How to connect smartphone to TV? 5 quick and easy ways

How to connect your smartphone to the TV? There are different ways to stream content from your phone to your TV based on the devices you have.

To connect smartphones to TVs it is possible to use cables, but not only. There are wireless devices such as Chromecast, DLNA and AirPlay or. Those who own a Smart TV can proceed with a simple projection of the screen without cables or additional devices.

The reasons for connecting your smartphone to your TV or Smart TV can be different. From screening our favorite streaming programs to the convenience of using your smartphone as a remote control. By connecting your phone to the TV you can, for example, watch photos and videos from your phone’s gallery on the TV screen.

Regardless of the type or model of TV you have, the ways of connecting and transmitting content from your phone to your TV are quite simple.

Let’s see 5 ways through which you can start streaming your content on the TV screen quickly and easily.

1) How to connect smartphone to Smart TV

Generally, a Smart TV has all the video and music streaming applications. So you don’t need to connect your smartphone to watch Netflix, Prime Video, or listen to music on Spotify.

However, even for those who own a Smart TV, the ability to broadcast from a smartphone is convenient for several reasons. First of all, casting your smartphone screen on your Smart TV is the only way to watch photos taken from your phone or videos from your television screen. Secondly, screencasting can be useful because it allows you to use your smartphone as a remote control.

You can connect your phone to your Smart TV without using cables or applications with Miracast technology. This is a transmission mode integrated into new generation Smart TVs and may have a different name depending on the Smart TV you have:

• Screen Share for LG TVs;

• AllShare for Samsung TVs;

• Screen Mirroring on Sony Bravia TVs;

• Wireless Screencast on Philips TVs.

Using this technology is very easy, just follow 2 simple steps:

Activate the “Projection” function

To activate the "Projection" function you need to go to the smartphone settings and tap on "Connection and Sharing". On some devices, the “Connection and Sharing” item may be replaced by “Connected devices” or “Devices and connections”. Once this is done, all you need to do is:

• tap on “Projection” and activate the functionality;

• wait for the smartphone to find the connectable devices;

• select the name of the Smart TV to which you want to broadcast.

Start projection

To project video content online, just open the video on your smartphone and select the small icon depicting a screen with side waves at the top right.

Instead, to project a photo or video present in the gallery, you need to tap on the “Share” option - as if you wanted to send the content via WhatsApp. Then, select the screen icon at the top right. Once the name of the Smart TV on which you want to broadcast appears, simply select it to start the projection.

If by following this procedure you are unable to project your content on the Smart TV, the problem is probably that the "Projection" app does not have the right permissions. To fix it, just:

• go to settings;

• select “App” and then “App Management”;

• select the “Projection” app and tap on “App Permissions”;

• tap on "Allow" for all the required permissions.

Once the projection has started, you can directly use your smartphone to freeze and restart the contents. Meanwhile, the smartphone can be used normally without the connection dropping.

As anticipated, connecting the telephone and TV is also possible without Smart TV. Many other ways allow us to show the contents of the phone to the TV. Again, these are quick and easy procedures which, however, in most cases require the purchase of additional devices such as Chromecast, cables, or adapters.

Let’s see below how to connect the phone to the non-Smart TV.

2) Connect phone and TV with Chromecast

The Chromecast is a Google device that allows you to project content from your phone to any type of TV equipped with HDMI input.

This device uses Wi-Fi as its transmission medium. For your phone and TV to be connected, both devices must be connected to the same network. There are two types of Chromecast, the basic device which supports Full HD content, and the one with Google TV which supports 4K content and application installation.

To start using Chromecast you first need to have a Google account and a stable Wi-Fi connection. After that just follow these steps:

• insert the device into the HDMI input of the TV;

• download the Google Home app on your phone;

• select “Device”, “Add” and, finally, “New device”;

• follow the instructions provided on the TV screen.

The configuration is now successful. To start broadcasting your content, simply select it and tap on the screen with broadcast waves icon. This is positioned at the top right in the video contents and the "Share" section, for photos and videos in the phone gallery. In addition to content transmission, Chromecast also supports screen mirroring, i.e. the projection of the phone screen onto the TV.

3) How to connect phone and TV with cables

The cable for transmitting multimedia content to the TV is the HDMI cable. Smartphones, however, do not have HDMI or USB inputs. But there is a solution. To connect smartphones to TVs with an HDMI cable, you can use adapters.

These are necessary to connect the two devices and transmit content to any type of TV equipped with an HDM1 input.

How to connect your smartphone to the TV with an iPhone (iPhone 5 and up)? The appropriate adapter is Apple Lightning to Digital AV. This allows you to connect the two devices via the TV’s HDMI port and obtain images with a maximum resolution of 1080p.

4) How to connect phone and TV with DLNA

DLNA technology also works via the Wi-Fi network and is supported by most devices on the market. To use it, both devices must be connected to the same Wi-Fi network. DLNA is software, therefore there are no DLNA adapters for devices that do not support it.

To use this technology you need:

• check in the instruction booklet that the devices support DLNA,

• download a specific application such as DLNAServer or any other app for managing multimedia files. On PC, however, you will need to install software of the same type.

5) How to connect phone and TV with AirPlay

AirPlay is Apple’s wireless transmission system. It allows you to transmit multimedia content and mirror the screen. It is a device that connects to the TV and allows you to use various apps, and games and play streaming content.

To transmit content from iPhone to Smart TV AirPlay or Apple TV you need:

• make sure all devices are connected to the same wireless network;

• start playing content on your phone;

• tap on the screen icon with the triangle;

• select the “Apple TV” item from the menu that opens.

To mirror your screen, just open the "Control Center" and tap on the "Mirror screen" button and on the "Apple TV" item from the menu that appears.

Original article published on Money.it Italy 2023-12-13 18:24:00. Original title: Come collegare smartphone a TV? 5 modi semplici e veloci