Have you ever traveled with an HDMI cord planning to utilize your hotel TV with content from your laptop or a video game system?
I certainly have. Recently, I was doing an extended stay at the Residence Inn in London and planned to use the TV as a second screen for work and to stream mostly Youtube.
There was just one issue. When I looked at the remote there was no way to change the source. No problem, after a bit of research I found my TV had a physical button that I can just change the source with. Oddly, every time I clicked the source button nothing actually happened. It was like the TV was locked and wouldn’t accept certain actions.
This was exactly the case. It was the first time I came across a TV being in “hospitality mode” that many hotels set to control what you can and cannot do.
Determined, I was looking for a workaround. I had planned to do so much hooking my computer up to the TV there had to be a way.
Not long after I found it! I successfully removed the restriction and was able to connect my laptop no problem.
This is how you can too depending on what TV brand you have in your hotel.
Important Note: Please be careful! The last thing you want to do is mess up your TV and get a surprise charge from your hotel. You need to have some technical understanding to be successful at this and if you are worried about not being able to do it then I would advice against trying.
Samsung TV’s are some of the most popular for hotels so there is a good chance you have one. This was the case for me so I can confirm the following works on Samsung models.
First off, there are many codes available for accessing service menu in various Samsung TV models. You can try following one by one until you get access to service menu:
Once you find the service menu you will see a screen like this
Now once you get to this screen you can either disable hospitality mode all together or turn off “widget solution” that should give you the same freedom to change inputs.
Once Widget Mode has been shut off you can turn off / on your TV and you are good to go.
Don’t forget that before you leave you should put Widget Mode back on.
This is how you want you TV to look before you go.
Lastly, you need to be really carefully not to brick your TV. I advice if you are not comfortable with electronics to not try this on your own.
Similarly, we’ve heard of ways to unlock an LG TV. However, I can add this has not been verified and may not be exact.
Using your hotel TV to its fully capacity should be allowed by any hotel chain. I understand the needing to control how a user interacts but if a guest wants to change an input by adding their own device that should be allowed.
Maybe hotels are worried guests might break devices and want to keep it under control. For those that don’t give you access to even adding items to ports then you are out of luck.
If you know of other ways to get around unlocking hotel TVs let us know in the comments.
View Comments
Nice and interesting post
Thank you for beautiful way of explaining blogs like this,
This is super helpful - haha, did not know We could take advantage of this.