Polaroid TV Turns On by Itself
We went out on a limb and purchased the Polaroid 4K Ultra HD TV. For the most part this TV was a good buy: great picture, sound and built-in functionality. One feature, however, made the TV appear to have a mind of its own. Periodically throughout the day we found that the TV turns on by itself as if there was a ghost inside the machine.
After doing some research I discovered the Consumer Electronics Control (CEC), which is a feature of HDMI ports. If you’ve ever turned your TV on by pressing the remote of an Apple TV or Amazon Fire Stick, you’ve made use of this handy feature. In short, it enables third-party systems like an Amazon Fire Stick to control the power of the TV itself, effectively avoiding the need for multiple remotes.
I never realized how much I enjoyed this feature until it was gone. That’s right, sadly the solution to our ghost problem was to disable CEC support. This feature is built-in to many different TV models, so this same fix may be relevant elsewhere. Sadly, not all manufacturers label CEC as obviously in the settings, so you may need to search for it. Fortunately, Polaroid stuck to the classic (and correct) CEC nomenclature.
Disabling Polaroid TV Consumer Electronics Control CEC
Our Polaroid TV has a malfunction in the Consumer Electronics Control which caused the power to randomly cycle on when anything was plugged into the HDMI ports. While disabling this feature is a bummer, it did permanently resolve the issue (and beats unplugging the HDMI cord every night!). Here’s how you can test whether this solution works for you:
Press the Menu button on your remote, then choose Settings:
In the Settings menu, select CEC:
Within the CEC Settings view, turn CEC Control: Off
Hi, I’m Sam.
I’m a programmer and a DIYer. When I’m not finding things to build I enjoy cooking, hiking, camping and traveling the world with my best friend. Say Hello!
