4k TV and surround sound from a power bank in a narrowboat!

Look, no wires … magic!

In short you’ll need

• Poweroak K2 185Wh power bank
• Samsung 28" UH750 QLED monitor
  Plugged into the 20v power bank output
• Roku Streambar
  Plugged into the 12v power bank output

Curious? Read on.

The problem

We narrowboaters don’t have it good when choosing onboard entertainment. 12v systems usually suck and are expensive for what you get. You can use household TVs etc but although they are getting more efficient but they expect more power than we would like to share through our inverters and often we have to suffer this while the engine is running! Not the most ideal way to spend an evening.

Power needs are either via 12v TVs, of limited choice, or inefficient inverter power to run more household larger TVs. What if you could run your setup from a power bank for 6 hours?

OLED TVs provide the best image quality but the smallest* are still too big for a narrowboat and draw too much power that you’d want a boat to provide. How about QLED quality at a reasonable, but still at an impactful screen size?

*recently LG are now making 32" OLED monitors, to be assessed! Also mini led technology is coming.

Traditional TV reception methods need ongoing management each time you move and need cabling. Today, mobile data networks are so good that streaming services are now a viable option. Would you like to have perfect 4K streaming with cinema style sound and have it as a truly wireless setup?

Possibly the perfect setup

I’ll show you perhaps the most perfect entertainment setup you can build for yourself today for a narrowboat.

What you’ll end up with will be a totally cable free setup enabling you to position your entertainment system wherever you want. You’ll get 28 inches of rich 4K QLED image quality alongside soundbar audio quality that fills your boat with cinema like audio. You’ll be able to power it from either inverter or battery power bank too.

Read on and I’ll show you how.

The idea

Okay enough with trying to sell the idea! Now for the story, why and how I ended up with what we have here and enjoy to this day.

Me and my wife have recently started our journey into the UK canal system on a narrowboat. A modest vessel with one of everything including a 100 watt solar panel and two leisure batteries. We love TV shows and movies but we’re used to what we had living on land in houses and things! We knew from canal holiday trips we didn’t want the hassle and the poor quality of traditional boat TV setups. I set myself a mission to get a better entertainment experience.

We wanted …

• 4K
• OLED or next best thing
• Clean design and not too large
• Slim enough to fit flush with the gunnels
• Cinema like sound
• Single streaming device for TV
• Most of all to be very power efficient and battery powered

The research

So we looked around and did our research. Initially we looked at portable usb-c powered monitors but although very nice OLED screens they are small at around 15", not much more than a laptop screen.

OLED screens if you did not know provide the best contrast ratios and vivid images.

We found most TVs are setup to work from mains power and power efficiencies therein. I know a little about power banks and knew what kind of power expectations they would need to deliver.

So I looked towards monitors instead and found a few but not many. The power input had to be able to not rely on a proprietory mains power brick. I also was looking for monitors around the 30" size. It turns out anything larger has a too big of a power need.

This narrowed things down further and I finally found this Samsung 4k QLED 28" monitor. I knew that QLED is similar to OLED but they do not make OLED yet in that size range. They do make a 32" version of this monitor but the power requirements would have been too much.

So it seems the monitor we found seemed to be the only one in existence that would do. Amazing! Luckily I looked on gumtree and found a person selling one for £175 so snapped it up. Bargain!

The kit

What came together seemed to be three main items of equipment that solved this perfectly

They are …

1. Samsung 28" UH750 UHD 4k QLED Monitor £150-£225 secondhand — https://www.samsung.com/uk/monitors/high-resolution/uhd-monitor-with-quantum-dot-28-inch-lu28h750uquxen/
2. Roku Streambar £129 — https://www.roku.com/en-gb/products/audio/roku-streambar
3. Poweroak K2 50000mAh/185Wh power bank £115 — https://poweroak.co.uk/en/powerbanks/10001-poweroak-poweroak-k2-185wh-50000mah-laptop-powerbank-8719324080002.html

With the power bank you get a range of adapters to power devices. Luckily you can plug in both the monitor and sound bar via DC cables and supplied adapters.

(you could also charge laptops from the power bank too!)

The monitor plugs into the 20v outlet and the sound bar plugs into the 12v outlet.

Warning : Never get the cables mixed up or you may break a device or the battery!

You could also plug in other TV streaming devices like Amazon Firestick or Chromecast in the four USB outlets on the power bank but I have only tested with the Roku Streambar but the facility is there.

The Visual

The Samsung monitor produces a very nice bright and high contrast picture even with the brightness at 20%. The construction is very clean with reasonable thin bezels. It is Vesa mountable too. It is thin enough to be flush with the gunnels even when fitted to the bracket and pushed back.

The Audio

The Roku Streambar is their latest product and it is very good with great sound. It sits just under the monitor once fitted via the brackets mentioned in this article.

We generally don’t push the volume above 30 but you’ll find you don’t need to, it’s powerful! The reason being is that the ampage required by the Streambar is more than the battery can supply for 12v outlet but fortunately the power bank does not cut off the 12v supply as it does the 20v if pushed. Although handy for running this setup it could damage the power bank. So best not to push the Streambar volume too far! On that note the 20v is slightly too high for the monitor requirement but we have never had an issue with the monitor.

The Power

The K2 power bank is a marvel, compact but with a punch of lasting power. I was amazed when I first switched this setup on that it worked. I had fingers crossed but we are running this system for many weeks now without disappointment.

The fact the the monitor runs from the 20v and the Streambar getting the 12v is very convenient, and without it impossible to run both. I doubt you’ll find another power bank that is suited so well.

The power bank is compact for its ability and hides away nicely behind the TV next to the bracket.

They take about 6 hours to charge only from the mains/inverter via the proprietory charger which is the only way you can charge it. We have two of them now which seems to work well for us but you can make do with one. The original plan was to charge them at work in our offices on the sly but it turns out charging and watching equate to the same amount of time.

In the summer I expect the solar panel will help charge this bank and keep it topped up via the inverter on sunny days.

To complete the setup

Other items you may consider buying to complete your setup and to fit it under your gunnels or to a wall include …

• Invision double arm TV wall bracket mount £33 — https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01AYB3MD6/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_fabc_y0F.FbDN9JA9D?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
• Universal sound bar fitting bracket £10 — https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01DKOR2TE/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_fabc_P4F.Fb5E59M3G?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
• 1m male to male DC power extension cable 2 pack £7 — https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07K283X27/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_fabc_n2F.Fb7F9ZRQT?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
• Some bits and bobs you’ll have to find to attach to under the gunnels or wherever you choose.

Fitting

Fitting is very simple. We’ve attached the bracket and sound bar bracket suspended from the gunnel resulting in not having to screw the TV bracket directly to the wall.

The bracket, sound bar, and TV all fit flush with the gunnels when pushed back. The TV bracket allows us to pull out the TV to over a foot towards us if we like. It naturally angles up a little to face us.

We do not have to cable anything as the TV and Streambar get power from the power bank locally. You have the option to place the items of fit them wherever you like or move them around if you wish.

Everyday running

Charging

For each power bank you get about 6 hours of viewing time which is the same amount of time it takes to charge each power bank.

We run the engine on a weekend for about 6 hours to charge both power banks at the same time which could give you 12 hours of viewing if needs be.

Generally we watch TV for about three to four hours a day.

Each day you need to run the engine to heat water and charge a laptop for instance. We do this for only an hour or two. We also replenish, for that time, the power bank the is currently connected to the setup.

We’ve found doing this will almost double the running time of each power bank to 12 hours during a week. This would give you around four days of viewing per power bank. Two power banks over a week.

Once a power bank is empty we swap them around. Another weekend and we can charge for 6 hours again. It’s also most economical to charge both power banks at the same time for those six hours. Having two power banks allows us to not be concerned about power or missing a show for example.

Giving the engine a decent run on the weekend helps the onboard batteries allowing for shorter runs in the weekdays which suites us.

On charging the battery bare in mind that even though the last of the four dots stop flashing does not mean it is fully charged. There is a led indicator on the charging brick that is red while charging that turns green when fully charged.

Also when power runs out the battery just cuts out which is exactly what you want. This is preferable to slowly providing a degrading quality near the end. If the TV and Streambar go into standby the power bank also cuts of which is pretty neat and is what we would want to happen, often when we fall asleep in front of the telly!

Charging means you can watch TV without the engine running noisy or not.

Power bank has pass-through which means you can watch TV while the power bank is charging. For example you could run the engine for two hours in a day and watch TV for three hours. You don’t get like for like charging and viewing times doing this but it does charge albeit slightly slower. I estimate it would take 9 hours to charge instead of 6 if viewing whilst charging.

Preferred TV settings

We have found the following picture settings for the monitor are as follows

• Black equaliser set to 20
• Brightness set to 20
• Contrast set to 100
• Sharpness set to 100
• Magic Angle set to Standing Mode
• All others off or default

You can turn the brightness up all the way of you like which is probably useful for daytime viewing in the summer but in general we found the above settings give you the best image for viewing.

Conclusion

We love it, we did our homework and recommend this setup to anyone.

Happy viewing.