For about as long as televisions have existed, they’ve most frequently found homes in the living room, serving as a communal source of entertainment for the whole family. This is still true in the age of smart TVs, but advancements in TV tech, installation techniques, and TV size variability mean that the living room is far from a screen’s only domain. If you’ve got a spare smart TV laying around, it could find its place in any number of spaces, from the backyard to the bathroom.
Smart TVs have allowed for a greater degree of compartmentalization in television design. Where before the idea of a bulky CRT set with a VCR in a smaller room would be inconceivable, smaller smart TVs can now be installed just about anywhere, whether mounted on a wall or propped up with a universal stand.
With every TV in your home sharing credentials for your streaming apps, you could conceivably watch your favorite show as you walk from one room to another in a continuous stream of entertainment, as well as receive helpful information like cooking tips and assembly tutorials in the kitchen and garage, respectively, where they’re most needed.
In the bedroom
If the living room is the most common location for a TV, smart or otherwise, the bedroom is the second-most common. It’s a fairly common ritual for working adults to wind down at the end of a long day with a favorite program from the comfort of their bed, and if that program comes from a streaming service, all the better. After all, you don’t need to worry about falling asleep and missing anything when you can just pause and rewind.
As for the precise means of installing a TV in a bedroom, any method you use to install one in the living room would work, including mounting it on the wall or placing it on a stand on the far side of the room.
Just remember not to mount the TV too high on the wall; you want the TV to be roughly at your usual eyeline so you don’t have to crane your neck up or down. Since you’ll be watching with your head on a pillow, that eyeline may be different, so take measurements beforehand. Besides the typical avenues, you can also get a little more ambitious, like building a custom casing for the TV that pops out at the foot of your bed.
In the backyard
A smart TV can serve as an excellent tool for entertaining guests, like hosting watch parties for new movies or gatherings for sporting events. However, keeping your TV exclusively in the living room can limit how many people can actually sit down and watch. If you need a larger space for your smart TV to really shine, consider taking it out into your backyard, where there’s space aplenty.
A smart TV can be mounted in a variety of outdoor settings, whether on the mantle of an outdoor fireplace, under the shade of a pergola structure, or on the wall of your patio. You could even swap to a smart projector and project your favorite shows directly onto the wall of your home.
You just need to make sure that the TV is in a spot where it isn’t directly exposed to the elements, or can be easily taken down if you need to store it, as well as have its wires protected. If you don’t have a backyard, that’s fine; all kinds of outdoor settings can house a smart TV. If all you have is a balcony connected to your apartment, that will work too, so long as the TV is appropriately sized for the smaller space.
In the garage
The garage is one of the more adaptable spaces in any home. While a garage’s primary purpose may be housing your car, if it’s sufficiently spacious, you can add all kinds of amenities, such as a workshop or personal gym. Whatever it is you’re planning to do with your garage, a smart TV could slot very easily into the equation.
Assuming you’re not using this hypothetical smart TV for entertaining purposes, you don’t need to worry as much about the aesthetics of installation. Just mount it on a wall above a power outlet, and you’re good to go. As for what, precisely, you can do with that smart TV, that depends on what you’re doing with the rest of the garage.
For example, if you’re using your garage as a workshop, a smart TV could display helpful tutorials for hobby assembly or machine testing, as well as serve as a monitor for running diagnostics on your car’s engine. If you’re using your garage as a gym, the smart TV could display exercise programs, or just stream your favorite show to occupy you while you’re on the treadmill.
In the bathroom
The bathroom may not be the first place you’d think to put a smart TV, as depending on your particular habits, you may not spend enough time in there for a smart TV to have any practical application. However, not only can a smart TV actually be a great addition to a bathroom, but with a little creativity, it could actually be quite the fanciful decoration, perfect for tying together a bathroom’s overall vibe.
The most important thing to remember when installing a smart TV in a bathroom is waterproofing. Obviously, there’s a lot of ambient moisture there, which can be hazardous to a cheap TV. Either the TV itself should be wholly waterproof, or it should be mounted in a waterproof frame.
Additionally, when mounting a TV, you may want to place it somewhere far from a sitting body of water like a bathtub, avoiding electrocution worries. Once you’ve got a bathroom TV setup, you can use it to watch your news in the morning while brushing your teeth, or enjoy your favorite show while lounging in the bathtub. Just remember not to soak for too long while enjoying the atmosphere.
In the kitchen
In a similar vein to a garage workshop, the kitchen can be one of your home’s busiest rooms. Depending on how in-depth you like to get with cooking, there can be a lot of moving parts in a kitchen, which can make it annoying to be constantly checking your phone or running to your computer to check recipes.
Having a smart TV in your kitchen can give you convenient access to cooking tutorials, as well as provide mid-meal entertainment. Since you probably need the counter space in your kitchen for preparation purposes, it would be optimal to install your smart TV on the wall instead of leaving it free-standing.
This reduces the likelihood of accidentally knocking it off the counter while your hands are busy with prepwork or carrying utensils and ingredients. You should also ensure the TV is installed far away from appliances like the stove, as you don’t want its cables falling into heating elements.
