Why I Have a Projector in My Bedroom Instead of a TV

I never wanted a TV in my bedroom to begin with, but when you get married, you have to make compromises. Initially, my husband and I would use our computers to watch shows or movies before bed on Netflix or Hulu. But after a while, the annoyances started to build up. The computer would get too hot on our laps, the angle wasn’t right for one of us, the light reflecting off the screen made it difficult to see, or we would hit pause or cancel by accident at the most crucial moment of an episode.

We didn’t want to watch something in bed every night, only sometimes when we were particularly tired and as a special treat but we couldn’t think of any other solution than to buy an additional TV for our bedroom. Getting another TV would mean another significant purchase, paying an additional fee for cable on the second TV, and trying to find a place to put the TV in our already cluttered bedroom in a small New York City apartment. For months, we kept going back and forth – hesitant to buy another TV for our bedroom, but anxious to come up with a solution to our increasingly frustrating situation.

The Solution Was a Projector

Finally, while perusing the internet one day and reading various blogs, I saw a mention of a projector that your iPhone could connect with. Until then, I had thought of projectors as either film reel projectors used in movie theaters and in homes before VHS was invented, or as the clunky things teachers would roll into the classroom during geometry class to draw shapes and angles and project them onto the blackboard. I wasn’t aware that home entertainment projectors had become affordable and could easily be hooked up to your computer or phone, but now that I was, I realized that this could be the solution we were looking for. The only issue was that we had recently hung a gallery wall on the wall I had in mind for the projector.

After a quick huddle session with my husband and an Amazon search, we discovered that not only were projectors themselves affordable, but so were retractable projector screens. Two days later, our home projector and projector screen arrived and all for less than $200. Both the projector and projector screen were incredibly easy to set up. We quickly installed a floating shelf above our bed for the projector to rest on as you can see in the image above. Less than an hour later, we were curled up in bed, happily watching last year’s Oscar nominations with a box of Junior Mints.

Why the Projector Won Out Over a TV

The primary reasons we opted for a home entertainment projector in our bedroom instead of a TV are as follows:

1. We rarely watch live television: As technology has advanced, and live television viewing has significantly decreased, the need for cable or network channels in every room of the house has been more or less eliminated. We watch the majority of our television through on demand subscription services like Hulu, Netflix or Amazon Prime. All of these are easily accessible either through a smart phone or computer, both of which can easily be hooked up to a projector.
2. We don’t have space for a TV in our bedroom and didn’t want to lose valuable storage space or detract from the calm ambiance we were hoping to achieve: Retractable projector screens can easily be installed on the very top of the wall, and pulled down to the height that works best for your preferences and the distance between the screen and projector. We hung our projector screen above our gallery wall and only pull it down when we are ready to watch something. We didn’t lose any valuable storage space and avoided an ugly black box ruining our serene bedroom.
3. We didn’t want to spend the money on another TV: If we were going to purchase another TV, we knew we wanted it to be a fairly high quality TV with a sizeable screen that we could use for a long time. To meet our requirements, we would have needed to spend at least $400 and that’s on the lower end. Like TVs, home entertainment projectors come in a range of prices that often reflect the quality of the projector particularly in regards to contrast, lumens and image sharpness The projector we purchased cost less than $100. If we were to do it again, we would buy a higher quality projector that had better resolution and higher lumens like this one in the $200-$300 range. This is definitely still on the lower end of the price and quality range of home theater projectors but would serve our purposes extremely well.

1. We want the experience of watching a show or movie in our bedroom to feel special: Because we don’t watch shows or movies in our bedroom every night, we knew that when we did, we wanted it to feel like a special treat, and be different from our usual experience lying on the couch watching TV. Laying in bed while watching a show is in itself a treat, but using a projector takes it to a whole other level. When the lights are off and the show or movie we’re watching is reflected onto a screen larger than any TV screen we’ve ever had, it feels a little bit like being in bed at a movie theater, an experience I’ve always wanted to have.

We’ve had a projector and screen in our bedroom for over a year at this point, and we haven’t once wished for a TV in its place. In fact, at some point we may even swap out the TV in our living room for a high quality 4K home theater projector.