Have You Considered a Rolling TV?
We put the TV on the third floor of our house to make watching movies an event and not an afterthought. We’re not that strict about screen time for the kids but we didn’t want to make it too easy, either. Also, my husband (a film-studies major) and I (a former assistant to a director) believe in watching movies on the biggest-possible screen.
If the kids (ages 7 and 3.5) wanted to watch a show downstairs, we would fire up an old iPad. They would happily sit and watch episode after episode of Shaun the Sheep (one of the greatest children’s shows of all time) on a tiny screen. But oftentimes the iPad — from 2017 — would have a dead battery and the streaming apps would take forever to load. Trekking upstairs for weekly movie nights never felt like a chore, but for the occasional midweek show request — which became more numerous as the kids got older — it just didn’t make sense. We needed a new system.
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We were never going to install a TV in the downstairs living room, but we still wanted something larger than 9.7 inches that was also portable. My husband looked at LG’s two lifestyle options, the StanbyMe 2 and the Smart Monitor Swing (both touchscreen), and went with the latter. He chose the Smart Monitor Swing because it has a bigger screen (32 inches versus 27 inches) and a higher-resolution display (4K versus 2K). The StanbyMe is sleeker with a smaller footprint and has more features like a four-hour battery charge and a detachable screen, but we didn’t need all that. The Swing, which we got during Black Friday last year, was cheaper, too — and still is.
The Swing’s screen is a good size. It’s big enough to feel like a real TV without being unwieldy. It comes on a robust rolling base and a thick stand that allows you to tilt, swivel, rotate, and adjust the height of the monitor. It’s super easy to set up and put away, though I will mention that it is quite heavy. I simply wrap the cord around the top of the stand and then store the whole thing in the pantry, rolling it out into the kitchen’s breakfast nook as needed, whether it’s for a dinnertime Looney Tunes viewing or a Sunday-brunch football game. We watched a ton of Winter Olympics on this thing.
The only thing I wish was better is its sound quality. It’s actually kind of terrible; very tinny. Our workaround is connecting it to a Bluetooth speaker — we use a Sonos Move in Bluetooth mode — and it’s a 1,000 percent improvement. While we probably watch slightly more TV as a family now that we have this, it feels negligible. As tempting as it is to leave it out, the key is to be diligent about storing it away each time. Out of sight, out of mind.
More TV stands we like
We’ve been noticing another kind of stylish TV moment recently and even wrote about them a few times on Secret Strategist. We like Michael Bargo’s (now sold-out) Bang & Olufsen TV-on-wheels setup and Danish photographer Freja Wewer’s chrome stand. (Plus the metal TV cart in Love Story’s Calvin Klein office.) They feel distinctly European in a way, allowing the screen to enter into a space instead of taking it over. More like a piece of décor and less an electronic device. They’re also practical. Movable, yes, but they give you the option of taking the TV off the wall or a console.
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