This link, whilst from the US, suggests so Mat
The trouble is that it is - as Mat hints - pretty well impossible to buy a non-smart TV anyway. Modern TVs do a lot of processing on the picture. Most of this is not done using a CPU but dedicated video processing hardware but you still need a microprocessor to glue it together and make it tick. So companies just bundle it all together in one package to reduce costs with the result that youāve got everything for a smart TV whether you want it or not - so you might as well just sell it to the end user, itās not going to save you anything not to.
And everyone wants a smart TV anyway.
Your suggestion still works of course - once the TV does start to age and doesnāt get the apps updated by all means refresh it with an Amazon Fire stick or Kodi on an R-Pi (or Kodi running on the Fire stick if you are really hard core).
I.e. pretty much the only dumb TV you can buy these days is an old Smart TV that has got more bit rot than Krytenās spare head three.
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OK, at the risk of sounding dumb, what is a raspberry pi?
And I have both Amazon UK and France separate accounts with different country addresses so would I buy the UK fire stick or the French? (Bearing in mind my French is poor)
Itās a cheap basic computer.
@timmartin
I was interested in your success with Surfshark. I am normally resident in the UK but have a holiday home in France. I have an Asus router connected, by ethernet, to my Orange Livebox. I installed Surfshark on the Asus but (dispite lots of suggestions from support) have only had limited success streaming to a smart LG TV. Amazon, Netflix are fine. Iāve had limited sucess with All4, My 5 and BBC iPlayer but ITV Hub will only play the pre program adverts! It doesnāt report Iām in the UK just āOops something went wrong!ā The TV is set to UK and with UK time. Iāve tried the different Surfshark servers and also set the DNS servers they suggested on the Asus WAN tag.
Am I missing something?
Peter
@PeterE
I was interested in your post about the Raspberry pi. I am resident in the UK but have a house in France where I have been trying to set up a VPN (Surfshark) on an Asus router which is plugged into my Orange Livebox. Despite many suggestions for support I have had only limited success with some streaming services working, others intermittent and ITV Hub refusing to play anything except the pre-program adverts. (Really annoying as each time I test a suggested change I have to watch 5 mins of adverts before I get āOops something went wrongā). Could you please elaborate a little more on how you would use a Raspberry based in the UK to stream to a TV in France. Iād say I am only moderately āTech Savyā but donāt immediately see how this would work. (I have used Chrome Remote desk top to connect to PC in the UK is this on the same lines?) Thanks, Peter
Who is your ISP in the UK, what Internet connection technology do you have in France (ADSL, VDSL, Fibre or 4/5G?) and how techy are you?
In theUK I use a company called Airband. If youāve not heard of them they are based in Worchester originally supplying Microwave based internet in remote locations, subsidised by money the UK government clawed back from other providers. They have moved on and now provided me with a 100Mbps service with fibre to premises. In France we have fibre with Orange (SOSH) at 300Mbps. Iād say moderately techy although Iāve networking is certainly not a strength!!!
You mean Worcester I presume. Yes, Iāve heard of Airband, didnāt think that they were still going. IIRC they were going to use the Police HQ at Hindlip for their base kit originally but that was years ago (2001 time frame).
Do they have the option of a fixed IP address, what router are you using in the UK and do Airband allow you to use any router that you like?
Anyway, what Iām driving at is you might find it easier to run your own VPN rather than a commercial offering - it will be cheaper and wonāt stop working when the UK broadcasters have a mole-whacking session.
A fixed IP address is easiest, if not a router which supports a dynamic DNS scheme will work as well - as long as you get a āpublicā IP address and not one of the RFC 1918 āprivate network addressesā (starting 192.168, 17.16 to 17.31 or 10) (i.e you are not lumbered with Carrier Grade NAT).
You then need something which will run a VPN server - I use Microsoft PPTP - itās not something I would recommend otherwise as it is not especially secure but it is pretty lightweight and will run on a decent router.
Installing OpenWRT on the router is the easiest way to do this.
Sorry about the typo. Airband has gone from strength to strength based on the subsidy and how crap Open Reach are. Iāve been with them a few years but had problems with the microwave link down to tree growth and wet leaves!! They started the fibre network at the right time and so far so good. The seem a bit stretched now as the growth has been so rapid. The router is cnPilot R 190 but I believe you can change it to one of your own. I also think a static IP address is possible.
Just read your follow up post and although I just about understand about setting up a my own VPN in the UK (in principle at least). Iām not sure how that will help me running straming services on a smart TV in France.
As I said Iām pretty much out of my depth with networking but PPTP is an option on my UK router,
Here is the info to set up a raspberry pi as a VPN. I tried with a 1st gen pi initially since it was spare, and it was no good. I currently use a 4th gen pi. It can handle 4 connections streaming video comfortably.
Do not buy a pre-configured SD card, since I helped someone else, and it was a problem since it was a dated version of Raspbian. Install the latest version
https://www.pivpn.io
https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-create-a-vpn-server-with-raspberry-pi
I use the openvpn option for the vpn.
Then you need to have the external ISP IP address tracked since if they change the external IP address (eg when you reboot your router), you cannot contact the pi. I use No-IP. You can pay for the service or use the free service for which they send you a monthly email to remind you to login to keep the service active
https://www.slicethepi.co.uk/how-to-install-no-ip-on-raspberry-pi/
Then, to use the pi without monitor, it is easiest to activate the vncviewer, then you can login remotely via mobile or PC. I think it automatically takes care of the external IP address changes so if you are away and No-IP fails, then at least you can login.
Finally. I use this travel router. There are more expensive options available. It is perfect for all VPN setups, and you can even tether your mobile to it. The wifi signal is surprisingly strong, stronger than even the Orange Livebox we have at home. You can connect to any router either via ethernet cable or the wifi signal
https://www.amazon.co.uk/GL-iNet-GL-MT300N-V2-Converter-Pre-installed-Performance/dp/B073TSK26W
So, all smart TVs, streaming sticks are then connected to the travel router wifi signal which then directs the traffic via the VPN.
Happy to answer questions.
Edit : Sorry, I should say the pi should be based in UK connected wirelessly to your UK router (have never managed to get the wired option for the VPN working), and the travel router is based in France connected via ethernet to the Livebox. My system has run for a few years without any hitches, both in France and Belgium.
Wow, many thanks for such a comprehensive reply. Obviously Iāve not yet had time to study all the links but I think I pretty much get the principle (despite my lack of networking expertise!)
I have already installed an Asus router behind my Livebox and have very limited success with Surfshark VPN. I would expect (hope) the Asus to be comprable with you travel router.
The one question I do have is having set up the VPN on the Raspberry what settings do I need to have on the Asus router in France. Sorry if thatās a stupid question! Thanks again, Peter
OK, not one Iāve heard of - sadly not supported by OpenWRT.
That will be a PPTP client.
The idea is to set up a VPN server on your UK internet, then connect in from France.
The advantage is that iPlayer (or whatever/whoever) sees your normal log-in, from your normal IP address. No-one else is using that IP address and if the BBC look it up they will just see that it it belongs to a regular, if small, UK ISP - not a VPN provider.
The result is that it isnāt going to be blocked.
You donāt have to read the rest of the post, it explains a bit of network stuff. Probably a bit rambly, for which I apologise.
The slight catch is that most ISPs do not make it easy to run servers. For the most part this is not exactly deliberate but as a result of a bit of technology called NAT.
NAT stands for āNetwork Address Translationā and it is a solution to the fact that IP version 4 (IPv4) has only 2^32 (or just over 4 billion) addresses - this isnāt enough on a planet with 8 billion people, even where barely half have access to the Internet because there are more devices than people.
One solution to this is āIPv6ā (version 6, donāt ask what happened to version 5) which is a separate conversation.
The other solution is NAT - this means your router gets a ārealā IP address and however many devices you have in your house get āprivateā IP addresses. They can connect out to the Internet - when they do so the router makes it look as though the connection is coming from it, then remembers where to send the data when it comes back.
Itās a bit like a company with its own small telephone system and numbered extensions which can call each other, and get an external line when they need.
However, an incoming call can only go to the company telephone number, thereās no way to directly reach an extension - in the same way your router does not automatically know what to do with an incoming connection.
However you can tell it - this is a process called āport mappingā or āport forwardingā - your cnPilot R 190 can do that if you want to use the RPi VPN setup described above but you can save a separate bit of kit in the network if you run the VPN server on the router itself.
The other problem with running your own server is that most ISPs donāt promise that the IP address that they give to your router will stay the same. Thatās all that a āstaticā address is, one which doesnāt change, but not all ISPs will give you one, or they will charge you for it.
Having an IP address which can change is much the same as having a phone number which changes once a week - it can be difficult to know what number to call when ādialling inā - however there are services where each time your router is given a new IP address it can update a DNS server online so that you can use a fixed name, rather than IP address to know how to reach your server.
Given that you donāt have a router which can have OpenWRT installed easily the RPi approach should be the easiest because a new RPi should be cheaper than a new router, however the problem is that the chip shortage is making them harder to find than henās teeth at the moment - certainly for their RRP, RPi 4ās are going at about Ā£150 on eBay, assuming you can find them in the first place.
If you can get hold of a router which can have OpenWRT installed you can run the VPN server on the router itself, the advantage being, as I said, one less piece of kit. The disadvantage is you have to buy a new router though thatās maybe not that big a disadvantage if you need to buy new kit in the form of an RPi anyway.
Iām pretty sure OpenWRT has an OpenVPN server available but, as I said, for this I prefer PPTP because it is much more lightweight, and tends to be supported by commercial routers such as the Asus you have in France without modification.
Thanks for taking the time with such a detailed explaination. He comes a question thatās probably sounds pretty stupid to you; having set up a VPN here in the UK , either on a new router or a RPi how do I set my Asus in France to connect to it. I am aware with the Surfshark VPN I have that I download a file for the location I am connecting to either in TCP or UDP format and install from these files on the router (easy even for me). When I had problems Surfshark suggested different DNS servers too; helped but didnāt completely fix the problems. Presumably automatic DNS would be OK but I would need a configuration file to point to my VPN. Is that correct? How do I generate that file?
What Asus model?
Asus RT-AX56U
That seems to support OpenVPN and PPTP as both server and client.
A pair of them, one in the UK and one in France might well do you nicely.
Thanks again. I have just read a couple of Asus articles on setting up a OpenVPN and PPTP server on the router and I have become a lot clearer on how to proceed.