I just wanted to share my frustration with an unforeseen problem with our otherwise lovely "The Frame" TV we have in our bedroom. I wanted to add a pair of nice looking self-powered Bluetooth speakers to the TV since we sometimes listen to music. Self-powered speakers would give us improved sound while avoiding an unsightly and expensive audio receiver in our bedroom, but it does not seem possible due to two terrible design decisions.
1) No Auto-connect feature for Bluetooth speakers.
You can connect Bluetooth speakers to the TV, but every time you turn the TV on, it asks if you want to pair the Bluetooth device. Not only is this annoying, but my wife and other family members will often not hit OK, and so the sound will just come out of the TV speakers and the nice Bluetooth speakers will just be sitting there uselessly.
Please Samsung, add an option for auto-connect for Bluetooth devices! Even better, it could be something where you could select it for each device, or have a preferred device. So for example, if you have Bluetooth speakers and Bluetooth headphones, you could set your headphones to priority so they would automatically connect when you turn them on.
2) No analog stereo outputs
I've bought or helped choose/install several 4K TV's over the last few years for my family and for friends over the last few years, and this is the first TV that has absolutely no analog audio outputs. No red/white RCA ports, and no headphone jacks. So the only option for audio out is the optical port.
The problem with the optical port is that the TV cannot control volume for the optical port. It's only on or off. The volume control is left to the device. So if you have a pair of powered speakers with optical input, you will have to adjust volume using the speaker controls. The Samsung TV control will not adjust volume of optical out.
If you want to use a remote control to change the volume you will need to buy an audio receiver, and change the volume on the receiver. Maybe you can program the Samsung remote to control the receiver (I'm honestly not sure if you can), but you are still stuck buying, and the placing, the receiver somewhere. And in a bedroom you really don't need an audio receiver taking up space on your dresser. Especially since the whole idea of a "The Frame" is to blend in to the décor.
With analog outputs, though, you just hook up your speakers and you can still adjust volume on the TV. No need to even reprogram the remote.
Why Samsung? Why, why why?
So as it is, I returned the Bluetooth speakers, and am now just using the TV's speakers because there is simply no good place to put a receiver. Even if I got one small enough to hide under our dresser, and even if I could program the Samsung remote to control it, I would still have an issue with line-of-sight for the remote. It would have to be somewhere out in the open.
Obviously they cannot add analog audio outputs to the TV, but they could at least update the firmware so that Bluetooth speakers auto-connect.
