I bought a Samsung TV. I suggest you don’t do that. Samsung make great hardware but their support for software that is more than a year old borders on the non-existent. The Internet@TV ‘platform’ I invested in, introducede in 2010 had been replaced by 2011, before it had even delivered on it’s original promises. A ‘smart’ TV clearly needs WiFi but why build it in when you can sell an over-priced woggle? It also needs catch-up services for more stations than the BBC. My Samsung Galaxy S phone never got Google Talk video and my TV doesn’t get Channel 4 cathchup. I want to buy ‘separates’ that support open standards from now on.
It was not convenient to locate my TV where Internet was and I was 100% unkeen to give Samsung any more money. I had a Netgear WG602v3 Wireless Access Point lying around doing nothing since I got a free ‘wireless router’ (really an ADSL/Ethernet-switch/WiFi gateway) from my ISP so I made that work. I wish I could remember how, because it has stopped working.
I know that I had to:
- Reset the WAP by pressing the tiny black button on the back
- Set PC manually to IP address 192.168.0.210, subnet mask 255.255.255.0
- Connect my PC to the network port with a UTP cable
- Type http://192.168.0.227 in my browser to connect to the WAP management system
- Type user-name ‘admin’, password ‘password’
Then I did magic stuff, rebooted the WAP in the same subnet as my Internet Gateway, thus disconnecting my PC, and the TV started working on a new, dynamically allocated IP address that no-one thought to share with me. Now I just need to work out how I did that. I’ll let you know if I do.
A WAP is normally set up to be plugged into Ethernet to provide WiFi to client PCs. I need to plug the WAP into WiFi to provide Ethernet to a client TV, with a little help from my gateway. I’m putting my money on ‘wireless bridging’ but that comes in a number of flavours and I’ve forgotten which one is my favourite.
Currently my TV doesn’t have an IP address. It is not Internet of Thinged. It’s like the Dark Ages around here.
On The Outside 