Step one: find out what your TV actually is
The label “smart TV” only ever described whether apps were built in, not picture quality, and a perfectly good panel can be completely useless as a smart TV. So check three things.
Native resolution.720p and 1080p sets should get the cheapest HD stick. 4K sets should get a 4K stick. There is no benefit to sending a 4K signal to a 1080p panel — it downscales and looks identical to a 1080p signal.
HDMI inputs: how many, and are any free?Older TVs often have one or two, and they may already be occupied by a DVD player and the cable box you are about to return. Reclaiming the cable box’s input is usually the answer, and it is a good reason to do the return step promptly.
Is there a USB port, and does it supply power when the TV is on?If yes, a stick can run from it with no second wall plug. If the stick restarts mid-stream, the port is not supplying enough current and you should move to the supplied wall adapter — this is the most common fault report in the category and it costs nothing to fix.
Step two: pick by resolution, not by price
On a 1080p TV, everything above the Fire TV Stick HD is spending money on output the panel cannot use. The interface, remote and app library are the same across the range, so there is no quality argument for the step up either. Buy the cheap one.
On a 4K TV, do the opposite: do not buy the HD model to save a few dollars, because it physically cannot send 4K and you will be watching an HD picture on a 4K screen forever. The Fire TV Stick 4K Select is the cheapest real 4K option, and the Roku Streaming Stick Plus is a few dollars more for a neutral home screen.
Why an older TV sometimes needs the box, not the stick
Two situations make a box the better buy on an old TV. The first is no usable USB power and a wall socket that is awkward to reach behind a wall-mounted set — a box sits on the shelf below with its own plug and no contortions. The second is an old TV in a room where you can reach a network cable: a box takes Ethernet, and a wired 4K stream removes buffering as a category rather than reducing it. The Roku Ultra is the pick for both cases.
What you gain over the TV’s built-in apps
If the TV does have apps and they are merely slow, a $16 to $20 stick is still usually the right purchase. Smart TV platforms stop receiving meaningful app updates years before the panel degrades, which means the apps you need will eventually simply stop working while the screen remains perfect. Replacing a $20 stick every few years is a far better deal than replacing a television — we make that case in full, with the picks for a set that already has apps, on best streaming device for a smart TV.
The second gain is consistency. One platform across every TV in the house means one remote layout and one set of logins, which matters a great deal when someone else in the household is trying to find something.
What a streaming device will not fix
It will not get you local channels.Your local ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX and PBS affiliates come over the air from an antenna, or from a paid live-TV service. A streaming stick has nothing to do with it. If you are setting up an old TV after cancelling cable, an antenna plus a channel scan is the other half of the job — see how to get local channels without cable.
It will not fix weak Wi-Fi.Old TVs tend to live in awkward rooms, and awkward rooms tend to have poor signal. A 4K stream needs about 25 Mbps per the FCC’s published figures and HD needs 5 to 8; if the room cannot deliver that, no stick can. The fix is in Wi-Fi coverage.
It will not improve the panel.A streaming stick sends a clean digital signal and that is all it can do. If the TV’s picture was mediocre before, it will be mediocre with better content on it.
If the TV has no HDMI at all
Pre-2007 sets with only component, composite or SCART connections cannot take any of these devices directly. HDMI-to-composite converters exist, they introduce lag and softness, and the total cost starts to approach a cheap modern television that will also use a tenth of the electricity. We would not recommend going down that road for a main TV. For a garage or workshop set where the picture genuinely does not matter, it is a defensible bit of make-do.
If the display is a projector rather than a television
Same problem, two extra wrinkles worth knowing before you buy. The best streaming stick for a projector covers both: a ceiling mount puts the stick in the worst Wi-Fi position in the house, and a projector often has no usable speakers, so the sound has to leave by a different route than the picture.
