Ditching our home tv for an Epson EB-U32 Projector

We’ve been in the midst of trying to make our home feel more like a home and fit our needs. It’s a rental and I was fed up of it feeling like some sort of short-term gap when in fact it’s hopefully going to be our long-term home. With that in mind, we’ve been making over our living space, slowly but surely. The last range of improvements included the addition of an Epson projector, a new sofa and loads of new photos on the wall. I’m going to tell you about each of the room tweaks we’ve been making but this post is focusing on the wonder that is our home cinema, thanks to the lovely guys at Epson and their Epson projector.

So why a projector instead of a TV?

A couple of months ago I had what seemed like a hair brained idea. I decided we didn’t need a television in the living room at all. Although we are a Netflix loving, movie night type family the television would spend most of the day purely providing background noise. I’d like to say I was taking some great stride to cut down our viewing hours but honestly part of me just wanted a way to make sure the other half didn’t buy the mahoosive television he had his eye on as I really didn’t want a TV being to focal point of our room.

Now as I said, we love a good movie so I knew we needed something better and more practical than a TV so we could still enjoy time curled up on the sofa on a Friday night (this is how parents roll most weekends after all right?) and not be slaves to our individual devices, all of us in the same room but not actually interacting or living the same moment.

So there was a light bulb moment. Why not make use of these bare magnolia walls and try out a projector? We used the one at work to watch films with great success, surely it would be just as convenient at home? It takes up next to no space. There’s no TV stand for the baby to bump into or TV for her to forever leave slimy finger marks on. Win win. I excitedly spoke to my friend who lives in Texas about our plans to replace our tv with the projector and she laughed, pointing out that her husband had done just that years ago and that it was pretty common place to have a projector in dens or living rooms in the stats. Trust us Brits to be late to the party.

Setting up the Epson EB-U32 Projector in our living room

It was very easy to set the projector up. The built in WiFi meant that apart from plugging the unit into the wall, there was no need to play around with cables. I literally set the projector up on the dining table, aimed at the wall and streamed my Netflix movie from my phone via a Chromecast stick.

Setting the screen size, brightness and clarity can all be achieved via the unit itself or the remote control. I found for the room of our size, the sound level was perfectly acceptable for watching a movie, or as I ended up doing, streaming YouTube videos for hours until you realised that no, whilst I might not have work the next morning there was an infant who would be up at the crack of dawn demanding attention….

There’s an easy to use cornerstone function which can help straighten out the picture for you. I found out that our walls aren’t square and this came in really handy.

Setting up the Epson EB-U32 projector for everyday use

As I mentioned, I first set up the projector on our dining table but that wasn’t going to be its forever home. My idea was to sit it within our bookshelf and surround it with photo frames and novels. My other half had other ideas. He found the sound quality of the projector by itself lacking for thorough enjoyment of a good movie and decided we needed to hook it up to a surround sound system. He also pointed out that we got a better sized picture if we flipped the projector upside down, so it could still go in the bookshelf but would need to be screwed in with a bracket. As it was his decision, I left it in his more than capable, gorgeous hands to sort and install.

We’ve yet to find the right sound system but The King’s invested in a second-hand one made by Phillips which we picked up on eBay for the time being.  As much as I begrudged the extra wires and remotes, I agree the sound is a more engrossing, cinematic experience than relying solely on the speakers within the projector. We also have more wires to think about now we’ve added speakers and a bass box to the projector, but they’ll be hidden behind the books on th shelves once we decide on their final placements.

We are projecting our Epson directly onto a magnolia wall opposite our seating area. The King was great and played around with the image settings so that the projector corrected the yellowish hue caused by our wall colour. To be honest, I’d never have noticed the colour imbalance but I left it to him as he’s totally a perfectionist.

My favorite features of the Epson EB-U32 Projector

• 3,200 lumens means you get crystal clear images even in broad daylight (no need to close the curtains to view)
• Very user-friendly, intuitive menu options
• The Epson projector is WiFi enabled
• Split screen mode
• The Epson iProjection app allows you to share pictures or presentations  straight from your smart phone
• Screen size 30 – 300 inches
• Crystal clear images

So can the Epson EB-U32 replace the tv?

Our super sleek projector has replaced our TV completely. We moved the TV and the stand out of the living room a few weeks ago and to be perfectly frank, although it now lives in the bedroom, we’ve yet to even plug it in.

Our relationship with TV has changed. The radio goes on if we crave some background noise and we are much more conscious and intentional with when and what we watch. Watching less and really thinking about what it is we want to watch as a family unit when we do.

I love that we can connect our phones, tablets or laptops up, either wirelessly or via the HDMI ports. It means we share whatever we’re watching, be it the latest Minecraft video from Its Funneh on YouTube (Princess’ choice) or the latest episode of Holby City using BBC iPlayer (one of my guilty pleasures). We’re considering buying a standalone tablet to site near the projector so we can store our favourite films and won’t need to stream. It also means my phone doesn’t get commandeered whenever Princess wants to watch Netflix!

We had a fleeting thought about swapping out a TV for a projector, months ago and I’m so glad we tested it out. I’m massively thankful for the folks at Epson, as I said at the beginning of this post, for giving us the opportunity to use their EB-U32 model. It really is suited for both the office and home use. We don’t think we’ll be missing our television anytime soon.

Do you have a projector unit at home?Have you considered using an Epson projector instead of a tv? Have you taken any other products traditionally seen as having other uses and repurposed them to fit in with your lifestyle?