Naturally, you have to start with a decent internet in your house. We have been quite satisfied with the SkyTek services. Even though its only 6 MBs they don’t limit how much data we use. That’s a huge deal for only $40/month! You may be able to get a faster speed from other services like AT&T but pay attention to how much data they give you each month. It can get really expensive fast when your grandkids visit and use up your data plan. 

 

This is actually the most fun solution for TV and you can enjoy a lot for not that much money. Even though the Over the Air solution is basically free, you don’t have to climb on the roof to place the antenna with this solution.

 

To start you need an internet streaming box. My favorite is the Roku because you can put many free apps on it for all kinds of TV channels and movies. The other good choice is the Amazon Fire Stick. Both of them connect to your internet through the wireless system so they can be anywhere in the house and no running wires all over. These units are really easy to connect to the wireless network and setup and have great support with them.

 

For this article lets focus on the Roku. There are a number of units you can choose that cover a range of prices. You get additional features and increased loading speed as the price increases. The box I like best is the Premiere model with a good balance of speed, features, and cost. You can buy these anywhere from Walmart to online. So do shop around.  Even some of the new TVs have the Roku built into them!

 

Here is the unit I like the best: https://www.roku.com/products/roku-premiere

 

OK stop a moment and look at the TV you want to hook up to this. You may have an older TV that does not have a connector that these Rokus and other internet TV boxes use. You will find the easiest connection if you have an HDMI connector on your TV. This does not mean you cant use an older TV but you will need a converter box to connect the HDMI cable. I can offer advice on what to get if you write to me.

 

Now that you have installed this nice little box on your TV so what can you do with it. When you install the Roku you setup an account with them. There is no cost for this at all. You can pick out apps and channels through the Roku box or login into their web site and pick channels to add to your unit. One of the channels I chose was to find a news channel in Atlanta that streams the TV news from there. With so many of us coming from Florida you will want to find a local news channel from your florida home to keep up with what is going on there. Again there is not a cost for channels like these. Check out what channels and apps you can choose from here: https://www.roku.com/whats-on Some channels have a fee associated with them but many are free.

 

The channel/apps that Karen and I enjoy the most are Sling TV and Netflix. Start with Sling TV. Remember the 5-6 channels you watched for crazy money on DirecTV? How about getting those and 20 more for $20/month? Go read about Sling here: https://www.sling.com You just setup an account, download the app to your Roku, and you have all you favorite TV channels!  The really nice thing is that you can place Rokus and Amazon Fire Sticks on every TV in your house and you can use the same account on all of them and not pay any more than the one $20 fee per month! There is a plus if you have a tablet. Sling works on that too so you can watch you favorite channel while hanging on the porch.

 

We also enjoy binge watching TV shows and finding our favorite movie. For that we also loaded the Netflix app on the Roku and subscribed to a Netflix account. This adds another fee of as low as $8 a month. I like the $10 one so I can use the same account on multiple Rokus in the house. Imagine that Karen and I don’t always want to watch the same movies together all the time?  Head over to the Netflix site to learn more about the subscription plans and movies you can enjoy here: https://www.netflix.com/#this-is-netflix

 

There is so much available online through these streaming boxes now it seems crazy to keep paying DirecTV for 800 channels we don’t watch. Even with the subscriptions for Netflix and Sling we are easily saving $100 a month and have exactly the channels we always watched. I don’t think the TV knows any other channel other than HGTV though for some reason ? :)