5 Ways You Can Use Your Smart TV for Wealth and Income This Year
The countdown to 2022 has begun. What will be the major technology trends of 2022? Here are what I think are five key areas:
- A push towards 3D, with an emphasis on glasses-free TVs
- A trend towards bigger TV screens and ultra-high definition (for example, OLED and 4K)
- A boom in Internet-connected TVs and set-top boxes such as Google TV
- The growth of ultra-cheap tablets with 7-inch screens
- More homes with DVRs and more people using them
One area not discussed often is how all this technology can create significant income, savings, and investment opportunities. As a blogger who covers the intersection of technology and finance/investing, I thought it would be interesting to look at how you could use your smart TV for wealth creation.
These are not the only ways. Please let me know in the comments section below if you have other ideas. By the way, if you would like me to write about any particular area of smart TVs, please let me know that as well.
1) Sell Your Useless DVDs and Blu-Rays to Raise Extra Cash. Personally, it’s been a while since I bought a DVD or Blu-ray movie. My video viewing is now done via streaming content from Netflix or Amazon Prime Video. The discs collect dust on a set of shelves in a bedroom. Here’s what you do: go to Amazon.com, choose the category Electronics -> TV & Video, and then click on DVDs & Blu-ray. For each of the movies that show up, check whether there is a used copy available or not. If there is no used version, add it to your watch list for later. Then, when you have exhausted your watch list, go to the top of the page and click on Sell Your Stuff. Now, fill in all the details about your DVDs. If any of them are not available for sale through Amazon, use the ISBN number (found on each DVD case) to search for it on eBay or other sites. Check the price of used copies and aim for a slight discount for bulk orders. For each of your listings on Amazon, enter the details such as condition, whether the disc inside has been watched or not, etc. Finally, you can use software such as SellBrite to automate this process. You’ll earn $8-$10 per title, and no shipping is involved.
2) Use Your Smart TV to Monitor Stocks. You can use your smart TV as a secondary monitor for stock prices, news headlines, and other data feeds right on the main television screen. There are several ways of doing this. One way is to install Google Finance or Yahoo! Finance apps on your smart TV. I prefer Yahoo Finance because it has a news feed. It is also possible to add a ticker tape with Yahoo Widgets to the screen. What’s great about these channels or widgets is that they can be refreshed periodically, for example, every two minutes. This way, you do not have to visit your stock brokerage home page on a computer.
