How to Outsmart Your Hotel Room TV and Use Its HDMI Ports for Anything You Want
Hotels can be stingy about what guests are allowed to do with their televisions. For example, if you try to connect your device to the TV in your room to watch your own content, chances are nothing will happen. Hotel TVs typically connect to external devices that monitor TV activity in your hotel room and control which channels, apps and TV features guests can use. These boxes prevent you from using the HDMI ports, but they can be easily bypassed.
Twitter user Deviant Ollam has come across a pretty brilliant solution that allows you to turn your hotel’s locked TV into a boring old regular TV, and then use its HDMI ports for whatever you want.
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See if there is a data cable connected to the back or side of the TV in your room. The port resembles a telephone jack or a small Ethernet cable jack, and the cable should be connected to a nearby breakout box.
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(Carefully) pull out the cable. They usually have a small and very fragile plastic tab that you need to hold down to remove. Make sure you don’t damage it as you will need to plug it back in before you leave.
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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, in some cases, damage the TV remote control. However, you will still be able to use the buttons on the TV to switch inputs and adjust the volume.