Ive never looked into it but how viable is a raspberry pi zero for this? I mean, is the hardware powerful enough and is there software available for easy TV use? Potentially paired with an android bluetooth remote.
this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
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I don't have personal experience trying to do that specifically but the zero is a really underpowered device that's sluggish even updating itself. I've tried streaming games through a pi 4 which is way more powerful and even it struggled with the video being choppy, though it is more intensive than just streaming video by itself.
You'd probably have good luck with a pi 4 or 5, though, and they aren't very big either.
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Tried this with streaming from the cable box, and it did not work really well. Upgraded to a Pi 4, which now runs a full Kodi MediaCenter and is connected via Gigabit Ethernet to the cablebox. I use a Logitech harmony with an IR USB dongle, which was a bit clunky to get to work because it's old, there's probably much easier Bluetooth solutions available, or you can just use your phone as remote. All in all I fiddled around an afternoon to get the whole thing to work, there's tons of how tos on the web.
I remember when Roku was the big cost saving alternative to TV. I remember when it was the all in one streaming aggregator.
Meh, I don't even watch TV anyway
Oh god, and I was considering getting a Roku stick for my old dumb TV, glad I went for a Xiaomi box instead 🫣
Advertisements suck and no regular person would ever advocate for seeing more of them. Enshittification is also out of control and ad-free services you pay a subscription for are more and more sneaking in ads where they can. This combination of facts is why I am a deranged data hoarder with self-hosted solutions wherever possible.
I just really really hate ads. If I had a Roku and this change rolled out to me I'd probably flip.
I think I wouldn’t hate ads so much if they weren’t constantly bombarding us.
That plus the gross manipulation techniques they employ for me
Glad I never set up the smart features on my roku TV.
HTPC+PiHole 👍👍
Also if you're cool 🏴☠️
Roku is terrible anyways. They can't even accurately reproduce the colors.