Connecting a Samsung 'connected' TV

I'm hugely excited, though sceptical of the benefits of internet -delivered telly. Not least when it comes to the practicality of setting it up.

I have a brand new Samsung UE40C6510. What could be easier than buying its (proprietary and expensive... grrr) wireless dongle and connecting to my home network?

Behold, BBC iPlayer and Lovefilm beckon. I could even watch whatever other dubious rubbish they have on there.

So the dongle arrives... I open the packaging and the instructions helpfully tell me to refer to the user manual which came with my TV. This may as well have been written in Korean.

I plug in the dongle. Simple plug 'n' play, so far so good.

Then the real trouble starts...

The device can see my home network. It'll even let me input a WEP key, in order to access it.

But then a bunch of garbage on screen messages, basically telling me the connnection has been unsuccessful. Um, too right. Tell me something I can USE...

So compare and contrast with the experience of buying a Sony BDS S570 Blu-ray player... The wireless comes baked in, the on-screen prompts are written in language which doesn't require a doctorate in electronic sciences and, hey, even better, the whole thing was plugged in and running on my home network in < 5 minutes.

Samsung, if you want your connected tellys to take off, you're going to have to focus on making them a bit easier to use - especially when it comes to the setup.

Btw, if anyone has suffered the horror of trying to successfully install a Samsung wireless dongle, please share your wisdom on how its done. No doubt I need to press some backdoor code on the remote that Samsung has helpfully chosen not include in its customer literature.

I can tell this is leading up to a call to Samsung (complete abdication of post sales) customer service. After my last experience with them, I'm not looking forward to it. Look - Samsung lurkers - you have a really good product, albeit with some useability issues you need to crack but your customer service is a disservice to your brand.

Rant over, just a bit annoyed at spending £x00 on your telly, then being forced to spend another £50 on your dongle which maybe works, just not out of the box.

Go figure...

Comments

  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 43
    Forum Member
    gonefishin wrote: »
    I'm hugely excited, though sceptical of the benefits of internet -delivered telly. Not least when it comes to the practicality of setting it up.

    I have a brand new Samsung UE40C6510. What could be easier than buying its (proprietary and expensive... grrr) wireless dongle and connecting to my home network?

    Behold, BBC iPlayer and Lovefilm beckon. I could even watch whatever other dubious rubbish they have on there.

    So the dongle arrives... I open the packaging and the instructions helpfully tell me to refer to the user manual which came with my TV. This may as well have been written in Korean.

    I plug in the dongle. Simple plug 'n' play, so far so good.

    Then the real trouble starts...

    The device can see my home network. It'll even let me input a WEP key, in order to access it.

    But then a bunch of garbage on screen messages, basically telling me the connnection has been unsuccessful. Um, too right. Tell me something I can USE...

    So compare and contrast with the experience of buying a Sony BDS S570 Blu-ray player... The wireless comes baked in, the on-screen prompts are written in language which doesn't require a doctorate in electronic sciences and, hey, even better, the whole thing was plugged in and running on my home network in < 5 minutes.

    Samsung, if you want your connected tellys to take off, you're going to have to focus on making them a bit easier to use - especially when it comes to the setup.

    Btw, if anyone has suffered the horror of trying to successfully install a Samsung wireless dongle, please share your wisdom on how its done. No doubt I need to press some backdoor code on the remote that Samsung has helpfully chosen not include in its customer literature.

    I can tell this is leading up to a call to Samsung (complete abdication of post sales) customer service. After my last experience with them, I'm not looking forward to it. Look - Samsung lurkers - you have a really good product, albeit with some useability issues you need to crack but your customer service is a disservice to your brand.

    Rant over, just a bit annoyed at spending £x00 on your telly, then being forced to spend another £50 on your dongle which maybe works, just not out of the box.

    Go figure...
    Turn off your firewall on the router. Double check that you're using upper or lower case on your WEP key, make sure all your videos on your laptop default to play with Windows Media Player. Also make sure you've installed Samsung PC Share Manager - available for download
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