Connecting Vizio TV to Wifi

[jason.a.judd]

A few years ago a previous Tech Specialist installed smaller TV's in all of our buildings classrooms. Shortly thereafter I took over, only to find that none of the TV's have ever been connected to the internet.
The TV's are all capable of wifi access, however, I cannot get any of them to log into the network. I have also found that the new large screen TV's in the seminary room, Relief Society room and the cart mounted screen for the chapel are not able to connect either.
Is there something that needs to be done to allow them access through the firewall?

[russellhltn]

Is there something that needs to be done to allow them access through the firewall?

Yes. The stake tech specialist needs to add those MAC addresses to the "NoSplash" policy of Liahona. As you're probably aware, normal devices need to click "Agree" on a Wireless Terms of Use page to get access. But the TVs usually lack the browser ability to do so.

But the real question is: is this a good idea? I tried that on one of our TV sets and found that once it had internet access, it became a "too-smart-for-its-own-good" TV. Upon turning it on, it immedicably started advertising all the wonderful things you could watch. Not really appropriate for church use, and a temptation to anyone who has access to those devices for non-church related viewing.

[kadeprice]

I would also like to know what the church's opinion is on this. I've told people who have asked that we wont be connecting up smart tv's or smart boxes. I feel like it will be a vulnerability on the network, and like mentioned above it will be advertising content not appropriate for the setting. I would hate to have the primary room TV advertising some TV MA content. I know that a lot of those tv's come with some kind of built in content restrictions. We then need to know how to do it on every TV that we end up responsible for, and make sure someone doesn't change those settings.

I would really, really like to be able to cast to the TV's though. There's so much benefit in being able to use an Ipad, phone, whatever without having the HDMI cable.

[russellhltn]

I haven't try casting (as Samsung wants us to use a custom app), but our Sunday School teachers have been able to use wireless "Screen Share" on Windows PCs without adding the TV to NoSplash.

[edcyreysase]

But the real question is: is this a good idea? I tried that on one of our TV sets and found that once it had internet access, it became a "too-smart-for-its-own-good" TV. Upon turning it on, it immedicably started advertising all the wonderful things you could watch. Not really appropriate for church use, and a temptation to anyone who has access to those devices for non-church related viewing.

Our stake has been using an android tv for quite a while now as a replacement for an old LG model. I just wanna suggest. There's this mode called "Apps Only" on the Accounts option on settings. After linking a google account, it'll show the option.. You can't use Google play in that mode too.
Since the stake only use youtube for church-related lessons, I uninstalled the Pre-Installed Apps and Disabled the non-uninstall-able apps.
The TV will still show Content Suggestions, but it'll not redirect to Google play, or to the app that's being disabled.