How To Stream From Your Android Phone To Your Older TV

Thanks to technology advancements, we can now stream whatever we’re watching on our smartphone’s tiny screen to a bigger one, like the television in your home. And it should be an easy task after all. If you have an Android phone and a TV, you can do this, but with some additional equipment and guideline. There are three ways you can try.

1. Connect your Android phone to your TV using a USB to HDMI cable

These days, if you buy an HD TV, it always comes with an HDMI input port, which is the easiest way to connect it to your Android phone using a cable.

HDMI is the abbreviation of High-Definition Multimedia Interface, which is a standard for displaying videos on TVs as it supports videos with great quality viewed through this interface.

First and foremost, make sure that your Android handset features support for HDMI output, only a number of phones has the capability. Some popular phones supporting HDMI output include Samsung Galaxy Note 8 and S8, Huawei Mate 10 and 10+, Google Pixel 2, Asus Zenfone 3 Ultra, HTC U11 and U Ultra, LG G5, V20, V30 and V34, and leTV Le Max Pro as well as newer models of these phone lines.

Essentially, there are two kinds of HDMI output ports, USB-C which appears on most new smartphones, and Micro USB MHL ports.

MHL cables: Simply connect the phone to the cable then connect the TV with the other end of the cable.

USB-C cables: In case of smartphones with HDMI output through USB-C ports, the cable doesn’t always come along with the phone, meaning you have to buy one from the manufacturer or a third-party maker. Once you’ve got the cable, all left to do is connecting the phone to the cable and the cable to the TV.

2. Connect your Android phone to your TV wirelessly

As Wi-Fi is common these days, it’s easy to connect your phone to your TV wirelessly, provided that both devices are connected to the same network.

With Chromecast

Some smart TVs have features and internal hardware for connecting to Wi-Fi, but many do not. Google’s Chromecast is a dongle that when you connect to the HDMI port on your TV, the TV will be able to connect to the internet. It also allows your TV to stream information, images, videos, as well as for instructions from the phone to the TV.

As soon as you get a Chromecast dongle, connect your TV with it through the HDMI port. You also need to plug the Chrome cast with a power source.

Then, you just need to download the Google Home app, install and set up following the instructions to begin streaming your Android phone to your TV.

With Miracast

This is an older wireless screen standard which lets you connect your phone to your TV. Miracast can work with phones running on Android 4.2 and older, and many smart TVs support Miracast too.

First thing first, you need to check if both your phone and TV support it’, along with official documentation for this. Now, connect your phone and TV to the same Wi-Fi network. After that, turn on the feature on the phone by visiting Settings or tap on Cast in Quick Settings.

You will then see a list of Miracast-enables displays available which you can connect to as begin casting the phone screen too.

3. Connect your Android phone to your TV using an AV cable

If the two ways mentioned above don’t work, try this one. You can also apply this method on a CRT or a flat-screen TV without an HDMI input port. It’s worth noting that this method may not always work.

First, you need a phone with HDMI output feature; second, an HDMI output cable is a must, either MHL or USB-C. Third, prepare an HDMI-to-composite video converter to down-scale the high-definition output from the phone to an SD signal for displaying on the TV. And finally, you need an AV cable to connect the video converter and the TV.

Now, follow these steps. Firstly, connect the HDMI output cable to the phone and connect the other end of the cable to the converter device’s HDMI input port. Next, connect the converter to the TV using an AV cable. Make sure you’ve selected the AV input on the TV and check whether you can view video output on your phone on the TV or not.