Summary
- Adding a streaming box to an old TV is a cost-effective way to add Bluetooth capability comapred to Bluetooth adapter prices.
- Smart streaming boxes offer more than just Bluetooth, enhancing an old TV’s functionality and turning it into a modern smart TV.
- Bluetooth delay isn’t much of an issue, even with older streaming boxes.
If, like me, you have an old TV without Bluetooth built in, you might wonder what the best way is to add this feature. I was stuck in the same situation, and surprisingly my conclusion was to add an entire streaming box to the setup.
My Old 4K TV Has No Bluetooth
I still have the first 4K TV we ever bought. It’s a middle-of-the-road 2016 Samsung smart TV that has everything you expect a smart TV to have, except Bluetooth. We’ve bumped this down to a bar-area TV, where we put on some background music when having people over.
Lately however, I’d been thinking how nice it would be to have the option to watch some shows on this TV with headphones while chilling on the couch in that room, except the TV has no Bluetooth.
A Good Bluetooth Adapter Is Surprisingly Pricey Compared to a Streaming Box
I started trawling sites like Amazon to see whether there were any good TV Bluetooth adapter options. These devices connect to one of the audio outputs on your TV, and then transmit that audio to a device like Bluetooth headphones.
There are very cheap examples of these devices, but they aren’t meant for use with a video device like a TV. Instead, the idea is to turn something like a turntable, CD player, or car radio into something capable of sending Bluetooth sound. With these devices, latency doesn’t matter much because the audio doesn’t have to be in sync with anything.
This means we need an adapter featuring low-latency Bluetooth, and it has to have the right hardware to hook up to your TV. I was surprised to realize that my old Smart TV doesn’t have a headphone jack, so I would have to use an adapter that would accept optical audio, RCA out, or HDMI ARC or eARC.
Looking at specialized TV Bluetooth adapters that would do the job, it seems like I would be spending $40-$50. However, I already had a spare Android Xiaomi streaming box lying around from when I upgraded to an Apple TV and that already has Bluetooth. Even if I didn’t happen to have one, it’s only about $60, and offers so much more than just Bluetooth.
My Old TV’s Smart Functions Suck Now Anyway
The thing is, if you have an old smart TV without Bluetooth, it probably doesn’t have good software anymore, or it’s not running very well at that point. This is why I’m one of the people who advocate for “dumb” TVs, because TVs are devices that we use for such long periods of time that any computer smart app-related hardware inside will likely be outdated long before the TV is no longer useful. I have a 2023 model LG OLED, and even there I never use the internal smart features, opting for an Apple TV instead.
So, by adding a smart streaming box to my old TV, I suddenly turned it into a modern smart TV in one fell swoop. Bluetooth was by far not the only thing this otherwise perfectly functional 4K TV was lacking.
There’s (Maybe) an Audio Delay Advantage
When I was testing this out using my Sony WH1000XM4 headphones, I was expecting noticeable sync issues due to Bluetooth delay. Surprisingly, it turned out that the little Xiaomi was doing a good job despite only having Bluetooth 4, which has more latency than the latest version of the technology.
What I think is happening here is that the processing time of the HDMI video signal from the box is added a few milliseconds of delay before the image is displayed on-screen. Meanwhile, the Bluetooth audio stream is going directly from the streaming box to my headphones. So, given the slight latency involved in processing the video, it seems to help tighten up the sync. Of course, if you use a more modern streaming box with lower Bluetooth latency, this is a non-issue either way.
My Old TV Has New Life
While we’ve been putting that old TV to occasional use, I now actually have an incentive to use it because I now have the option to watch it without disturbing anyone in the next room. It’s also a great solution for guests staying over at my house to have their own TV if they want one. Most people have Bluetooth headphones these days, after all.
While a dedicated Bluetooth adapter might be the right choice in some cases, I really think anyone looking to add Bluetooth to an old TV today should probably go one step further, spend a few more dollars, and hook up a half decent streaming box instead. Especially if you happen to have one lying around. It might save you from spending additional money!