Snowbirding 2022: The Power Problem

I finally track down and solve an annoying battery power issue.

The problem first reared its ugly head at Pahranagat National Wildlife Refuge on Saturday night — the day after I’d left home. (I’d spent that first night at a campground in Idaho with a power hookup.) Nighttime temperatures were forecasted to be at 20°F or lower so, like anyone who values comfort, I stacked some extra blankets on my bed at nighttime and turned the heater on.

How It All Works

My RV’s heater is forced air propane. That means there’s a propane burner that heats the air and a battery powered fan that blows the air into the living space. So in order to have heat, you need propane and battery power.


My rig’s batteries in their compartment. The space is so limited that only a few different battery models will fit — so please don’t lecture me about 6v systems because I’ve already explored that option.

My RV has two 12v deep cycle marine/RV batteries on board. They are connected to the rig’s internal converter (which converts AC to DC power when I’m plugged into an external AC power source), a power connector to my truck (when the camper is on the truck and plugged into it), and my solar panel controller (which is attached to two 100-watt solar panels on the rig’s roof). That gives me three ways to keep those batteries charged: external power (if I’m plugged in), power from my truck (as I’m driving down the road), and solar power (during the day, which varies depending on how sunny it is).

My batteries showed fully charged — per the voltage reading on the solar controller — when solar power eased off late in the day. That was fine; that’s the way it’s supposed to be. The system is set up so that if I’m parked in a sunny place during the day, the batteries will fully charge before nightfall. I’m extremely conservative with my power use because, although I have a generator, I don’t like to run it.

Between sunset and the time I went to bed, power seemed to drain out of the batteries a bit more than I remembered it doing. Keep in mind, however, that I hadn’t been “dry camping” since the previous winter, so I really didn’t remember what kind of power drain I’d been experiencing. (The batteries were new; replaced in January.) I went to bed with the heat set low to just take the big chill out of the air.

The Problem Rears Its Head

I woke early and noticed that my refrigerator was showing an error code that meant it wasn’t getting enough power. My refrigerator runs on propane (when I’m not plugged into external power) but, like my heater, it requires a certain amount of DC power to operate its thermostat and interior light and who knows what else. When power drops below a certain level, the refrigerator shuts down and the error message appears.

I checked the solar charge controller. It read 10v. That was very bad.

I got up and turned everything off. And then I got back under the covers, which was pretty much the only way I’d stay warm until it was light enough for the solar panels to go to work or late enough for me to run my generator in a campground where other people might like to sleep past 5 AM.

I had a hell of a time getting the generator started later that morning in 18°F temperatures. I thought it was a problem with the generator itself but I think it was more the fact that the previous user — who was not me; when will I learn not to lend out my stuff? — ran it dry of fuel. Later, I managed to get fuel and get it running and everything was back to normal.

Or at least I thought it was. I figured that I’d just expected too much from the fully charged batteries the night before. Instead of running the heater all night, I’d leave it turned off the next night and turn it on in the morning to warm the place before I got out of bed. In the meantime, the batteries were charging fine in the bright sun of my campsite.


Here’s my usual generator setup. There’s an adapter that makes it possible to plug in my 30 amp RV cord to a standard 20 or 15 amp outlet.

But the next morning, when it was only slightly warmer than the morning before, the batteries were already dead — without me running the heat at all!

I waited as long as I could and then said, “F*ck this, I’m running the generator before I freeze my ass off.” And I started the generator at 6 AM. Fortunately, my closest neighbor had left the day before and my 2KW Honda is pretty quiet. Plugging the camper into the generator is pretty much the same as plugging it into any AC power source; I had power and the batteries would charge.

Plugging In, Then Trying Again

Meanwhile, winter weather — rain and wind in that part of Nevada — was moving in. I decided that what I needed was either a campsite with a power hookup or a campsite in a remote area where I could run my generator anytime I had to.


At Valley of Fire State Park. I’m not totally opposed to campground living; I just don’t really like it when I don’t need it.

I went to Valley of Fire State Park and enjoyed two nights plugged in at one of their campgrounds. Surely being plugged for more than 40 hours straight would fix the battery issues. But I had my doubts. I’d dry boondocking — that’s camping with no hookups — one more night before I tried to get the batteries replaced.

So I spent the night at Stewart Point on Lake Mead. I had a great campsite and I would have loved to spend more than one night there. But it was the same story in the morning — freezing cold with no battery power. I didn’t even bother running the generator. I made my coffee in a travel mug, loaded up my pups, and left the campground right around dawn.


Boondocking at Stewart Point. I could have stayed here a week if it weren’t for the power problems.

Tracking Down the Problem

That was Thursday.

I already had reservations at Willow Beach campground on the Colorado River for Sunday and Monday night. I changed them to that night. If I couldn’t fix the power problem, I’d need a power hookup again. I was tired of freezing my ass off in bed and very tired of seeing my pups shivering, even with their coats on, as they tried to sleep. I was starting to wonder whether I should just give up and go home. I was seriously sick and tired of dealing with the problem.

I headed in to Henderson, NV where there was a Camping World. Camping World is a chain of RV sales and service places that are usually quite large and well-stocked. I had already called them the day before to see if they could replace my batteries while I waited. I was not going to deal with a place that made an appointment two weeks from Tuesday.

Long story short: because the Interstate brand batteries were less than a year old, they were covered under warranty. But because Camping World didn’t sell that exact model, they wouldn’t swap them. I wound up going to the Interstate location in Las Vegas. All this time, I’m trying to get the folks who sold me the battery to email me a copy of the receipt as proof of purchase.

One of the Interstate techs came out and tested the batteries. By this time, the drive plus the sun had fully charged them. The first battery tested good. I started thinking about how I’d track down the power issue if the problem wasn’t the batteries. But the second battery tested bad. And the guy found the date code on the battery that proved its age so I didn’t need a receipt after all.

There was some trouble with how I was going to swap them. They didn’t do installations on RV batteries — just car batteries. And they wouldn’t give me the new battery unless I left the old one. And then they also were trying to sell me the replacement or even a replacement for the one that wasn’t bad. They gave me the number of a mobile installer — likely someone they get kickback from — but I also called Camping World. Camping World wanted $149 plus tax to swap the batteries.

Once again, I found myself saying, “F*ck that. I’ll do it myself.”


It’s the battery on the left that needed replacement. One terminal had just one fat cable while the other had two fat cables and three skinny cables. It was difficult getting them all back in place, but I managed.

I dug out my junky $49 Harbor Freight toolkit, which lives at the bottom of one of my outside storage compartments. I took a photo of the mass of wires I’d have to disconnect and then reconnect on the battery terminals. I disconnected the wires on the bad battery. And then I got the Interstate tech to take the bad battery out of the cabinet and lift the replacement battery up into its place. (I don’t think I could have lifted them myself; I tipped him $5.)

I got to work with a couple of wrenches and fastened all the wires where they needed to be. No sparks, no flames. I went inside my camper to look at various things that would indicate success or failure. The solar charge controller was registering properly, the fridge was on, the stereo’s clock was lit up. It all looked good.

I put everything away and left.

The Test

I had a celebratory lunch in Boulder City. It was more of a reward for dealing with everything I’d dealt with. Then my pups and I took a bike ride on the Historic Railroad Trail that starts at the Lake Mead Visitor Center and goes all the way to Hoover Dam. I put the bike and my pups’ trailer away and we headed down to Willow Beach.


Here I am, parked at a nice level site with a full hookup at Willow Beach. It’s a nice enough campground, but I think the price is outrageous. It’s half price for 65+ with the right paperwork so I have something to look forward to — in five years.

I considered not plugging in so I could test the system right then and there. But I was paying $57 for that campsite for one night and I’d be damned if I wasn’t going to use every single one of its features. So I enjoyed 30 amp power and “city” water and dumped the RVs tanks. I also had a good shower and did a load of laundry before leaving on Friday morning.

I’d decided that I’d test the system at Kingman Wash, a camping area about 3 miles from pavement on Lake Mead. I didn’t want to get any farther away from the Las Vegas area; if the problem wasn’t resolved, I’d need it troubleshooted and I stood a much better chance at finding an experienced RV repair person in a metro area than 100 miles south in some podunk town.

I drove down there, found an excellent camping area with just one other camper, parked on a high point overlooking the beach, pulled out my generator, and set it up. If I was going to need it, I wanted it all ready for me. I discovered that because the site was down in a canyon, I’d only have direct sunlight for about 6-1/2 hours a day — I was in shadows by 3 PM. But the batteries were charged when I went to bed.


I’m parked nearly dead center in this photo. Most of the vehicles by the water were for a SCUBA certification class that showed up during the day on Saturday and Sunday. You can see the afternoon shadow creeping toward my rig.

I left the heat off. It was warmer there than it had been at previous sites. In the morning, I still had 12.5v on the solar controller. I fired up the heat. And some lights. Everything worked fine.

The second night was the same.

For the third night, I got a little daring. I put the heat on before I went to bed. Again, set low to keep the chill out. It cycled on and off as needed all night. In the morning, I still had more than 12v of power.

I didn’t need to run my generator at all.

The problem was resolved.

Current Status

It’s Tuesday morning and I’m boondocking at Six Mile Cove on Lake Mohave. I set my generator up again before going to bed last night and left the heat on overnight. Power levels were fine in the morning, but it’s overcast today and I wanted to charge my laptop and a few other things so I ran the generator for about two hours. Now I’m just finishing up this blog post before a lunch break. This afternoon I’ll edit more video.


It’s a crappy day at Lake Mohave but it’s quiet and private, especially since my neighbors just “went into town” for a tire for their RV. (The closest town that might have a tire is Boulder City, which is about 90 minutes from here.)

The camping area is large, right on the lake, has garbage receptacles and pit toilets. It’s just me and a couple in a big fifth wheel toy hauler. Yesterday, I helped them get their rig out of the sand where it was stuck. They invited me to join them at their campfire and I did. My cell signal is weak, but I seem able to get online enough. I’ll spend another night here and then head over to the campground at Cottonwood Cove where I can get a full hookup while some more weather moves through. By that time, I’ll need to dump my tanks, top off my fresh water tank, and maybe buy some propane.

After that, back to boondocking. It’s the kind of RVing I like most — and you really can’t beat the price.

Backing Up Media, Changing EXIF Data

A chore made more difficult by a need for new software.

Yesterday, I spent the day in front of my desktop and laptop computers, gathering together loose media — photos, videos, and sound files — and archiving them on external hard disks I have for that purpose.

A Little about My Media Archiving Method

My archives are organized by year and then within each year by source — GoPro, drone, Nikon, iPhone, etc. — and then by date. Lately, because most of my media is recorded on GoPros or my iPhone, the most recent media is organized in folders by date and event. I also have a lot more media these days, so since 2020, each year has its own 2T disk.

Once I’ve added or removed items on an archive disk, I automatically duplicate it — I use an app called Synchronize Pro — on a like-sized, often identical hard disk. I simply plug in the backup disk and Synchronize Pro launches, compares the two disks, and makes the backup match the master. It then unmounts the backup and quits.

Ideally, I know I should keep those two disks — original and backup — in separate places, but I don’t. That’s because I only have one home these days — which is certainly enough for me — and that’s also where I work. There is no other place to store the backups. Instead, I only separate them when I travel; I take the originals with me in case I need to access or modify them and leave the backups at home.

After all, this is just media, mostly video shot while flying. Losing it would be very sad but not life-altering. My more important data — accounting records and so on — are backed up to the cloud. Media files simply aren’t important enough to me to warrant that treatment.

As for my desktop computer, that’s also completely backed up automatically to a hard disk using the Mac OS Time Machine feature. If you’d suffered as many hard disk losses as I have, you’d be automatically backing up your disks, too.

Yesterday’s Archiving Project

Over the years, I had accumulated photo and video files in a variety of places. I call it digital clutter. You know. Like in your home when you get mail or other items that you are too busy to file or put away? You stack it up somewhere and eventually, maybe, get to it. Or maybe not. I had been accumulating media on my desktop and laptop computers’ hard drives. All over those hard drives. I wanted to find it and file it on the appropriate archive disk.

(I actually don’t purposely keep data on my laptop. Any documents I need on my laptop live in the cloud and are duplicated on the laptop. So if the laptop is lost or stolen or gets run over by a truck, I don’t have to worry about losing a thing. That’s why my laptop issues earlier this year were more of an inconvenience than anything else. I lost my writing tool, but not any of the data I might need in the future. The major benefit of using the cloud like this is that I can access all of those documents from any computer.)

This chore took a remarkably long time. Hours. I could not believe how many old files I found in various places on the two computers. Some of them dated way back to 2016. Being video files, they were huge and took a long time to copy, via USB connection, from a computer to a connected hard disk. So while it worked, I looked for other things to do.

One of those things was to copy all of the photos I’d taken during my recent boat trip that had been automatically copied from my iPhone to the Photos app to my 2021 media archive disk. I wanted them kept separately from Photos so I could use them for another project I’m working on.

So I created a folder on the archive disk and began dragging photos from the Photos app into that folder. I’d done about 50 of them when I realized something: for some reason, my Mac was changing the photo date to the current date — not the date the photo was shot — for more than half of the photos. Not all of them, though — go figure. And that was not acceptable.

It was vital to me that the photos have their photo date and time as the file creation date and time. That would keep them in order and in context. This had to be fixed.

Finding a Fix

Twitter Call for Help
Here are the two tweets I posted to get suggestions for solutions. They didn’t get much engagement.

I put out a call on Twitter for suggestions but didn’t get any immediate responses. So I opened the App Store app and went hunting. What I needed was an app that would change the metadata for the file based on Exif date information.

Info Window Example
Here’s an example of a Mac OS Info window for an image file from my trip: a look at the Newark NY waterfront from a bridge. All of the information under More Info is taken from the JPEG Exif data. Note the dates; the Created date is today, when I dragged the file out of Photos to my desktop.

Exif, in case you don’t know, stands for Exchangeable image file format. According to Wikipedia, Exif

is a standard that specifies the formats for images, sound, and ancillary tags used by digital cameras (including smartphones), scanners and other systems handling image and sound files recorded by digital cameras.

Exif adds metadata tags to certain file formats, including JPEG, TIFF, and WAV files. These tags provide information about the media, including camera type and settings, media size, dates and times, and location (if available). Some of this information is available in the Info window for a file on Mac OS as shown here; I assume it can also be viewed in Windows.

The Exif data includes the exact date and time the photo was taken based on the clock inside the camera. (If the clock is wrong, that date and/or time will be wrong.) For some reason, dragging photos out of the Photos app into the Finder was copying the file but, in too many cases, using the current date and time as the image’s creation and modification dates. I needed to change that file info so it used the Exif photo creation time as the creation and modification dates in the Finder.

I found a few options that claimed to do what I needed to do. The one I found and decided to try first is called Bulk File Redate. It had a “lite” or trial version that enabled full functionality with just 10 files at a time. I think that’s an excellent way for a developer to give users a way to try their app before buying it.

It took me a minute or two to figure out the interface, but soon I was running batches of 10 images through it at a time. It worked like a charm. Great! I clicked the link to buy the full version, knowing I’d soon have hundreds of images to process. And that’s when I got a bit of a shock: it was $29.99.

Whoa.

Let me put that in perspective here. This app was a one-trick pony — an app that did just one thing: manipulate image date info. Yet it cost more than what I’d recently paid for Affinity Photo, a full-blown photo editing app? (Yes, I did get Affinity Photo at half price, but still!) I was not about to spend that much for it.

So I wrote to the developer. I didn’t want to be rude, but as far as I was concerned, he’d just lost a sale to me by asking (what I thought was) too much money for his little app. Surely he could make more sales with a more reasonable price. I wrote:

I just want to say that I was prepared to buy this app — I have about 500 pictures to work with — but I really think $29.99 is a crazy high price for this one-trick pony. If you reconsider your price, I’ll reconsider buying it. Otherwise, I’ll just do the photos 10 at a time. I like to support authors, but my pockets simply aren’t that deep these days.

That last line was a bit of an exaggeration. My pockets are deep enough, but I honestly didn’t think it was worth that much and didn’t want to be rude. And I do have a software budget. I simply can’t buy every single piece of software I might use just a few times a year.

I went on doing the photos 10 at a time. But because there was so much clicking involved — clearing the photo list after each run, adding more photos, dismissing dialogs, etc. — I soon tired of it. I didn’t have 500 photos to do. I had about 900.

So I went back online. I wound up buying Photo Mill: The Image Converter for $9.99. The reviews were good and it seemed to be able to do what I needed to do. I downloaded it, wondered for a while why two separate apps were downloaded onto my computer, launched one of them, and figured out the interface. It certainly had a lot more capabilities than Bulk File Redate. But it was also unable to do what I needed to do. Instead of using the Exif date to change the file created and modified dates, it allowed me to change the Exif date — which is exactly what I didn’t want to do. I went through the necessary steps on Apple’s website to get a refund and deleted the app(s). I wasn’t going to keep an app I couldn’t use.

Info for Photo
Here’s the same image file shown above after changing the dates with Photos Exif Editor. Note that the Created, Modified, and Last Opened dates are all correct now.

Back to the App store. I bought Photos Exif Editor for $4.99. Again, I deciphered the interface. I ran a few files through it. It wouldn’t overwrite an existing file but made a new file with (1) appended to the file name. To get it to work without changing the name of the file, I saved the files to a new folder and then just dragged them to the original folder and let Mac OS overwrite the originals. After playing around with it for a while, I got it to work the way I needed it to. I finished dragging the files over from Photos to the folder, did the date change, and was done.

Photos Exif Editor
Here’s some of the data for the photo in Photos Exif Editor before making any changes.

I then continued the process of archiving all those other media files until it was time for dinner.

Help from Twitter

In the meantime, I did get a response to my Tweet from Greg G, who follows me there (and has been known to comment on posts here — hi, Greg!). He advised me to use Photo’s Export command to copy the photos. I can swear I’ve tried that in the past with undesirable results.

So this morning I tried it again. And I noticed a command I hadn’t noticed before. (I don’t, after all, use Photos for very much other than collecting photos off my iPhone and iPad.)

Another Info Window
Check the dates for this exported image. They’re correct. I could have saved a bunch of time by just using this particular export command.

File > Export > Export Unmodified Original for X Photo(s) sure sounded like it would do what I needed to do. So I tried it.

And it worked.

I guess I could have saved myself a bunch of time and extra work if I just would have explored the options of the software I was already using. Duh.

Thanks, Greg! You sure made me wish I’d checked Twitter before all those trips to the App store.

Some Basic Economic Theory Applied to Pricing

This morning I got a friendly message from the developer of that first app, Bulk File Redate:

Glad to hear this app is desirable for you except its price.

The pricing-logic is easy:
A little bit amount of users work under big-batch-processing mode will pay it.

There is a promo code provided you to download it freely:XXXXXXXXXX
How to use promo code:
macOS App Store: Menu item Store -> View My Account -> Redeem Gift Card

May you enjoy it.

Not what I expected — or even wanted. I wanted to pay for the app. But I wanted to pay what I thought was a reasonable price: $10 or less. Heck, the app I wound up with, which does so much more, was only $4.99. I wanted the developer to be compensated for his work. I didn’t want a freebie handed out to me because I’d whined about the pricing. The unasked for promo code made me feel almost guilty. (What’s that all about?)

So I wrote back:

Thanks for the code, but I already bought another app. It was $4.99. I would have paid $9.99 for yours without batting an eye, and I think others would, too. Instead, I (and others?) went with a competing product.

I guess I’m just suggesting that you rethink your pricing strategy. Sometimes you can make a lot more money with a lower price.

Yeah, I guess was telling him how to run his business. But honestly — there’s always room in my Applications folder for a good one-trick pony and I’ll bet others feel the same way. But how many of them will spend $30 for one? For every 10 willing to do that, I bet there’s 50 willing to spend $10 or 100 willing to spend $5. So that’s $300 in revenue vs $500 in revenue. The app is already written so there’s no incremental cost. It’s simple economics.

And it’s not as if there aren’t other alternatives. There clearly are.

A response from him woke me up to his reality:

Thank you for your valuable suggestions first.

I had ever set the price on $9.99\19.99\29.99\39.99,
and I found the $29.99 was the best one that got me the maximum profits from selling.
I set the price at $29.99 eventually.

By the way,
I browsed ur website and your videos impressed me a lot,
such as Maria Fixes Her Toilet, Making Natural Wood Windowsills, Pole Building Construction, and lots of Helicopter Flying activities.

You are an amazing woman and I had followed you from Twitter.

Please feel free to reach me for helps.
Thank you very much.

(I might mention here (in case you haven’t figured it out) that English is not this guy’s first language. He’s Chinese. You can tell by his phraseology. Perfectly understandable, but a little weird for Americans.)

Well, apparently I’m a cheapskate. I replied:

Thanks very much. I’m sorry to have presumed that you didn’t experiment with pricing. That was very naive of me. Apparently, some folks have bigger software budgets than I do. I guess I’m just a cheapskate! Sorry!

I hope you’re doing well with your software development efforts. Good luck to you!

And for some reason, I don’t feel so bad about using the promo code he sent. We’ll see. I’d love to recommend Bulk File Redate — it really works flawlessly and is very quick. A perfect tool for processing hundreds or thousands of images. For me, I still don’t think it’s worth what he’s asking. I guess it depends on a person’s needs and budget. If you’re looking for an app to do this job, please do give it a try. The developer is a nice guy who does have a solid handle on how to run his business.

And I’m not just saying that because he might read this post. Or that he must have spent hours browsing this blog if he found my pole building construction posts.

The Archiving Continues

This morning, after breakfast, I’ll climb back up to the loft where my desktop computer and those little portable hard drives are waiting for me. I’ll finish up that archive and backup job. And then, maybe, I’ll do what I was really supposed to do yesterday: edit some new video for the FlyingMAir YouTube channel.

My Old TV: Rejuvenated by Roku

I get a new Roku for my old TV and it’s like getting a new TV.

I’m not a big TV-watcher. I probably spend less than 10 hours a week in front of the tube, and a lot of that is watching late night TV hosts and educational content on YouTube. I don’t have cable or satellite TV and can’t bring in any over-the-air channels. I subscribe to Netflix and Disney Plus, have Amazon Prime video because I want free Amazon shipping, and recently added a one-year free subscription to Apple TV+ because it came with my new iPad.

I got my wasband’s circa 2008 45″ Samsung HDTV in our divorce. (It’s a funny story how I got it, but I blogged about that in passing elsewhere.) At the time — 2013 — it was still a decent TV and it had a surround sound system that worked great when I watched DVDs. I used the Roku stick that I got with it to connect to the Internet for my content. It was slow — like push a button on the remote and wait for Roku to react — but good enough.

I eventually sold the surround sound system on Craig’s List, bought a Blu-Ray player for the TV, and got a Samsung sound bar. (The TV had terrible sound without it.)

Time passed.

After seeing bigger, better TVs in the local Fred Meyer’s electronics department for two years, I finally broke down and bought one. Fred Meyer sells previous years TV models for dirt cheap; I bought a 65″ Samsung UHD smart TV for less than $500 when I combined the sale price and the “senior discount” I got for buying it on the first Tuesday of the month. I felt that I got a pretty good deal on something I would use less than 10 hours a week.

New TV
My new TV — which is at least two years old at this point — sits in the corner of the living room. I had to swap the coffee table for the TV table to get it to fit; the legs have quite a spread. The reflection is my red leather sofa — also an unexpected divorce acquisition — with the pillows and dog bed on it.

What to do with that old TV? Well, I wound up putting it in my bedroom, right across from the brown leather sofa that had (ironically) been in my old house’s TV room. I had to buy a table for it that matched the furniture. I attached the sound bar I’d bought for it to the new TV so it had crappy sound again, but that didn’t matter. By that time, the Roku was so agonizingly slow — especially compared with the new TV — that I lacked the patience to use it. I should add here that other than the little black and white TV I’d had in my first apartment after college (circa 1982), it was the first time I’d ever had a TV in the bedroom so I wasn’t accustomed to watching TV in bed anyway. But what else would I do with it?

Time passed. I rarely used the TV in the bedroom. The Roku stick made it unbearably slow.

I started talking to a neighbor about giving it to her. Literally giving it to her. She had a TV in her guest room that was on the fritz. Although my old Samsung was a lot bigger than what she wanted/needed, she said she’d take it. We just needed to wait for her husband’s cousin to get into town to help us carry it downstairs.

But I started thinking about other possibilities. It seemed to me that the thing that was slowing the TV down and making it an ordeal to use was the old Roku stick that was now 13 years old. Maybe a newer Roku would speed it up?

I asked on Twitter. Some folks said it wouldn’t be any better. Someone else suggested the Roku Streambar, which combined a sound bar with a Roku receiver. I looked it up. It happened to be on sale for $109 (from a normal price of $129) with free shipping and a 30-day money-back guarantee. I had nothing to lose. I’d give it a try and if it was still slow, I’d return it and get rid of the TV.

Roku Streambar
The Roku Streambar and its remote. It’s actually pretty small and doesn’t sound nearly as good as my Samsung sound bar on my new TV, but it’s good enough for me.

It arrived last week. I set it up Thursday night.

And I was (eventually) amazed.

After a few tries, the Roku connected to my 5G wifi network. (I’d tried connecting it to the two other networks first and it apparently didn’t like them, even though the signals were stronger.) I went through the setup process. It worked great — super fast, too — and even configured itself with the same channels I’d had set up on the old TV. At first, it didn’t play sound through the speaker and I couldn’t figure out why. I fiddled with the TV settings and cables and other stuff, and then restarted the Roku by mistake (I pulled out the wrong cable). When it started running again, the sound came through the Roku speaker. It worked just as it should.

The TV could be controlled by the small Roku remote — although I assume I’ll have to change the source with the TV remote if I ever want to watch a DVD. The remote even has a push to talk voice controller for switching channels and changing the volume.

And did I mention that it was fast?

I’m not exaggerating when I say that it was like getting a new TV.

TV w/Roku
My old TV in the bedroom. Yes, I do have to clean up those wires. The reflection in the TV is the window behind the sofa; you can see the top of my head, too.

Unfortunately for Terry, I’m going to keep the TV, at least for a while. I suggested she check out Fred Meyer. They’re still selling great TVs for great prices and she’ll likely get a better one than mine.