I’ve had Windows PCs hooked up to my living room TVs for decades. While Microsoft hasn’t taken home theater PCs seriously since it axed Windows Media Center, that doesn’t matter—Windows PCs are amazing in the living room. I’ll never give mine up. With all the news about Valve’s upcoming Steam Machine and Microsoft turning the next Xbox into a full Windows PC , I’m calling it now: the return of the home theater PC is upon us! But there’s no need to wait. You can have a great experience right now—yes, today!—with no special hardware or software needed. Here’s why you should put a PC in your living room, pronto. All you need is one cable Connecting a PC to a modern TV is extremely simple. Most of the time, all you have to do is bridge the two using an HDMI cable. Yup, that’s it! If your laptop doesn’t have an HDMI port, you can likely use a USB-C-to-HDMI cable to do the same thing. Then, you just use a wireless mouse and keyboard (or even a game controller) to navigate your PC from the couch. The Arteck wireless keyboard with built-in touchpad is perfect for this. Mark Knapp / Foundry The biggest challenge is figuring out an ergonomic setup that makes it comfortable to use a mouse from your couch. Fortunately, there are lots of good options for this, including keyboards with built-in touchpads . A full web browser on your TV When you connect a PC to your TV, you get a full web browser experience that lets you use absolutely any website or streaming service on your TV with zero compatibility concerns. That means access to any video or music streaming service, even ones unavailable on TVs. For example, want to watch Twitch channels on a Roku? You can’t because there’s no official app. Want to stream music from an artist’s Bandcamp page? Can’t do that either because Bandcamp doesn’t offer apps on streaming devices. (Plus, searching for apps gets annoying fast.) Jared Newman / Foundry Instead of juggling your phone and casting Twitch streams over Chromecast and Bandcamp songs via Bluetooth, you can just use a full web browser to watch or listen to anything you want. After dealing with so many fragmented TV platforms, it’s been a breath of fresh air. A PC on your TV lets you do so much more with less effort. And you aren’t limited to streaming platforms, either. Want to scroll Instagram reels with friends? Or show your favorite Reddit threads to family? Or play your couch co-op Steam games? Easy. Your TV is essentially a PC now and you can do anything you want. A cinematic PC gaming experience A Windows PC offers the best gaming experience you can get in the living room. Unlike with a console, you not only get complete access to your full library of PC games, but with better performance than the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, or Nintendo Switch 2. Steam With Steam, you can enter Big Picture Mode and navigate your game library as if you were using a console to play PC games on the screen right from a couch. I played Cyberpunk 2077 in my living room with a mouse, keyboard, TV, and high-end sound system. It was excellent . This is also a great setup for local co-op experiences. With a few controllers, you can play PC games that offer local co-op on the screen in your living room without huddling around a desktop PC. Chris Hoffman / Foundry Note that while I’ve turned my Steam Deck into a DIY gaming console , I still prefer using a laptop or PC in the living room for gaming on my big-screen TV. The hardware is just more powerful. A physical keyboard for fast text input For any text input on a TV, I prefer a physical keyboard. I can’t stand hunting and pecking with a remote whenever I want to search YouTube or another app. And I don’t enjoy speaking into a remote and hoping it understands my voice commands correctly. We recommend: Arteck HW197 Wireless Keyboard with Trackpad Having a wireless keyboard (with that built-in touchpad I mentioned) in your lap is so much more convenient. If you’re like me and hate inputting text on your TV, consider opting for a proper keyboard. It’s worth noting that you can pair wireless Bluetooth keyboards with many modern streaming devices. You don’t actually need a Windows PC for this. But a keyboard is most powerful when paired with a PC—you get keyboard shortcuts on your living room TV, too! Thinking about streaming games and casting wirelessly? Think again Manufacturers have long tried to solve the living room experience with streaming. You can stream games from your PC to your TV, you can cloud stream games over the internet to your TV, you can wirelessly cast your Windows desktop to your TV, and more. They’re all flawed. Consider Valve’s Steam Link for streaming games from a gaming PC to your TV. In my experience, even when streaming from a powerful PC to a Steam Deck plugged into my living room TV, the experience just isn’t as reliable as running the game on a PC that’s directly connected to the TV. As far as video quality, reliability, and performance are concerned, a direct PC-to-TV connection is better in every way. Valve Meanwhile, wireless streaming has its own issues. Windows may let you wirelessly mirror your PC display to your TV, and it works okay as long as you’re doing “normal” stuff that doesn’t involve video or games. Once you need smooth frame rates, it’s a laggy mess that doesn’t deliver the crisp-and-clean quality you get with a directly-connected PC. And while you could set up a local network server to stream media from a local media server using something like Plex or Jellyfin , I still find it much more convenient to play video/music right from a PC that’s connected to the TV. If you’re downloading something to watch, you can download it right in your living room, too. You can go beyond the desktop My aim here is to convince you that the Windows desktop is amazing in the living room. Highly underrated, even. But there are plenty of applications that will deliver you a more traditional living room experience on a Windows PC, too. Ben Patterson/Foundry For gaming, Big Picture Mode in Steam offers a SteamOS-style experience. For media streaming, Plex HTPC , Jellyfin Media Player , and Kodi offer media players with living room-friendly interfaces you can navigate from your couch—even with a game controller. A PC and smart TV. It’s all you need Sure, you might prefer to swap over to your smart TV’s built-in software when you’re going to watch Netflix for a few hours. But for anything beyond basic streaming from a mainstream service, PCs win. I don’t need a PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, or Nintendo Switch 2. I’m that happy with my living room PC experience. I don’t bother using another swanky streaming box because my smart TV’s built-in software is fine. Beyond that, a PC is all I need in my living room. We recommend: Acemagic M1 Price When Reviewed: 539 Euro Best Prices Today: 620,00 € at Acemagic If you don’t want a massive tower PC taking up space, opt for a mini PC. They’re tiny yet performant, and they easily blend into any home entertainment center. You’ll want a serious gaming PC if you plan to do serious gaming, otherwise a mini PC is fine just for media. Check out our roundup of the best mini PC deals to shop around. Don’t want to buy anything? No problem! That laptop you have lying around is good enough. As long as you have the right cable, go ahead and hook it up to your TV to get started right now . But I warn you: after you’ve tasted the freedom of a PC in your living room, nothing else will come close. Further reading: Key tweaks for gaming PCs in living rooms