I gave my LG TV a free upgrade with 4 simple tweaks ‣ Diverse Daily

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about buying a new TV, it’s that the out-of-the-box experience isn’t always perfect. Sometimes it just needs a bit of fine-tuning to get it just right. That was exactly the case with my LG C5 TV last year.

Right from the start, the TV looked fantastic and sounded great, but I still felt something was missing. The picture could have been brighter, the home screen could have looked cleaner, and I had a feeling there were plenty of features I wasn’t taking advantage of.

With that in mind, I dove into my LG TV’s settings menu and was immediately impressed by what it offered. I know the settings menu isn’t exactly the feature that gets most people excited about a TV, but LG really didn’t leave much out. Its TVs are packed with useful options that let you customize the experience far more than you might expect. If you’re looking to instantly improve your LG TV, these are the settings I recommend changing to get the most out of it.

Turn off Energy Saving features

Unlock a brighter picture

By default, LG enables several energy-saving features on its newer TVs to help reduce power consumption. That’s great if you’re looking to keep your electricity bill down, but the trade-off is that these settings can make the picture noticeably dimmer. When I fired up a game on my LG TV for the first time, it didn’t look nearly as bright as I expected, so I headed into the settings menu and changed two key options.

The first is Picture Mode. When I was using my Switch 2 and Fire TV Stick 4K Max, my LG TV automatically set HDR content to Auto Power Save. After switching it to Standard, the difference in brightness was immediately noticeable. You can do the same by going to Settings > Picture > Picture Mode and selecting a brighter preset, such as Standard or Sports.

The second setting is Energy Saving Step. This uses your TV’s built-in light sensor to automatically adjust the screen’s brightness based on the room’s lighting. While that sounds useful in theory, I found it often made the picture dimmer than I wanted, even in a dark room. Thankfully, it’s just as easy to change. Head to Settings > General > Energy Saving Step and switch it from Auto to Off for a consistently brighter picture.

To quickly open the settings menu on your LG TV, hold down the settings button (the gear icon) on your remote for a few seconds.

Enable Bluetooth audio

You don’t always have to use your TV’s speakers

I’ve found the built-in speakers on my LG C5 TV surprisingly good, especially when using Dolby Atmos. That said, there are times when I’d rather use a pair of headphones, like when I’m gaming or watching a show by myself.

Fortunately, most LG TVs from 2017 onward support Bluetooth audio, so you can easily connect Bluetooth headphones, earbuds, or even a speaker for a more immersive and private listening experience.

Here’s how to connect a Bluetooth audio device to your LG TV:

1. Go to Settings > Sound > Sound Out > Use Wireless Speaker.

2. Select Bluetooth Device.

3. Put your Bluetooth headphones or speaker into pairing mode.

4. Select the device from the Connectable Devices list to pair it with your TV.

Once you’ve paired a device, it will appear under Registered Devices, making it easy to reconnect in the future. If you want to switch back to your TV’s built-in speakers, simply go back to the Sound Out menu and select Use TV Speaker.

Turn off home screen ads or Wi-Fi

Clean up your home screen and make your TV faster

One of the first things that bothered me about my LG TV was the home screen. Out of the box, it’s packed with ads and recommendations, which I found way more distracting than helpful. They just got in the way whenever I wanted to quickly launch an app or switch to a different HDMI input. Simply put, I don’t want my TV doubling as an ad billboard.

Thankfully, LG makes it super easy to clean up the home screen. With a couple of quick changes in the settings menu, you can remove the ads and recommendations for a much cleaner user interface. Here’s how:

1. Go to Settings > General > System > Additional Settings > Home Settings.

2. Turn off Home Promotion.

3. Turn off Content Recommendations.

Once you disable both options, the ads and recommendations will disappear from your home screen. There’s one more setting worth changing, though. LG can also display promotional content while the screen saver is active. To disable that, head to Settings > General > System > Additional Settings > Screen Saver Settings and turn off Screen Saver Promotion.

If you use a streaming device or game console on your TV all the time, instead of webOS, you can take things a step further by disconnecting your TV from the internet entirely. Simply turn off Wi-Fi, and your TV won’t be able to display ads or recommendations in the first place. In my experience, this also makes the TV feel a bit snappier since it isn’t constantly fetching content in the background.

Change the name of your TV and HDMI inputs

It makes casting and switching HDMI inputs easier

Finally, the last two tweaks I recommend are renaming your TV and your HDMI inputs. This isn’t a drastic change by any means, but it does make using your TV more convenient every day, whether you’re casting content from your phone or switching between devices.

By default, your LG TV is named after its long model number. That works fine, but when casting from your phone or tablet, it can be annoying to tell which TV is which, especially if you have more than one LG TV in your home. Fortunately, you can rename it to something much easier to recognize. I changed mine to Craig LG, and now I can spot it instantly whenever I want to cast a movie or TV show. Here’s how you can do this too:

1. Go to Settings > Support > TV Information.

2. Select Device Name.

3. Enter the new name you want to use.

Voilà, that’s it. The next time you open the casting menu on your phone, your TV will appear with its new name.

Another handy customization is renaming your HDMI inputs. LG usually tries to identify connected devices automatically, but it’s not always accurate. I prefer giving each input a custom name that matches what’s actually plugged in, whether that’s a Switch 2, a PC, or a PS5. It makes switching inputs much quicker because you always know exactly what you’re selecting.

Here’s how to rename your HDMI inputs:

1. Press the Input button on your remote to open LG Home Hub.

2. Select the three-dot menu in the top-right corner.

3. Choose Edit Inputs.

4. Select the HDMI input you want to rename.

5. Enter the new name and select Save.

Improving your LG TV doesn’t have to be complicated

Overall, these changes are quick and easy to make, and after using them on my LG TV every day, I’ve found they make the experience significantly better, largely thanks to the brighter image and the ability to use my headphones with my TV. Plus, the home screen no longer looks like an ad billboard, and my TV when casting and HDMI inputs are now easy to distinguish, which is a huge plus too. If you have an LG TV, I recommend trying all these changes, and I think you’ll be very happy with the results.