Groovin on a Smart TV

Well wondering if anyone has utilize a Smart TV with Groov yet, and if there was any issues with the browser. Since our IT is corporate controlled, I keep them in the dark about most of our Controls stuff to keep them from screwing it up. When I set up Groov on our browsers (Firefox and Chrome, can’t use IE IT won’t let us update past IE9) I have to add exceptions for the certificate, then no issue.
Is the TV browser going to be an issue?

Thanks

We’ve had many folks use a Smart TV + groov no problem. Of course, navigating w/the TVs remote, etc. can be a bit clunky and tedious, depending on the TV and the remote. I know some people have hooked up a small/cheap Android device w/HDMI so as to make that power-up process faster. (Some of those little Android devices have gotten so cheap!)

I’ve even used an also-cheap chromecast device to essentially use that TV as a giant monitor for my laptop. Lots of options depending on which IT and/or lame TV/remote control issues you most want to avoid!

If you’re shopping for one and want to try out groov to see how it looks on whatever browser they have on the TV, don’t forget about http[B]s[/B]://demo.groov.com - just log in with
username: trial
password: opto22
and load groov on all the giant TVs at your local TV retailer! (If you did that and send us a picture of it, I’d happily send you lots of fun groov goodies!) :cool:

-OptoMary

Could we connect a smart TV to the Groov directly with a crossover cable?

Yes! In fact you don’t even need a crossover cable (many/most modern Ethernet devices these days can sort that out for you).

I’d recommend trying the built-in browser on our demo (as mentioned above) because that’s probably the biggest wildcard.

But here’s what I did to hook the Samsung near me directly to my groov Box using a regular Ethernet cable, and some comments along the way:

  1. Found the network settings of the TV. Sadly, it apparently does EITHER wired OR wireless, so when I was connected to the groov Box directly, I couldn’t get on the internet. Boo hoo. Don’t know if other smart TVs are smarter. The default IP of the TV was 169.254.138.98 (subnet 255.255.0.0), so…

  2. Set ETH1 IP on my groov Box to be one higher than that 169.254.138.99 (same subnet).

  3. Found the built-in browser on the TV (pressed the “MORE” button on the remote, wished I had “MORE” button in other parts of my life, but I digress). Typed in the address (don’t forget the https!) with that clunky TV remote, before I noticed someone had conveniently plugged a nice keyboard and mouse into the TV via USB. Hope your TV has that option too.

When the scary security certificate warning popped up (because I’ve not yet installed a certificate on that box), I clicked “Access anyway” but the address disappeared. Boo hoo again. Hoping your smart TV is smarter on that too. Luckily, when I re-entered the URL, all was good.

Of course, TVs vary widely so the usual disclaimers apply. I hope you’ll share your experience here!

Here’s photos of the scary message + groov Box over direct connection, then demo.groov.com over wireless via the internet:



Hope that helps!
-OptoMary

1 Like

p.s. Welcome to the OptoForums, mfox! Thanks for the excellent question.

Thank you for the information, that is perfect! We want to drive a monitor or TV directly with a non-PC device to show plant status. This would replace an old fashioned status board (with lights and painted graphics). A direct connection would allow us to avoid the network to maintain security, and the groov appliance is one less PC to maintain.

Having only the one network choice for the TV would further lock it down.

Anyone using an Intel NUC or or compute stick for groov?

As mentioned on this thread:

We have a few customers using a Raspberry Pi + TV with lame browser, but that’s a bit too wimpy for some applications…

Hi Mary ,
I’m using an intel stick, it’s a Bostick1aw32sc. It works great. I’ve got it plugged it into a 15" touchscreen monitor, runs office , I’ve got a couple of super trend charts and a couple of Pac Display pages. No problems. Love the price.

1 Like

Hi everyone,

I am trying to setup our existing groov windows server solution to be displayed onto our office TV. I seem to have hit an issue as the page starts to load but I cannot get to the login screen. I have loaded the groov demo page up just fine. I do get the normals this page is not safe pop up but I just have to hit proceed.IMG_0813
Please see the image below. Has anyone come across this issue before? Can someone help me figure this one out.

Thank you for your replies in advance.

That looks like it loaded the main HTML for the page, and some of the CSS, but is failing to load the JavaScript (and logo, oddly). It’s hard to say beyond that what’s going on. If you load up groov in a desktop browser and take a look at the logs, is there anything interesting?

Nothing interesting when loading on the desktop. Everything is in order and as I said when connecting to the demo groov system on the TV it loads up just fine.

What about in the logs? For the time stamp when it was trying to load into the TV?
So look at the logs on the PC while hitting refresh on the tv.

Thats all I can see in the logs.

Just so I’m clear what we’re talking about: is this a web browser built into the TV, or a TV plugged into a computer running a standard browser?

I am using the TV web browser to load our groov up.

There is no computer plugged into the TV.

This is caused by the built-in browser in TV. I’ve also met this kind of problem.:grinning:
It’s normal for customers to switch to a new smart TV.

@Zhhpei

This was my thought as well but I then tried to load the groov demo page which worked just fine so I would not think it is the built in browser since that worked by my groov page didnt load

demo.groov.com is running version 4.1a.
You seem to be running 4.0. (Almost a year out of date).
Might be worth trying to upgrade yours to the latest version.

My guess would be: demo.groov.com is using an SSL certificate signed by a well known authority, and your groov is using the default, self-signed certificate. (I’m assuming that’s the case since you said you had to skip the “This page is not safe” warning.)

Your TV isn’t handling the self-signed certificate well. :-/

Thank you for the responses. Jonathan you are right it does come up with the this page is not safe screen. Is there any way around this?