Putting the board on a TV or smart board

Help · Updated 19 August 2026

Family Display puts today's board on a big screen so everyone can see it without anyone getting a phone out. It works on any screen with a web browser, and the awkward part is that a lot of televisions don't have one. Here is what works, what doesn't, and the cheapest thing that does.

The short version

• LG and Samsung smart TVs: yes, usually. Both have a browser built in.
• Roku, Apple TV, Vizio SmartCast: no. None of them has a web browser at all.
• Amazon Fire TV stick: yes. It has a real browser, and it plugs into any TV including the ones above.
• A spare tablet or old phone: yes, and this is often the best answer of the lot.
• Any laptop on an HDMI cable: yes.

Smart TVs with a browser

LG televisions run webOS and Samsung televisions run Tizen. Both include a web browser as a standard app, usually just called Web Browser or Internet. Open it, type kinhuddleapp.com/tv, and follow what appears on screen.

Two practical notes. If your set came with a pointer remote, use it: moving a cursor is far quicker than nudging one letter at a time. And once the board is up, bookmark the page so you never type the address again.

Very old sets are the one catch. A television from around 2019 onwards is almost certainly fine. Much older than that and the browser may be too dated to run the page, in which case it will look broken rather than ask you to upgrade. If that happens, use one of the options below.

Televisions with no browser

Roku, Apple TV and Vizio SmartCast have no web browser. This surprises people, reasonably, because these are otherwise capable devices. There is no setting to turn on and no app to install that fixes it. The board simply cannot open on them.

Most Android TV and Google TV boxes are in the same position out of the box, though some allow a browser to be installed from their app store.

Why AirPlay and casting are not the answer

The natural next thought is to cast the page from a phone. It is worth understanding why that disappoints.

AirPlay and Chromecast are ways for one device to show its own screen on another. There is nothing a website can do to offer itself to a television directly. So casting the board means your phone, tablet or laptop sits awake on that page all day, unusable for anything else, and the moment it locks or someone opens another app the television goes with it.

Some Roku sets do support AirPlay, and it works exactly as described above: an iPad held hostage. That is not a family display. It is much better to give the wall a screen of its own, and that can cost nothing.

The cheapest thing that works

An old phone or tablet in a drawer. Put it in a stand on the counter or a mount on the wall, leave it on the charger, and open the board on it. It costs nothing, it never involves the television, and the board is designed for portrait screens as well as landscape, so a tablet stood upright looks right rather than squashed.

Plenty of families end up preferring this even when the TV would have worked, for the obvious reason: the board is always visible, instead of disappearing the moment somebody wants to watch something.

If there is no spare device in the house, a Fire TV stick is the least fiddly thing to buy. It has a proper browser, it plugs into any HDMI socket including one on a Roku TV, and it works on its own without a phone attached to it.

Setting it up

1. On the big screen, open kinhuddleapp.com/tv. Six digits and a square appear.
2. On your phone, open KinHuddle and go to Menu → Family Display.
3. Type the six digits, or point your phone camera at the square on screen.
4. Give the screen a name, like Kitchen TV, and tap Pair.

The board fills in a few seconds later and looks after itself from then on. You never type anything on the big screen again.

Keeping the screen awake

KinHuddle asks the browser to hold the screen on while the board is showing. Most tablets and current televisions honour that. Some devices ignore it, so if your screen still dims or sleeps, turn the sleep timer off in the device's own settings: on a tablet that is usually Display then Screen timeout or Auto-Lock, and on a television it is often under Power or Eco settings.

What the screen can and can't do

A display is deliberately powerless. It can show today's board and nothing else. It cannot tick anything off, open your settings, see anything about your account, or be tapped at all, and it never holds your login. Private notes and anything a child is still waiting to have confirmed never reach it.

You can disconnect any screen at any time from Menu → Family Display on your phone, and it goes blank within a few seconds. That matters for a TV you sell, a board at a grandparent's house, or a holiday rental.

Pairing lasts thirty days. After that the screen shows a fresh code and you pair it again, which takes about ten seconds.

If it isn't working

• The code expired. Codes last ten minutes. The screen refreshes to a new one on its own, so use whatever it says now.
• The page looks broken or blank. Almost always an old television browser. Try it on a phone first to confirm the board itself is fine, then use a tablet or a streaming stick.
• It says it is reconnecting. The board stays on screen, dimmed, and comes back on its own when the connection does. Nothing is lost.
• It asks to be paired again. Either thirty days have passed or somebody disconnected it. Pair it again from your phone.