When it comes to TV lift furniture, the TV lift mechanism used is the heart and soul of the piece. That’s why here at Wildwood TV Lift Furniture we use only the highest quality lift mechanisms available. Our mechanism offers a very slim design (which helps keep the overall depth of the TV lift footboard slim), while still allowing for incredible travel distance. On top of that, it uses a radio frequency remote to enable you to lift or lower it from anywhere in the room. Put simply, our TV lift mechanisms are absolutely perfect for a TV lift footboard or any other kind of TV lift furniture!
Why Does The Mechanism Matter?
If you have a great looking car with a crummy engine, your car is really good-for-nothing. Similarly, even if you have a very sleek-looking piece of TV lift furniture, if it doesn’t have a high-quality lifting mechanism it is going to be useless. On top of that, when used in a TV Bed, the TV lift mechanism’s overall depth is especially crucial. The whole point of a TV lift footboard is to be inconspicuous; to look like a normal footboard. This is why finding a mechanism that doesn’t take up too much space is so important!
What Makes A Good TV Lift Mechanism?
The journey to find the perfect mechanism was a long one. We spent many countless hours Googling, researching, making phone calls, and reading specs sheets. In doing so, we found a few things that really make the whole difference in finding the perfect TV Lift Mechanism. We boiled down all of our research to the most important bullet points and, voila! You now have a guide to the perfect TV lift mechanism.
1. The Remote Control
Most TV lift mechanisms use some sort of wireless remote operation system in addition to a manual push-switch. This is great because it means you don’t need to manually raise the TV when ever you are ready to use it! Just push the “Up” button the remote and bam! There’s your TV. However, there are two ways to make a wireless remote communicate with a receiver, and believe it or not, it really matters which one you get.
The two type of remote control systems are 1: infrared (IR) signals ,and 2: radio frequency (RF) signals. I won’t take your time explaining the science behind these two remote control systems (we’ll leave that to Bill Nye) but the key difference between them is that IR systems require an unbroken line-of-sight with the remote in order to receive the signal. Have you ever been trying to change the channel on your TV, but there is something blocking the receiver so it won’t work? That is an IR system. The issue with IR systems and TV Lift Furniture is that a portion of the mechanism must be visible to the remote at all times in order for it to work. So, when the mechanism is concealed in the TV lift footboard in the “Down” position, there would have to be a receiver of some sort poking out of the footboard to make it work. This would ruin the beauty of the TV lift footboard, because it would no longer be a sleek, simple-looking footboard, it would have a receiver box visible somewhere and wires running back to the mechanism. Call us picky, but we don’t like the look of a cheap TV lift footboard with wires and components hanging out everywhere. Our TV lift mechanisms all use RF remote control systems, meaning you can operate your TV lift footboard (or any other TV lift furniture, for that matter) from anywhere within the room.
2. Size Matters
When you are looking to reduce the size of a TV lift footboard, there are few ways to go about it. First, you could reduce the size of the wood used… not a good idea. You want the footboard to be sturdy (especially for shipping across the country). The next option is to reduce the size of the TV, but TVs don’t have a lot of variation in depth, and they don’t get much thinner than 2″ these days, so there’s not much you can do there. TV lift mechanisms, on the other hand, can have quite a bit of variance in size, anywhere from 2.5″ deep to 7″ deep. So, if you pick the thinnest mechanism available, you can save up to 5″ in overall depth.
Because the TV lift mechanism is the core of the TV lift footboard, the outside dimensions of the footboard depend greatly on the size of the mechanism. So, when the size of the mechanism is a little bigger, the size of the TV lift furniture is a little bigger. Our TV lift footboards are about 8-9″ deep, which is already significantly larger than a normal footboard. I guess what I’m saying is that the constant battle is to create a footboard with a TV in it that looks like a footboard without a TV in it. That’s extremely hard to do, but with the right TV lift mechanism, it can be easier. Consider this, if your TV is about 3″ thick, your mechanism is 7″ thick, and the cabinet components add 2″ to the overall depth, you are looking at a 12″ deep footboard. If everything else stays the same, but the mechanism is only 2.5″ deep, you are looking at a 7.5″ footboard.
A good TV lift mechanism is under 4″ deep, a GREAT TV lift mechanism is under 3″ deep. At Wildwood TV Lift Furniture, our TV lift mechanism are just over 2.5″ deep. And we’re darn proud of that.
3. Versatile Mounting Patterns
TVs all have holes in the back where a wall mount can attach, the way in which these holes are laid out is generally referred to as the TVs mounting pattern. All TVs have different mounting patterns, which can be very frustrating in picking a good wall mount bracket, or using a TV lift mechanism. A while back, the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) developed a system designed to bring some standardization to these mounting patterns and, thus, the VESA standards were born.
A VESA standard mounting pattern is just the distance, measured in millimeters, from the center one mounting hole to the other, and it is written as the [horizontal distance] x [the vertical distance]. Such as 200 x 200, or 400 x 300 (see image below).
Image Source: https://www.oneforall.com/what-is-vesa
So, In the case of the TV displayed above, the TV shown has a 400 x 300 VESA standard, and would require a TV lift mechanism with the capability of 400 x 300 mounting. There are dozens of VESA standards, so a TV lift mechanism must be very versatile in it’s capability to accept VESA standards or else you will need to be very limited when shopping for a new TV.
So there you have it. The 3 most important factors to consider when choosing a TV lift mechanism. If you are looking for a simple winner, go ahead and check out the TV lifts over at Wood Technology. They build, and sell, the best TV lift mechanisms we’ve been able to find. They use RF remote controls, they are compact, and they are very versatile when it comes to mounting patterns.
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