it beeps
I’ve got a Samsung Smart TV and the other night it started beeping at me, sitting up there on the desk in my study in front of the desk light, desktop, mobile, printer, Yamaha sound system, twin speakers, iPad a $2 Kmart battery powered clock that loses five minutes a day, 2nd iPad and my wife’s flip phone that stopped responding six months ago.
(beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep)
Like that. Not loud. Like some kind of Chinese mess with your head sound drip torture.
You’ve tried to circumnavigate a Smart TV’s system settings option using a TV remote, yes? Mine has 41 buttons packed onto it and if you are reasonably big-fingered like me then hitting the wrong button or more than one relegates you back to the Home Screen. This happens a lot, then your fingers get sweaty and it happens a lot more. Plus a bloke’s nearly eighty and over time small things get blurry, that and patience.
Then when you finally manage to inhabit the settings facility you are presented with a bewildering number of choices. Dozens of them and each has a subset of equally bewildering choices and all in a form of some geek-styled language not easily understood.. meanwhile
(beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep)
Bugger it.
Ask Google: and in response to my enquiry ‘Why is my Samsung Smart TV beeping’ page after page appears on the screen, all from individuals from every nation on earth and all with the same Samsung beeping problem, but given the number of Samsung models you can bet your bank account none of them have the same model you do, meaning their solution to your problem won’t work.
So you go with a ‘Can we help you’ link which is a smart little website that for $50 will have an accredited TV wizard on your case in seconds … meanwhile
(beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep)
His name is Brandon. We introduce ourselves using one of those handy little text pop-ups on his site, there’s even a pic of Brandon. The bloke’s a geek, has to be but he gets right onto the problem and before you know it he’s navigated me through the spaghetti to the sound effects screen and told me to turn off the remote sound option. Which I do.
A minute later the beeping ceases and all I’ve missed is half an hour of the Rabbitos V Bulldogs game.
Then … last night at precisely the same time as the night before – you guessed it
(beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep)
I checked Brandon’s routine from the previous night – the remote sound option is still off.
So it’s got to be an electronic thing, some space-age interaction between all this stuff on the desk and the TV. Has to be. Male logic. Wi-Fi, Blue-Tooth, who knows what’s going on in the air here?
So I unplugged the TV set, unplugged the desktop, unplugged the power strip, moved the iPad into another room, ditto mobile, flip phone, turned off the desk light then moved the Samsung into the same room. Moved the printer, second iPad, the Yamaha set and speakers as well and whaddya know, no beeps, joy, but there are still beeps coming out of the study.
(beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep)
My wife’s in there. She knows nothing about the intricacies of computers, flip phones, Smart TVs, Yamaha sound systems, printers, iPhones or iPads – but she’s ok with knowing how to turn off the alarm on a $2 clock.
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