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Mirroring via SmartThings App
Your TV has more tricks up its sleeve than you might realize. Many of Samsung’s smart TVs come with built-in features that can improve your streaming and gaming experience. Of the lot, these are my favorite features.
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Universal Guide
There are so many niche streaming services these days that it can be hard to keep track of all the content on these platforms. With platforms like Prime and Hulu, this isn’t a huge issue since most of the content is available on-demand. On the other hand, if you’ve subscribed to streaming platforms for live TV, it’s easy to miss a much-awaited show or event because you didn’t tune into the right platform at the right time.
Samsung’s Universal Guide solves this issue by organizing all the content in one place. This makes it easy to know what’s streaming without manually checking each app.
You can typically access the Universal Guide by pressing the Home button on the remote. You must set up a Samsung account and have steady internet connectivity to access this feature.
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Samsung TV Plus
If you subscribe to streaming platforms, you know just how expensive they’ve gotten in recent times. Of course, there are ways to cut streaming subscription costs, but not everyone wants to watch ads or share their accounts to save money. That’s one reason why I appreciate Samsung TV Plus, a built-in streaming service that comes with most Samsung TVs.
This service lets you watch over 100 live channels, including sports and news shows, without needing a separate subscription, additional device, or downloading. Best of all, you get all this at zero cost. Remember, though, that the library isn’t as extensive as Netflix and Prime, but there’s a variety of content that’s worth exploring.
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You’re not just limited to watching this content while at home on your Samsung TV. Downloading the Samsung TV Plus app will give you access to all the on-demand movies and shows, as well as live content, on your smartphone or tablet. You can download the Samsung TV Plus mobile app through the Play Store or Galaxy Store.
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Game Mode
A good number of people own gaming consoles. If you’re one of them, activate Game Mode on your Samsung smart TV. This setting typically improves your gaming experience by reducing latency and motion blur.
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If you have a new Samsung Smart TV, you’ll find that this setting automatically activates the first time you connect a gaming console to it. If you have an older TV or it was disabled at some point, you will have to turn it on manually. Either way, once enabled, you’ll get a better gaming experience.
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Mirroring via SmartThings App
If you want to share content directly from your Samsung phone to your Samsung smart TV, the SmartThings app can come in handy. This is especially useful if you don’t want to use external hardware like a Google Chromecast or HDMI cable to connect your devices.
As long as you have a Samsung smartphone with the SmartThings app, you can wirelessly broadcast the content from your phone to the television’s display by tapping the back of your phone against the TV. A gentle tap is all it takes to activate this feature. You can also use AirPlay to mirror content if you have an iPhone.
These are just some of the many features that I’ve stumbled upon while using my Samsung TV. A few other Samsung smart TV features worth checking out are the multiview functionality, which lets you watch different content sources at the same time, an ambient mode setting that helps your TV blend in with the surroundings (a huge perk given that lifestyle TVs are becoming more popular), and Bixby (Samsung’s voice assistant) for hands-free control over your TV.
