Using a VPN on a smart TV that has no VPN app
Samsung Tizen and LG webOS televisions cannot install VPN apps, because neither platform exposes a tunnelling API to third parties. The workable routes are a VPN on the router, a travel router in front of the television, sharing a tunnel from a computer, or a streaming stick that does run apps.
4 min read
Most televisions sold as "smart" do not run Android. Samsung uses Tizen, LG uses webOS, and both are closed platforms whose app stores carry web-style apps with no access to system networking. There is no tunnelling API to call, so there can be no VPN app, and the several apps in those stores with VPN in the name are Smart DNS services that encrypt nothing.
That leaves four routes, and they are genuinely different in cost.
Route one: the router
Configure the tunnel on the router and every device behind it inherits it, television included.
- Best when you want everything covered with nothing installed anywhere.
- Costs throughput, because the router's CPU does the encryption for the whole house, and flexibility, because one exit country applies to everyone.
- Watch for a router with no VPN client support at all. Many ISP-supplied boxes have none, and firmware replacement is not always possible.
The router guide covers the WireGuard configuration and the MikroTik script.
Route two: a travel router in front of the television
A small second router runs the tunnel, and only the devices you attach to it are affected. The television joins the travel router's Wi-Fi instead of the house network.
- Best when you want one device tunnelled and the rest untouched, or you cannot change the main router.
- Costs the price of the hardware and a modest throughput ceiling on cheaper models.
- Watch for underpowered devices. A travel router with a slow CPU will cap a 4K stream even when the line is fast.
Route three: share a tunnel from a computer
A laptop with the VPN running can share its connection, and the television joins that instead.
- Best when it is temporary, such as a hotel.
- Costs having to leave a computer switched on and awake.
- Watch for the sharing side dropping when the laptop sleeps, which disconnects the television mid-stream with no obvious cause.
On macOS this is Internet Sharing in System Settings; on Windows it is the Mobile hotspot panel. Both need the tunnel to be up before sharing is enabled, and both usually need the tunnel client to allow LAN traffic.
Route four: put a device in front of the television that does run apps
The pragmatic answer. A Fire TV stick, an Android TV box or a Chromecast with Google TV costs less than a travel router, runs a real VPN app with a system-wide tunnel, and takes the television's own smart platform out of the picture entirely.
- Best when the television's built-in apps are not what you actually use.
- Costs an HDMI port and learning a second remote.
- Watch for nothing much. This is the route with the fewest surprises.
The Android TV and Fire TV guides cover both.
What Smart DNS does and does not do
The apps you will find in a Tizen or webOS store under a VPN-sounding name are almost always Smart DNS. That service answers your DNS lookups differently so certain hostnames resolve to a proxy in another country.
It is worth being exact about what that means. Smart DNS does not encrypt anything. Your network operator sees exactly what it saw before. It offers no protection on a shared connection, changes nothing about tracking, and is trivial to block. It is a redirection service, and calling it a VPN is marketing rather than a description.
Choosing between them
| Situation | Route |
|---|---|
| One television, everything else untouched | Streaming stick with a VPN app |
| Whole household, one country, set once | Router |
| Cannot change the router, want one device covered | Travel router |
| Travelling, temporary | Share from a laptop |
| Television's own apps are the ones you use | Router or travel router |
The last row is the deciding one. If you actually use the television's built-in apps rather than a stick's, the tunnel has to arrive over the network, because nothing can be installed on the set. Everyone else is better served by putting a device in front of it.
One thing none of these change
Routing a television through a server in another country changes the address its apps present. It does not change the country of the accounts signed in on it. A streaming account's region comes from the billing details held against it, and no exit address alters that. Anything sold on the promise that it does is describing behaviour that stopped working years ago.
