Before you start
- An LG webOS television from 2016 or newer
- An LG account signed in on the set
- Either your M3U link or your Xtream login
Nothing to sign in with yet? Take 24 hours on us, or pick a plan and be watching inside the quarter hour.
Doing it, one step at a time
Confirm the webOS version
Settings, then All Settings, then General, then About This TV. webOS 3.0 and later, meaning 2016 onward, will run these players. Older sets need a stick, and it is worth knowing that before hunting through a store that will never list the app.
Open the LG Content Store
Press Home, open the LG Content Store, move to Apps and use the search field. On older webOS versions the store is slower than you expect, so give it a moment before deciding it has frozen.
Install a player
Search IPTV Smarters Player, iPlayTV or GSE Smart IPTV. Smarters is free; the other two carry a one-off price and rather better interfaces. Anything calling itself TiviMato or Tivimax is not TiViMate, has no connection to it, and is not worth your money.
Enter your details
Smarters wants Login with Xtream Codes API followed by the username, password and server address. Smart IPTV instead wants the M3U link sent to the MAC address it shows on screen, done from siptv.app/mylist on another device rather than on the television.
Set the picture up for live broadcast
LG enables TruMotion by default, which gives sport an odd glassy look people routinely blame on the stream. Under Picture, Advanced Settings, switch TruMotion off and set the mode to Standard. Do that before judging the quality of anything.
Start watching
Once it restarts the set loads the full line-up with its own guide. The coloured buttons on the remote handle favourites and the schedule, and learning those two turns a very long list into something you can live with week after week.
Build the favourites list with the coloured buttons
webOS players lean on the remote's coloured keys for favourites and the guide, which is quicker than any menu once you know it. Spend five minutes putting the sports tiers in before the weekend rather than discovering the shortcut mid-match.
Have it open before the coverage starts
Launch the player during the build-up rather than at kick-off. The first channel load is the slowest part on webOS, and a stream that has been running a few minutes has a buffer behind it. That buffer is exactly what absorbs the surge when everybody else arrives.
When it goes wrong, and why
Black screen with sound
A decoder mismatch rather than a dead channel, and the distinction matters because people cancel over it. Switch the player to native or hardware decoding in the app settings, or take the lower-bitrate copy of the channel, which exists for most sports feeds and sits directly beside it.
The remote pointer makes the guide painful
LG Magic Remotes default to pointer control, which suits web browsing and suits a sports grid very badly. Press the wheel to switch to directional control, or use the arrow keys, and the guide becomes far quicker to move around.
The store will not let the app install
LG occasionally blocks an install when the set is signed into an account that does not match the store region. Sign out, sign back in with an account for the country you are in, and try again.
It broke mid-match: what to try, in order
Re-enter the channel to rebuild the buffer. Then switch to the HD copy beside the 4K feed. Then change the decoder to native or hardware in the app settings, which is the specific fix for a picture that freezes while sound continues. Then close the app properly and reopen it, and if that fails, power-cycle the set at the wall rather than with the remote. Note which step worked, because on webOS the same one usually works every time and you can go straight to it in future.
Which player suits this hardware
Smart IPTV (SIPTV)
Setting up Smart IPTV on Samsung and LG televisions: find the MAC address, upload your M3U at siptv.app, restart, activate. Why it has no login screen.
IPTV Smarters Pro
Installing IPTV Smarters Pro on Firestick, Android, Samsung, LG, Apple TV and desktop, signing in with Xtream Codes, loading the guide and fixing errors.
The full index
Every device and player covered, gathered on one page.
Which leagues are carried
Every competition, the broadcaster showing it, and where the 4K feeds sit.
Get your LG Smart TV ready for kick-off
From $15 a month for 25,000+ channels, with the login back on WhatsApp in under 15 minutes.
Questions about LG Smart TV
Which app is best on an LG set?
Start with IPTV Smarters: free, takes the Xtream login and brings a full guide. Smart IPTV is leaner and very steady once configured, in exchange for a one-time fee. webOS 3.0 and later runs either, so anything from 2016 has both open to it.
Any way to run TiViMate on LG?
Not directly, and anything in the LG store claiming to be TiViMate is not. The only route is an Android device in an HDMI port, which for a Firestick means $30 to $50. On the television the sport goes on, that is usually money well spent.
Will an app survive a software update?
Normally yes. LG updates do not clear installed apps, though a full factory reset will. If you use Smart IPTV and the set is reset, upload the playlist again against the same MAC address, which takes two minutes.
Is an older LG worth using at all?
A 2016 or 2017 set runs these players, just not quickly. If it is the television you watch sport on and the guide feels sluggish, a $40 stick transforms it for less than three months of subscription. On a spare bedroom set, leave it alone.
Can I watch two fixtures at once on an LG?
Not within these players, no. webOS has no multi-view IPTV app worth using, and that is one of the few genuine arguments for adding an Android box: TiViMate Premium does exactly that. On an LG alone, one match at a time.
Why does my LG struggle where my phone does not?
Because the panel was built to a price several years ago and is doing more work than a modern phone with a fraction of the resources. It is rarely the account. Hiding categories, restarting before the weekend and using the HD copies rather than 4K all help more than anything else available on the set itself.
Does the LG store version get updated?
Less often than the Android builds, which is worth knowing rather than worrying about. webOS app updates arrive slowly and occasionally not at all, so a player that works today generally keeps working, and a player with a bug keeps the bug for longer. In practice this makes LG a stable platform rather than a fragile one, but it does mean that when a genuine problem appears there is no quick fix coming. If that matters to you, an HDMI stick sidesteps the whole question, since Android players update on a normal schedule.