break down your options, from just to more nuanced.
Use the following ways to connect a Phone to a TV:
Android Screen Mirroring
Android screen mirroring is perfect for devices that don’t have a Cast button. Notice that while Android has been supporting screen mirroring since version 5.0 of Lollipop, some phones are better suited than others for using it. There are two ways for this to be done. You can pull down the settings shade on certain Android phones, and find a Cast button with the same icon you would see in your games. Tap this and it’ll display the whole screen.
If not, have the Google Home app installed. To cast your monitor to a compatible device, navigate to Account > Mirror device > Cast Screen/Audio (above)
Casting with Chromecast
If you have a Chromecast dongle or a TV with built-in Chromecast support, then your best bet is to see if casting supports the device you want to watch on TV. If so, you can send content to the TV with a couple of taps from your phone. Apps that are sponsored include Netflix, Hulu, HBO Now, and Google Images. Only make sure that your device is on the same Wi-Fi network as your Chromecast/smart TV. Then tap the cast icon in the app, and pick the device you want to cast to.
This choice is ideal for proprietary content apps which often block the mirroring of traditional screens. For example, Netflix will black out the video and just play audio when you’re trying to watch something while mirroring the screen.
Connecting with a cable or an Adapter
You can use an HDMI adapter or cable to link your phone to your TV and mirror what’s on your screen if you don’t have a Chromecast-compatible system — or if your phone isn’t designed for it.
Here you have a few different choices, and which one you choose depends on the type of monitor you are connecting to, how long and, most importantly, whether or not you would need to charge your phone while doing so.
USB to HDMI converter
If you need to charge your phone when mirroring it, you’ll want a converter like this one that connects to the USB-C port, and you’ll get an HDMI port and another USB-C socket. You can plug in an HDMI cable and a battery and mirror your phone as long as you need it.
USB to HDMI adapter
The easiest alternative is an AmazonBasics HDMI adapter, like this one. You can plug this adapter into your phone if your phone has a USB-C port, and then plug an HDMI cable into the adapter for connexion to the TV.
Your phone will need to support HDMI Alt Mode which enables video output from mobile devices. This approach will therefore take up your port of paying.
Micro USB to HDMI adapter
If you have an older USB-style Micro port, you may need another adapter, like this one. This approach will allow your phone to follow a different protocol called MHL (here’s a list of phones that follow MHL).
If you have a phone that’s sponsored, hook it to the adapter, add an HDMI cable and connect it to a TV. This specific adapter also contains a lateral charging tube, so you can hold your phone on top while watching.
Streaming with different apps
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AllCast
AllCast is a similar app to LocalCasts, which adds a few more bells and whistles, including streaming to more apps, including the PlayStation 4. It also lets you stream media from Dropbox, so you don’t have to load your phone with large files to upload it to your TV anymore.
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LocalCast
LocalCasts is a simple, free app that lets you stream your music, images, or videos from a smart TV or console to a DLNA device. It also supports streaming to targets from Chromecast, which is useful if you want to share your files on a TV without mirroring the whole screen. You can also tilt, pan, and zoom photos while uploading images to a Chromecast computer, making it useful for presentations.
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Plex
The famous media management app Plex also acts as a DLNA streamer, although in a less direct manner. A Plex server running on your machine will host and stream music, images, or videos into your TV. You can use the mobile app to search your library, choose which media to stream, and send it over Chromecast or DLNA to the television.
The downside to using the Plex app is that every time you want to access your files, the machine where you set up your server would need to be on and linked to the internet. Plex does, however, allow you to host media files much larger than those that would fit on your computer.
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DLNA
Finally, if the previous choices don’t fit for you, a streaming protocol called DLNA is supported by most internet-connected TVs. Through this, you can stream media files to your TV from your computer – or any of your other computers.
However, be warned that any files you can stream can not have any Digital Rights Management (DRM) functionality, which means you would have to stick to your music and videos; Netflix will not be supported here. Fortunately, this still covers most of the stuff that you would want to send to your TV from your computer.
Conclusion
So, here’s what you needed to know about having an Android or iOS phone or tablet link to a TV using a USB cable. Connecting a phone to your television isn’t as straightforward as you would imagine.
It can be difficult to hook up a cable between your telephone and Screen, whether you want to enjoy Netflix, share pictures, or use it for homework. But it isn’t impossible —- the finding of the right cable is all a matter.
