For as long as I’ve had my 4K Blu-ray player, I’ve kept it offline. Despite the home screen coming loaded with streaming apps, many of them with woefully outdated logos now, I’ve never seen a reason to connect it to Wi-Fi or connect an Ethernet cable to it. I finally decided to take the plunge and see what all the fuss was about.

I have a Sony UBP-X700 4K Blu-ray player, and a quick look at Sony’s website shows that the last firmware update came in 2022 — and the main thing it did was improve the color quality of some SDR content. That’s not exactly anything that’s all that enticing for me, and it’s not a big reason for me to keep my player connected to the internet all the time. In fact, I can’t figure out why anybody would want to plug in or connect their players in the first place. Maybe it’s worth it for a one-time connection to get the latest firmware update, but I’m really not sure if that’s needed either.

Length

3-50ft

Cable Type

Cat 7

Speed

Up to 40Gbps

Color

Black

Not a lot of value gained here

No need for the internet

As it turns out, my assumption about a Blu-ray player and the internet was correct. The only thing I use my player for is to pop in discs and watch them. I don’t need any of these smart apps, and I can’t imagine they’d run very well, especially in comparison to my Apple TV 4K or smart TV. I understand why my player has these apps because it felt like everything was pushing streaming for a little while, and I guess there could’ve been somebody out there looking to use their Blu-ray player as their do-it-all device.

Fast-forward to today, just about everything does that job better than a Blu-ray player, but nothing does the job of playing 4K discs as well as a 4K player, so there’s a need for both. My Sony player has the dreaded issue of sometimes freezing on 100 GB triple-layer discs, but so does my PS5. Despite that, I don’t plan on replacing it — but a big part of that is how expensive Panasonic players are.

The reality is that my needs have far outgrown the desire to have a Blu-ray player connected to my network, even if I don’t have to use an Ethernet cable to do it. I don’t gain anything, so I’d rather keep it looking like a time capsule with an outdated Tubi logo on the home page. The good news is that it continues to play my discs without any problems, and it’s one of the more affordable players with Dolby Vision — at least it was at the time I bought it.

There’s no inherent problem with having your player on Wi-Fi, but you could be clogging up the network with unwanted devices if you take that path. You don’t get many benefits from having one connected, so it’s just better off staying disconnected, at least in my opinion.

There’s still one reason to connect

But then you can disconnect immediately

Firmware updates are typically important, and even if you don’t need what the update is offering, there’s often no downside to upgrading unless what you upgrade to completely breaks the device. That hasn’t been my experience with Blu-ray players, so there’s no harm in upgrading to the latest version.

TVs are something that I typically keep disconnected from my Wi-Fi since I have a streaming box I use everything for, but if I never connected mine to the internet, I never would’ve received the variable refresh rate update. My Sony Bravia X90J launched without VRR, but Sony added it through a software update, so that’s something you’ll need to pay attention to on your own. Not everything comes with a game-changing firmware update like that, but in my case, it did.

4K Blu-ray players probably won’t receive transformative updates along those lines, and most TVs won’t either. What’s nice is that you’re able to type in your device’s model and find the latest firmware update with ease so you can see if it’s worth typing in your Wi-Fi password and going online. For my Blu-ray player, the answer is pretty much always no; it’s not worth connecting. Your scenario might be different than mine, but I highly doubt it. I don’t see much of a reason for anybody to use a Blu-ray player as their main hub when just about every modern TV you can find on the market today is a smart TV that’s built for the task of streaming apps far more than a Blu-ray player is.

If you have room on your network, there’s no downside to keeping your Blu-ray player connected. I’m just of the mind that there’s no reason for me to stay connected to the internet when I don’t get any benefits. The player works just fine without firmware updates, and if I ever need one, it takes no time to connect and download one.