I have 2 Chromecast sticks for our non-smart TV's. In essence, what the stick (or similar devices) will do is make a non-smart TV into a smart one.
Simply stated, the term smart TV means that the TV can be connected to the internet and receive streaming video over the network connection. For the price, I think the Chromecast device is the best option. Roku is another but the cost is much higher.
Other things you need to understand before buying any one of these devices.
- First, you need a good, ralatively high-speed, network connection, ideally hardwired. If you are using a wireless router connection, this means that the TV needs to be located where it will get a strong signal from the router. Otherwise you will get dropouts or choppy, pixelated video. If this is happening, it's usually not the fault of the device. It's an indication of a network signal problem.
- Once connected, there are 2 ways that the streaming gets to your TV. You can "cast" the stream from the device controlling the video source (PC, smartphone, tablet, etc). Or there are some apps (eg:Netflix) that, once started, will work directly with the Chromecast device to stream from the Netflix internet server directly to the Chromecast device. The latter usually ends up producing a cleaner, higher-definition signal.
- If you are attempting to stream from a browser, with Chromecast you need to use the Chrome browser. Internet Explorer does not support casting to the Chromecast device. (The old competition between Google and MS). I suspect that those of you who tried, and failed, to get this to work from your PC may have been stuck here. Other browsers than Chrome may support the Chromecast device, but I'm not sure.
This is a greatly simplified description of how all this works. But for those who have had issues, I'd suspect the majority of them start with a poor network stream to the device. Garbage in, garbage out. Changing devices won't help here. You need to solve the root problem first.