Why you shouldn't use a Smart TV as a monitor

Surely you have considered connecting your gaming PC to your SmartTV , to enjoy your favorite game more. Connecting the PC and the television is quite simple, we only need an HDMI cable or a DisplayPort. But, doing so is not always recommended and the main reason is because you can damage your eyesight.

You may not know it, but depending on the size and type of panel, but there must be a distance between our eyes and the screen. The distance that must exist increases as we increase the dimensions of the screen in question. So, opting for a SmartTV as a gaming monitor can be a very bad idea.

Why you shouldn't use a Smart TV as a monitor

What to keep in mind

There are several factors that advise against using a SmartTV as if it were a monitor to play (or work). The main one is the distance you should be from the screen, since the bigger it is, the greater the distance should be. Then there are other factors, such as refresh rate or response time.

The first thing you should keep in mind is that televisions or SmartTVs are designed to be used remotely. Normally, between the sofa at home and the television there is usually a meter or more of distance. For screens of 32 inches and above, a separation between our eyes and the screen of more than one meter is always recommended. If we talk about 40-50 inch televisions, a distance of between 1.2-1.5 meters is already recommended.

Keeping your distance in the living room is simple, but at the desk it is not so simple. Typically, the desk top is 60-80 cm deep . In addition, it is usual that there is a small distance between the back of the monitor and the wall. So, if the depth is 80cm, the monitor is most likely 75-70cm from our eyes.

Now, if what we are going to do is connect the computer to the SmartTV that we have in the living room, there is no problem. The distance is more than enough and there should not be any kind of visual fatigue problem.

Other Influencing Factors

Although distance is the most relevant factor, refresh rate and response time are important. Gaming monitors are built to support high refresh rates and low response times. Currently, most gaming monitors move between 120-144 Hz , at a minimum, reaching 240 Hz or more. While televisions are designed to display images, so, in most cases, they usually have a maximum refresh rate of 60 Hz.

It is true that some televisions have begun to support AMD FreeSync , since the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X use an AMD processor and graphics card. Despite everything, there are still few SmartTVs that support this technology. Support is mostly being offered by LG and on some high-end TVs.

Another problem is the response time , which is the time a pixel changes color. Mid-range monitors tend to move between 2-4 ms GtG, while high-end monitors tend to fluctuate between 1-2 ms, even less. For televisions, these times are usually 5 ms or even more, depending on the quality. This causes blurry images or poorer color quality.

To summarize, using a SmartTV to play on PC, if it is in the living room or a meter away, it is fine. But if we are going to use it as a regular monitor, whether or not to play, what we will do is spoil our eyes.