I see many preferring using ethernet for their TVs and streaming boxes, like it's a deal breaker if they don't have them. My wifi gives me 100% of my internet capacity (~125mbit) and I don't have any problems that I'm aware of. Is there a difference in loading time with wifi or something like that?
I can understand the desire to connect gaming PC or a console over Ethernet, cause every millisecond of ping and/or instability counts. I see no good reason to insist on Ethernet connection for a TV streaming box.
Gonna follow this post cause i am kinda wondering myself why people insist on it.
Personally i see one big pro for WiFi in this case - not having to run an Ethernet cable to it.
My use of ethernet comes from what I do inside my network, 4k remux playback, game streaming from my PC. On devices that only do streaming or lower bitrate local playback I haven't had any issues being wifi only. So my Nvidia Shields which are my workhourses are all ethernet. CCwGTV is also ethernet. Fire TV Stick Max, Roku Stick 4k, wifi since not much are required of them outside of streaming.
No matter the use case: If I have ethernet available that´s what I use. If not, then WiFi 6 it is.
Gaming on wifi should be prohibited :D
Ethernet on Android TV because there're several devices connected to wi-fi
It depends on what you do with the device. Ethernet is much more stable
I find even good WiFi drops out every so often.
Maybe if your WiFi is already crowded?
Hardwired is always the way to go
Because wifi can't be as fast as Ethernet over reasonable household distances including multi story.
Faster wifi speeds require the use of a bunch of channels, you don't have these negotiated and ready to go at all times. They ramp up over a few seconds as you saturate your connection.
So I find that streaming on ethernet is full quality immediately but wifi boxes will start off standard def and go up to full quality after a few seconds
Wifi stability isn't comparable to ethernet, wifi is affected by all kinds of signals and interferences.
If you're in an area with not too many WiFi networks from the neighbours, and you have a good home setup, then WiFi is perfectly fine.
Most of the time I've seen WiFi issues being caused by the person sticking with the ISP supplied router (which most of the time is cheap rubbish), or they have the router tucked away in a small cupboard in the corner of their home. In other cases, they live in a very dense urban area, so they have a lot of their neighbour's WiFi networks overlapping with theirs. The move from 2.4GHz to 5GHz can help with this, but 5GHz can't penetrate walls as well as 2.4GHz so the router needs to be in a more central location.
Unless you’re using your streaming box for videogame streaming, no. If your WiFi works well there’s no reason to worry about it. WiFi does have higher latency, but a good WiFi signal will still have very low latency and streaming video is extremely tolerant of latency anyway since it uses buffering. All it really needs is throughput.
It's harder to eavesdrop on CAT-6.
If your WiFi is good, then the main reason is to not starve other devices. Every device you have on Ethernet means 1 fewer device on your WiFi so your WiFi-only devices perform better.
This also helps your neighbors and (usually) reduces power consumption overall on your network so you save a tiny amount of money -- depending on how much you spend on ethernet cables and switches you might not really save anything though of course.
Depends on what you are streaming. Though I have run tests and found pretty comparable ping times and throughput between my wifi and cabled, some streaming can suffer.
My TV is an android TV, so I have the steam link app on it and stream games to my TV. it suffer some packet loss and signal degradation periodically, which is really bad for gaming streaming, which has very little buffering. Wired, on the other hand, never had these issues.
For other streaming, even 4k, I don't really have any issues with wireless. Since it isn't instant streaming, it can be buffered, which smooths out the hiccups that happen here and there on wireless. But it is still a good idea to use wired for the TV anyhow, because it will keep your wireless band less crowded for other devices to operate at peak speed.
I have my TV and PS4 Pro connected to a gigaswitch with cat6 cables, the switch is then hooked up to the fiberoptic router with cat6. Probably overkill, but I never notice lag, and it keeps the wifi bandwith open for other things.
Use Ethernet if Wi-Fi gives you a problem
Ethernet is better for gaming, fastest ping. All other devices that don’t really need the fastest ping can go perfectly on wifi, especially the new ax standard.
As others have kinda already covered - there's a lot of variables. A reliable and fast wifi connection can be just as good as a hardwired connection.
Personally, my fibre connection is 1000mbits. So my server, main PC and gaming consoles etc that have large files to download all get an Ethernet connection.
Our TVs etc however all use WIFI on the 5GHz band where able to get fast speeds for streaming and so forth.
Everyone's case is different, but if it's working for you there is no need to change
I know this is a month old, but what about using 5ghz AC wireless where I get 200-300mbps from my Android TV device over wireless.
Would a micro USB Ethernet adapter be any faster or more reliable? Walmart Onn TV 4k, so I'm assuming an Ethernet adapter might be limited by the USB port bandwidth.
Ethernet is always more reliable, but for me the main draw is if my internet ever goes out I can still watch stuff on my Plex server locally since almost all my devices are connected via ethernet where possible.
The latency is lower.