The last time I had a tv show I caught regularly was, like, back in the 90's. So that gives you an idea as to how clueless I am about tvs nowadays.

I have a garage apartment that I rented as furnished. Originally, it came with a small 32" tv (Best Buy's house brand, Insignia, but also a Fire tv?). I put it there before I discovered that my target market prefers humongous tvs. The occupants of my garage apartment gave me back my 32" tv so they could replace it with a tv that had more pleasing dimensions. It's been in storage for about a year now, but I pulled it out this evening, because I'm pulling together five additional furnished rooms, and I wanted to see whether it would be a fit for my smallest room.

Apart from tv size, I've been trying to figure out what kind of tv to buy. We have a Roku at our house, so I was thinking about a Roku tv, and putting it in guest mode? So that the room's occupant can be in charge of their own Roku channels/subscriptions. That seemed to be the advice from the AirBnB hosts on forums where I lurk.

When I plugged in the Insignia/Fire tv, I saw that the previous people had activated Freevee. I really liked it. If I get Fire tvs, am I able to activate Freevee with guest mode?

Because the former occupants presumably signed into Amazon as themselves to download Freevee, will someone ever lose access to the apps that are on the tv? Or once it's downloaded, it's a permanent part of the tv for its lifetime?

Since I don't have internet activated at the house, I used my phone as a hotspot. I was afraid that it would have speed/buffering issues, but it worked very well for everything I looked at. Does that sound sustainable?

I just logged into my Prime account and loaded Freevee on my Roku TV.

I do not see a way to not have it loaded under an account name. Have never used a FireTV before. We have four Roku's going here.

You could get a new Amazon account and then pre-load Freevee on the device. Don't use your account as the algorithms will be wacky.

There are plenty of things to watch free without needing accounts. As long as you don't mind commercials.

If you are supplying wifi internet and a device like Roku Or Fire then they can watch a lot of stuff for free. If they decide to pay for a premium service it will not effect you. When they leave they should wipe it from the device, but a lot do not and then the next person can play around with it.

I know people that have done that at hotels. They see someone had say a Netflix account left open. Then they would load a lot of shows that were opposite of what was on there. Like kids shows when the account was full of horror movies.

That's what it was-- I went to see if I could load the Roku app onto the Insignia/Fire tv, but it wouldn't let me unless I logged into an Amazon account first. And I was afraid if I created an Amazon account for setting up the tvs, I would lose access to everything that had already been set up. Which, in theory, I suppose I could have re-loaded, presuming I knew what I'd lost... I'm torn between trying to run basic setup, vs leaving it up to people who almost certainly know way more about it than I do. :P

So, perhaps Roku tvs are more flexible than Fire tvs?

mapleaf18: Do you have a reference or link regarding that? I hadn't heard anything about Pluto changing and just did a search and can't find anything that says that Pluto is going to stop being free any time soon.

If you are supplying a smart TV or a stick for a regular TV and there is wifi available I think you are doing better than most.

I wouldn't add too much just for the simple fact that they can do it and you have less chance for drama is you stay back.

We have a Roku and about the only thing we watch on FreeVee is Judge Judy. I am so pitiful when it comes to figuring out what to do with any kind of gadgets, well, just pitiful.

You mentioned that you don't have internet at the house and use your phone hotspot. I would spring for internet at the house and wifi. You can probably get it for $80/month on the high end.

It's a shared housing situation, 6x6. Individual furnished rooms. I had pulled out the tv for size, but also to see how it operated with my phone as a hotspot, if there was lag or buffering. It worked well, presuming a person has no data caps and isn't trying to do anything like graphics-intensive multiplayer gaming.

I prefer hardwired when possible but I have a wifi router and it gets decent coverage throughout my place, both levels. One camera at the far end of the house doesn't always appreciate it, but not bad enough for me to get a booster.

Everyone I know that uses their phone as a hotspot talks about problems. Especially when you start having more than one user on at a time.

Maybe get a stand alone service for internet in there. Charge it to the rooms. Fire and forget. If the TVs are smart the tenants can just power up and figure it out.

If each tv is in guest mode, each individual would control their own apps, right? But even if I had one account that ran all the tvs, wouldn't they have to be able to see the screen in order to mess with the settings?

I do not use a guest mode. I have all on one account. With sub accounts like this kid, that kid parents or whatever.

They could create their own sub account but they can also get into any of the other accounts and wreak havoc if they chose to.

One of my kids was still at home and paid for a subscription to a streaming service. Then they decided they didn't want it any longer. Instead of just continuing to pay we started our own and lost all the stuff we had saved to watch later or continue.

Not the end of the world, but as mentioned earlier some people can play around and mess with your algorithms. Say you don't like horror films. They could load a lot of them in your que. That would be a nuisance. Then they could have them started and not finished, that is another nuisance. But then they can load, watch and delete them. Now you see nothing but the AI says you might be interested in all these horror shows.

None of this is a horrible thing, just a nuisance.