Viewing 12 posts - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)
  • Really simple telly
  • mattsccm
    Free Member

    My parents are in their 80’s and struggling with the telly. In the 45 years since we moved to their house trees on the hill side above have grown somewhat! Add to this, they face west with a hill about 1/4 mile to the south, a dirty great wall of a hill behind them to the east and much the same north. A normal aerial never worked. A booster improved things to only give one shadow.A satelite dish helped a bit but over the years that has need to be lifted. It is now on a 10 foot pole on top of the chimnet and rocks like hell and still gets a dire signal. It seems as if anything from an antennae is wasting time.
    Of couse we can go internet. However it is so bloody complicated. Just BBC iplayer requires about 4 different arrows and OK buttons which is pretty well beyond them. ITV is even worse. Home buttons, up and down rrows are all a bit tricky.
    What they need is the press button version of the old telly where you pushed a clicky knob in for channels 1 2 or 3
    Are they doomed to stuggle for the rest of their years or is there something easy out there?

    piemonster
    Full Member

    Would something like this help?

    https://shop.alzheimers.org.uk/helpful-products/handleeasy-universal-remote-control

    Not wanting to imply anything with that link, just thinking something from that field would provide a simple to use solution.

    piemonster
    Full Member

    This one looks like it an be set up for Virgin/Sky etc

    https://www.alzproducts.co.uk/flipper-big-button-remote-control

    nickjb
    Free Member

    What sort of booster did you use? An aerial mounted one is way better than one inside the house.

    mattsccm
    Free Member

    It’s not the remotes, although they don’t help. It’s the menus, options layers of info etc. All they want to do is switch on, find the telly on the channel they left it on and press a number for the next channel. Just getting to the iplayer is too much really. Let alone confusing things like home on the telly and BBc home, pushing a button pointing left to go to a channel menu etc.

    richmars
    Full Member

    Something they can talk to?

    mattsccm
    Free Member

    Twas an aerial mounted one. Just ended up with a shadow as well as a 10 foot pole on top of the chimney. Local aerial specialist ahve given up and recommend going via the internet which is so complicated.

    bassmandan
    Full Member

    Virgin cable not an option?

    MarkyG82
    Full Member

    If setup for them would a Google home and Chromecast work? “Hey Google play bbc1” should work I think.
    Maybe if you were really clever you could automate channels to buttons on a kind of remote.

    mattsccm
    Free Member

    Ta all. No cable within miles.
    I’ll look at chrome cast but if its like fire sticks or iplayer then not good.

    igm
    Full Member

    Some TVs have Alexa or similar built in, which “ought” to be really simple – ask for BBC1 and it goes and gets it for you.

    “Ought” to be – I come with built in IT skepticism.

    Might be worth asking a shop to demo that for you?

    doctorgnashoidz
    Free Member

    YouView does tv over the internet. It’s pretty simple, less painful to use than iplayer or itv hub.

    Comes packaged on some Android TVs or you can get it as a separate device.

    I think voice control would be a bad idea.

Viewing 12 posts - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)

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