You need three things: a player app from your television's own store, the MAC address that app shows on its first screen, and your playlist link — which you type into the app maker's website from your phone, not into the TV. Samsung and LG cannot install Android apps, so IPTV Smarters and TiviMate are not available to you, and every guide you have read that starts with "download IPTV Smarters" was written for a different device.
Budget fifteen minutes. Ten of those are waiting for the app to restart.
Why your TV needs a different app
A Samsung smart TV from 2016 onwards runs Tizen. An LG runs webOS. Neither is Android, and neither has a general-purpose app store you can sideload into — Samsung's developer mode exists but expires and re-signs on a schedule that makes it useless for everyday viewing.
What both platforms do have is a handful of third-party IPTV players published in their official stores. They are made by small companies, not by Samsung or LG. They are free to install, free for a few days, and then they ask for a one-off activation fee tied to that one television, for the lifetime of the set. That fee goes to the app's author. It is not a subscription, it does not include any channels, and it is a separate purchase from your IPTV service — the two get confused constantly.
Step 1 — Install a player from the TV's own store
On Samsung: press Home on the remote → Apps → the magnifying glass at the top right → search.
On LG: press Home (the house button on the Magic Remote) → LG Content Store → Search.
Search for these, in this order, and install the first one that appears:
- IBO Player or IBO Pro Player
- Set IPTV
- Net IPTV
- BOB Player, Duplex, IBOXX Player — same idea, different brands
Which ones show up depends on your TV's year and your country. That is normal. If you are trying to decide between them, we compared the three most common in IBO Player vs Set IPTV vs Net IPTV — the short version is that IBO Player is the only one of the three that also runs on Android TV, and otherwise the differences are small.
Step 2 — Write down the MAC address and the device key
Open the app. The very first screen shows a MAC address and, under it, a device key or device ID.
A MAC address is twelve characters printed as six pairs separated by colons, like 00:1A:79:4B:2C:9F. The only characters it can contain are 0–9 and A–F, which is worth knowing because you are about to copy it off a television from two metres away:
- What looks like the letter O is a zero.
- What looks like an S is a 5.
- There is no G, no H and no Z. If you read one, look again.
Take a photograph of that screen. Getting back to it later usually means resetting the app and starting over.
Step 3 — Add your playlist on the app maker's website
None of these apps let you type a playlist on the television, and you will be grateful for that after ten seconds with an on-screen keyboard. Instead the app prints its own website on screen — iboplayer.com for IBO Player, and each of the others names its own.
On your phone or laptop:
- Open that website.
- Enter the MAC address and the device key from step 2.
- Add a playlist. Name can be anything — call it Canalus. Playlist URL is the link your provider gave you.
- Add the EPG URL if there is a field for it. That is what fills in the programme guide.
- Save, and pay the activation fee if the site asks for it.
If your provider runs an Xtream-style panel, your playlist link looks like this:
http://your-server-address:8080/get.php?username=USERNAME&password=PASSWORD&type=m3u_plus&output=tsand the guide link like this:
http://your-server-address:8080/xmltv.php?username=USERNAME&password=PASSWORDCopy and paste them. Do not retype them. A capital letter turned into a lowercase one by a phone keyboard produces an app that loads forever with no error message.
Step 4 — Restart the app properly
Not "press back". Properly, because both platforms keep apps in memory across a normal power-off:
- Samsung: unplug the television at the wall for 30 seconds. The remote's power button suspends it, it does not clear it.
- LG: turn off Quick Start+ first (Settings → General → Quick Start+ — on newer webOS it sits under Settings → General → System → Additional Settings), then power off and on.
The channel list should appear within a minute. The first load is slow because it is downloading the whole list once.
When it is still empty
Work down this list. It is in order of how often each one is the answer:
- You registered the TV's network MAC, not the app's. Go back to step 2.
- The playlist is saved but not set as active on the app maker's website. There is usually a toggle or a radio button next to it.
- There is a space at the end of the pasted URL. Delete it and save again.
- The activation has not been processed yet. The app still shows a trial countdown if so.
- The TV is on 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi, three rooms from the router. Test with a network cable once, even if you have to drape it across the floor. It takes two minutes and it eliminates half the possible causes.
If you would rather not deal with the app maker's website at all, we do this part for people: buy the activation for your app on our app activations page, send us the MAC address, and we register the device and load the playlist for you. The step-by-step version with your own server address, username and password already filled into every step is in the help centre, which has a separate guide for Samsung and for LG.
Honest limits of TV-store players
These apps are simpler than the Android ones, and you should know what you are giving up before you pay an activation fee:
- The programme guide is basic. It shows what is on now and next. There is no series recording and no scheduling.
- Catch-up support varies and is often clumsy on the TV remote.
- Older sets struggle with 4K. A 2016–2018 Samsung or LG can usually decode HEVC, but a third-party player does not always get access to the good decoder, so a 4K channel that stutters may simply be the television's limit. Watch the 1080p version of the same channel — most lists carry several qualities.
- One activation, one television. Replace the set and you buy again, because the MAC address changes.
If your TV is older than roughly 2016 — a Samsung running the old Orsay system, or an early webOS set — none of these apps will be in the store at all. Do not fight it. An inexpensive Fire TV Stick plugged into the same television gives you a better player than any of them, costs nothing to activate, and takes ten minutes to set up.
And if you have not chosen a provider yet, test one on your own television before you pay anybody: our free 24-hour trial needs no card, and a trial on the actual TV in the actual living room is worth more than any review.