How to organize TV and Home Theater Cable Management ?. Despite Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, you’ll still need some cords for your home cinema setup. Unmanaged, they can get messy. Your TV—and everything linked to it—needs power, and most devices require connections. This can cause tangled cords behind your TV, in your cabinet, or around your living room. Not necessarily.
If you prepare ahead, you can keep the TV’s back clear of cables. You may need to buy some cheap accessories to rein things in.
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Use correct HDMI cables
Most home entertainment devices come with HDMI cables, but they may not be ideal. Too short, they’re useless; too long, they hang and clutter behind your TV.
If your cables are too long, get shorter ones. You should avoid buying them in retailers. Physical merchants often charge twice as much for HDMI cables as online. Amazon and Monoprice provide inexpensive HDMI cables in various shapes, sizes, and capacities, from half a foot to over 50 feet long (don’t run an HDMI cable longer than 50 feet without a repeater).
HDMI Cables
Measure the distance between your TV’s HDMI ports and home theatre components. Find a cable length that provides you slack but doesn’t leave dangling coils of wire.
Make sure wires support 4K60 (18Gbps bandwidth). Most cables from unknown brands should work nicely. 8K-rated cables with 48Gbps maximum bandwidth support high-frame-rate gaming and 8K multimedia.
Cable management equipment
Instead of letting cables dangle, bundle them and run them along carefully specified pathways. Cable management accessories bundle sans tape, string, glue, or other craft tools.
Using cable ties to organise cables is cheap and easy. They wrap many wires into a manageable rope. If you want to be especially neat, you can use sleeves for your cable groupings. Organize close-together home theatre components with these. If you’re not using a sleeve, tie cables every foot or so. As each cable ends, let it run free while you secure the rest of the bundle. This will turn your wire nest into a tree trunk with branches for each TV device.
Cable-management gear recommendations
Wire bundling isn’t enough. You can run wires along corners and edges to keep your home theatre neater. Hooks and holes on adhesive cable tie mounts assist organise cords. You can acquire flat cable covers to prevent tripping if you need to route wires from your entertainment centre to speakers.
Well-designed surge protectors
Toss your single-row power strip. It’s not home theater-friendly. Don’t think you can put everything on a single row of outlets because many devices have too-large plugs. But don’t daisy-chain power strips (do not do that). Per outlet, use one power strip. Otherwise, you risk circuit breakers and fire safety.
A competent home theatre power strip can handle everything without stacking adapters. Look for a strip with many sideways-facing outlets or rotating outlets (Opens in a new window). You may find a power strip with USB ports for smaller media streamers like the Amazon Fire Stick 4K or Google Chromecast.
Surge protector recommendation
Good power strips should protect your electronics with a circuit breaker that trips if there’s a surge in current from lightning or another source. You don’t need to spend a lot on a power strip, but select a reputable brand. It’ll be better manufactured than a dollar store power strip and may have a warranty. Monoprice doesn’t give guarantees, whereas Belkin’s SurgeMaster surge protectors are covered for $75,000.
Organize controllers and remotes
You don’t need a media streamer and control if your TV has a smart platform. You probably have an extra remote if you utilise a different system than your TV. If you have cable or satellite, you’ll also need a remote.
Logitech has discontinued its Harmony line of universal remotes, the best short of a custom installation (the kind of home theatre setup that costs five figures, minimum). Most media streaming remotes can control TV power and volume. If you remove the connection and utilise a media streamer, you don’t need other remotes.
Get a box, basket, or drawer for your home theatre. If you don’t mind fuzzy remotes, use Velcro strips with double-sided adhesive. Magnets are another possibility, but only if the remotes aren’t near the TV; make sure they’re not too strong.
Find a charging station for game console controllers. They keep gamepads charged and handy. Xbox Series X/S and One X/S controllers utilise AA batteries, however a charging station contains rechargeable batteries.
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