The old USB method for installing Tizen Brew on a Samsung TV doesn’t work anymore. This guide shows the Wi-Fi method instead. Once Tizen Brew is on your TV, you can use it to install additional apps that aren’t in Samsung’s own App Store.
I’ll be honest: it took me a while, and it’s not as easy as the USB method was. So I wrote down everything that went wrong for me. If you get stuck, leave a comment and I’ll help.
What you need
- A Samsung TV running Tizen
- A computer on the same Wi-Fi network as the TV
- The TV’s IP address and your computer’s IP address (steps 1 and 2)
- The Tizen Brew Device Manager and the Tizen Brew standalone file (.wgt). Both download links are in the description of the video above.
Step 1: Find your TV’s IP address
On the TV, open Settings, then General, then Network, then Network status. Go to IP settings. This is where the TV shows its IP address. Write it down, you need it in a minute.
Step 2: Find your computer’s IP address
On a Mac, hold the Option key and click the Wi-Fi icon in the menu bar. It shows your computer’s internal IP address. Write this one down too.
Step 3: Turn on Developer Mode on the TV
Open the App Store on the TV and press 1 2 3 4 5 on the remote. If your remote has no number keys but has a 123 button, press that first, then enter 1 2 3 4 5.
A window opens. Make sure Developer Mode is on, and enter your computer’s IP address as the host IP. In the old USB version you entered 127.0.0.1 here, but for the Wi-Fi method it has to be your computer’s address. Hit OK.
Step 4: Restart the TV properly
Hold the power button on the remote until you see the Samsung logo (a couple of seconds). That forces a clean restart, which a normal power off does not do.
Step 5: Open the Device Manager on your computer
Download the Tizen Brew Device Manager from the link in the video description and open it. On macOS you will get a warning. Don’t click through it. Instead go to Settings, then Privacy and Security, and click Open Anyway. You have to do that twice, then enter your password or use your fingerprint.
Step 6: Connect to the TV
In the Device Manager, enter the TV’s IP address from step 1 and click Connect device. You should see a message that the device connected successfully.
If it doesn’t connect: this is where it went wrong for me. On my Mac running the newest macOS, which had just been released that day, the TV never showed up. On an older Intel Mac running an older macOS it worked on the first try. I don’t know the exact reason, so if you’re stuck here, try a different computer.
Step 7: Install Tizen Brew
Download the Tizen Brew standalone file (.wgt) from the second link in the video description. Back in the Device Manager, choose that file and click Install. After a moment Tizen Brew shows up on the TV’s Apps page.
Step 8: Fix the error on first launch
When I opened Tizen Brew the first time, I got an error message. The fix: press 1 2 3 4 5 again in the App Store, but this time enter the standard address 127.0.0.1 as the host IP. Then restart the TV again by holding the power button until the Samsung logo appears.
Step 9: Install apps from Tizen Brew
Launch Tizen Brew again. This is where you can now install apps directly on the TV. As an example I installed Tizen Tube, a third-party YouTube client. After you pick an app, it restarts itself once, which is completely normal. Then you can launch it from inside Tizen Brew. In my test, Tizen Tube worked fine without signing in to an account.
Quick troubleshooting
- TV doesn’t appear in the Device Manager: double-check the computer IP in the TV’s developer window and try a different computer.
- Error when opening Tizen Brew: set the host IP back to 127.0.0.1 and do another clean restart (step 8).
- Changes don’t seem to apply: use the hold-the-power-button restart, not a normal power off.
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