Your Smart TV is Slowing Down. Here’s How to Speed Up Backup.
Here are some things you can try if you’re looking to improve the speed and performance of your smart TV software:
1. Restart your smart TV fully. It seems silly to “Turn off your TV and then turn it back on,” since you may do that many times a day. But just like your phone or laptop, you can turn off your TV screen, but that’s not turning it off completely. Smart TVs continue to work, stay connected to the Internet and use background processes to stream the last apps you used. That means, unless you unplug your TV regularly, it’s probably not actually turned off for very long.
Most modern smart TVs allow you to initiate a hard reset from the system menu (usually under system or general settings). If you don’t get the reboot option, an easy solution is to simply unplug the TV from its power source and wait 10 to 15 minutes. This will force the TV to clear its RAM and force stop any running background processes. It’s like restarting your computer versus just waking it from sleep mode.
2. Uninstall unused applications. Generally, the more storage your TV has available, the smoother its performance. If you ever need to uninstall apps from your smartphone to make room for updates or new apps, you will see this process. Unlike your smartphone – designed from the ground up to have multiple apps – most smart TVs don’t have enough storage to keep updating a large number of apps.
Entry-level smart TVs may have as little storage as 2 gigabytes, while a standard smart TV has 3 GB or 4 GB, and more expensive TVs typically only have 6 GB to 8 GB. Compare that to smartphones, where even the cheapest models have more than 64 GB, or dedicated media streaming devices, where even the cheapest models have at least 4 GB — and many have 16 GB or 32 GB of storage. That’s why it’s a good idea to check the internal memory specifications of the TV before buying: If you can find one with at least 4 GB, its software will perform better in the long run.
On most smart TVs, the uninstall process requires simply going to an app on the home screen, long-pressing it, and selecting Remove or Uninstall.
3. Clear the cache. Once you’ve decided which apps you want to keep, it’s a good idea to clear any cached data that’s been hanging around. You can usually clear cached data from the network or application menu. Depending on the model of your TV, you may be able to clear all of its cached data at once, or you may have to go app by app. But don’t worry, clearing the cache memory won’t delete your passwords or network information.
4. Update your TV software. Most smart TVs, assuming they are connected to the Internet, automatically update their operating system when an update is released. But if you’ve turned off automatic updates or always keep your TV offline, you can manually prompt the TV to check for available software updates by navigating to the network menu.
5. Perform a full factory reset. This process completely resets your TV, and after that you will have to set it up again, as if you were using it for the first time, so it is a last resort. You can usually find this option in the system menu or general settings menu, and it’s usually at the bottom. This process not only removes all of your app data and any apps you’ve installed that weren’t preinstalled on the TV software, but it also resets your TV to the version of software it shipped with, meaning it will need to update again once the initial setup is complete.
