While connecting your phone to Vizio TV without Wi-fi is possible, it’s very difficult. Without Wi-fi, you won’t be able to use any of Vizio’s support apps. You’d need to rely on wired accessories such as HDMI adaptors, which are often tailored to handle specific USB types.
Connecting your phone to Vizio TV without Wi-fi isn’t as straightforward as plugging your phone directly into your home unit, but it isn’t too hard to follow. We’re more than willing to ease you through the entire process – just keep on reading below.
How to Connect Your Phone to Vizio Smart TV
What Options Do You Lose Without Wi-fi?
Wi-fi is pretty important for connecting your TV with other devices, so trying to work around relying on a network is difficult. This awkward situation is due to an abundance of factors.
Most phone interactions with other devices rely on Wi-fi to facilitate communication. The only available alternative is Bluetooth, which is often constrained to audio-based content.
Additionally, both devices need to be on the same network to establish communication – so if you plan on using mobile data, you’d still need to ensure that both devices are connected first!
This means that without a wireless network to lean on, users will be completely unable to use both the Vizio Mobile app and the Vizio Smartcast app from their phones.
Can I Use My Phone’s USB Ports Directly?
Most phones don’t come with the right type of USB port to facilitate direct connections to your Vizio TV – and even the ones that do won’t be able to connect to your unit without assistance. There are a few key reasons for this limitation.
Firstly, not all USB ports are created equally. The biggest split comes between USB-C cables and Lightning cables (Apple USB). While they might fall under the same category as USB, these ports can’t function interchangeably with one another.
USB ports also have different primary functions – phone ports are designed to support charging and file transfers, while TV USB ports are meant to transmit heavy-duty data in real time. If your USB cable hasn’t been designed for that function, you won’t be able to stream.
And even on the chance that your phone USB and your TV happen to recognize each other (which is unlikely!), they might only support very basic file transfers (i.e. photos, short videos). Features like screen mirroring or online streaming wouldn’t function at all!
Connecting Vizio TV to Phone with HDMI Adaptors
Without access to the support of Wi-fi (And subsequently, their support apps) users need to rely on wired connections to connect their phone to Vizio TVs. While it might seem a little cumbersome at first, it works pretty much like screen mirroring – albeit with more hardware involved.
The particular accessory you need for this is called an HDMI adaptor. HDMI adaptors are meant to bridge a lot of the technical gaps mentioned in the earlier subheading.
While direct ports (phone-to-TV) are limited in functionality, it’s not necessarily due to lack of trying. If you try to share your screen or stream content online, your phone does attempt to convey the data needed – it’s just that your Vizio TV can’t make sense of that info, causing a sort of “language barrier” neither device can reconcile.
That’s where your HDMI adaptor comes in, converting and repackaging your phone’s data signals – audio & video – into the HDMI format your Vizio TV uses. These adaptors are the only way to connect your phone to your Vizio TV without a wireless network.
Picking Out Your HDMI Adaptor
HDMI adaptors aren’t all that expensive, falling at a price range of about $10-$30 on average (on par with the HDMI cables themselves).
The problem is that they’re often meant to support specific USB ports, so you need to make sure you pick the right adaptor for your phone.
USB-to-HDMI Adaptors tend to come in three types:
- USB-C – standard for most phones released after the year 2018.
- Micro-USB – the predecessor to USB-C, gradually phased out from the year 2015 onwards.
- Lightning – the USB of choice for Apple products.
If you aren’t sure what adaptor would work with your phone, don’t be ashamed to ask the staff for assistance. Just show them your phone’s charging port – they’ll figure it out from there.
Anything Else to Remember?
While HDMI adaptor use is relatively simple, there are a couple of failure points. These are very easy to overlook and might blindside you while you set things up.
After plugging everything in, check your TV’s current input source. If it’s not synced to the HDMI port you’re using for your phone, you’ll be stuck with a black screen on your TV!
There’s also the possibility that your phone won’t immediately share its screen on your Vizio TV. Some phones require you to toggle special permission to enable this, which is useful for data security but rather annoying while trying to connect your phone to Vizio TV!
The location, name, and even process behind enabling screen mirroring for your phone will vary significantly between brands. In general, be on the lookout for options named like “Wireless Display”, “Cast”, “Screen Cast”, or “Screen Mirroring”.