Andre Fontenot

[Theron @theron_chase]

There are an estimated 70 million Samsung Smart TVs plugged into American living rooms right now, and close to 65 million of them have never had their network or streaming settings touched since the day someone pulled them out of the box.

A family has complained their Netflix "randomly buffers," their apps "take forever to load," their picture "looks worse than it used to," and their TV "feels slower every year" for 3 years straight.

They upgraded their internet plan once. $70/month to $90/month.

They bought a $140 Wi-Fi extender.

None of it fixed the TV.

Not because the internet was too slow. Not because the extender didn't work. Because the TV itself — sitting on factory-default network settings, running background data collection that was quietly eating bandwidth, connected to the weaker of two available Wi-Fi bands, holding onto a DNS configuration nobody ever touched, and still running the exact software build it shipped with two years ago was the actual bottleneck the entire time.

Their neighbor, a home theater installer who calibrates and configures over 200 TVs a year across client homes, sat down with their remote for about 7 minutes on a Sunday evening.

He didn't touch their internet plan. Didn't recommend a new TV. Didn't suggest a streaming box to bypass the smart TV software entirely. Didn't call Samsung support.

He changed 9 settings.

Netflix buffering stopped completely. App load times dropped from 12+ seconds to under 3. The picture sharpened noticeably without changing a single picture-quality setting. The TV that used to take 40 seconds to boot up now turns on almost instantly.

Same TV. Same plan. Same living room. Same Wi-Fi network.

"Your TV was never too old for this. It was never told how to actually manage a connection. And nobody not Samsung, not your internet provider, not the store that sold it to you was ever going to tell you the fix was free."

Here are the 9 settings he changed 🧵

[Andre Fontenot @andrefontenot]

@Cajunhammer68 @WaltonNJohnson In 1988 they were broadcasting from the Hyatt Poydras Center in New Orleans. I remember the 🐝

[Chief Art Acevedo @ArtAcevedo]

45 at Main. Many vehicles flooded, everyone safely out. This is why we say and said stay off the roadways.

[NASA @NASA]

This morning, you can see #HurricaneDorian from an astronaut's point of view. Tune in to NASA TV starting at 8:10am ET for live views of the storm captured by high definition cameras outside the @Space_Station. Watch: https://t.co/mzKW5uV4hS

[Afroink @eatingwithgods]

#HurricaneDorian One of the fiercest hurricanes to hit Northern Bahamas

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

This jaguar demonstrated the meaning of the term power, dragging this 8 ft long, armour plated, 74 toothed, chunk of contracting muscle out of the water. Jaguars are estimated to have the 5th strongest bite in the entire animal kingdom https://t.co/tufOPijVkG

[KPRC 2 Houston @KPRC2]

#BREAKING: Photos of 18-wheeler that drove off overpass at 59 SW Fwy south at University Blvd in Sugar Land. Driver of white car was rescued: https://t.co/gEJTtpdEX5

[ABC News @ABC]

Witnesses say this man pulled over to save a wild rabbit from flames along Highway 1 in Southern California as the massive #ThomasFire spreads toward Santa Barbara County. https://t.co/gGqzZlGfqT

[Darren Rovell @darrenrovell]

Parking garage overlooking Astros parade today.

[Andre Fontenot @andrefontenot]

@bayoutwlady Some type of standoff I was told. Between who I don't know.

[NOAA Satellites @NOAASatellites]

#GOES16 captured this visible imagery of Hurricane #Irma's eye earlier today. For the latest on Irma, go to https://t.co/cSGOfrM0lG.