We explain what you can try if your Smart TV is running slow, to delay its retirement and protect your savings before buying a new television.
If you’ve been noticing for some time that your smart TV is running a bit slow, you may already be noticing some pain in your pocket, thinking that it’s time to go out and buy a new Smart TV, with the cost that this entails. Of course, we already know that products have a certain obsolescence, and that if you’ve had your TV for many years, it’s likely that the passage of time has taken its toll on the TV.
However, if you don’t feel like spending money even though there are new models with more features or better visual quality, there are a few things you can try before reaching for your wallet.
Update the system
If for some reason you don’t have automatic updates enabled, or your TV has stopped checking for updates, you should go to Settings and try to force a system update. If it does not detect any, you could still search for the brand’s official website on the Internet and check if there is a higher version. It is possible that for some reason your TV is not downloading it, but you can do a manual installation. Downloading the system file to an external memory and connecting it to the TV should be enough in many cases to be able to install it ourselves. In any case, the installation process should be specified on the provider’s website.
If your TV is specifically Samsung, check out our specific article on how to update it.
Restart it regularly
Just like a computer or mobile phone, Smart TVs can accumulate background processes due to having several applications open. If you are using it very often, sometimes to watch DTT channels and other times to watch YouTube or play console games, it is possible that you have it almost always on and, when not, in a pause or standby mode. You should turn it off from time to time to avoid wasting more electricity, and also check if in its Settings menu there is a specific option to perform a restart and thus close all the apps or processes that it has running.
Delete apps you don’t use
It’s an obvious tip, but one that many people forget about. If you’ve been installing apps and downloading content on your TV, and you never delete anything, it could be that its storage capacity is on its last legs, which can worsen its performance. Simply review the installed apps and uninstall the ones you never use, and also delete the audiovisual content you’ve already watched and don’t need in the memory.
If you use apps like Kodi, you can review our article to learn how to clear its cache. On Android televisions, to clear the cache of all apps, we can follow these steps:
- We turn on the television with its remote control
- We access the settings or configuration section
- We look for the “Applications” section
- We open one by one the applications that we have
- We will see a series of sections: Storage, detention, permits…
- We choose the option “Clear cache”
Remove external devices
If you have many devices connected to the TV, such as consoles, USB sticks, SD cards, hard drives, players or anything else, perhaps the TV is spending too much time reading them all. Again, we recommend that you unplug any external devices that you do not use or need regularly.
Check your internet connection
Perhaps the problem lies in a poor Internet connection. It may seem that this is an internal problem with the television, but given that Smart TVs normally work connected to the network, if it is of poor quality, it may take much more time each time we open YouTube, Twitch, etc. Therefore, check that your WiFi reaches the TV with sufficient strength.
Do a restore
If none of the above works, before getting rid of the TV completely, give it another chance by resetting it to factory settings. All Smart TVs should include a button in their Settings section to perform this formatting. Make sure you have any data or content you don’t want to lose backed up, and then perform a factory reset to see if the impurities that were slowing down your TV are removed by this process. If this doesn’t work either, consider whether you should contact technical service or if, due to its age, it is not worth keeping the device. If your TV is Samsung, consult this article to learn how to reset.
