How to Outsmart a Hotel Room TV and Use Its HDMI Ports for Anything
Hotels can skimp on what guests are allowed to do with their TVs. For example, if you try to connect your own device to the TV in your room to watch your own content, chances are good that nothing will happen. Hotel TVs are usually connected to external units that monitor the TV activity of your hotel room and control which channels, applications, and TV features guests can use. These boxes prevent you from using the HDMI ports, but they are easy to get around.
Twitter user Deviant Ollam stumbled upon a rather brilliant solution that allows you to turn a locked hotel TV into an old boring normal TV and then use its HDMI ports for just about anything.
- Pay attention to the data cable connected to the back or side of the TV in your room. The port resembles a telephone plug or a small Ethernet cable plug, and the cable must be connected to a junction box nearby.
- (Carefully) pull out the cable. They usually have a small, very fragile plastic tab that you need to hold in order to remove. Make sure you haven’t damaged it as you will need to plug it back in before you count.
- Turn your TV off and on again and you should now be able to use the HDMI input.
Ollam notes that this little trick can disconnect the remote from the TV in some cases. However, you can still use the buttons on the TV to switch inputs and adjust the volume.