Where to Put the One Connect Box

The Frame keeps all its sockets in a separate box, connected to the television by one thin cable. That is the whole reason a Frame can sit flat on a wall looking like a picture — and it moves the problem rather than removing it, because the box has to live somewhere.

Two things constrain where. Everything else is preference.

Constraint one: it needs air

This is the requirement people skip, and the one that generates the most complaints afterwards. Samsung asks for roughly 100 mm of clearance around the box. Seal it into an airtight cupboard or a tight recess and it runs hot — owners who have done it report the box getting genuinely hot to the touch, and the classic symptom is sound drifting out of sync with the picture.

It does not need to be in open air. It needs somewhere air can move: a cabinet with an open back, a vented panel, a shelf, a recess that is not sealed. If the space would be uncomfortable for a set-top box, it is wrong for this too.

Constraint two: the cable only reaches so far

The supplied One Invisible Connection cable is about 5 m. Samsung sells longer versions, up to 15 m, for installations where the box needs to be further off — a cupboard in the next room, a rack elsewhere.

Measure the route, not the distance. A box two metres away as the crow flies can easily be five metres of cable once it has gone up the wall, across, down through a floor void and back along a skirting. Add slack at both ends. And do not solve a shortfall by pulling the cable tight around a corner: it carries fibre as well as power, it is only a few millimetres thick, and a sharp bend or a pinch behind a flush-mounted television is a fault you will spend an hour chasing.

The remote still works — the receiver is on the television

A reasonable worry, and the answer is reassuring: hiding the box does not cost you the remote. The infrared receiver is on the television, not on the box, and infrared is only used to switch the set on and off. Everything else the remote does travels over Bluetooth. So the box can be completely out of sight, in a cupboard, behind a door, in another room.

The honest caveat is that some owners with the box shut inside a cabinet report the occasional control oddity — volume working with the door open and not closed. It is not the common case, but if you are building joinery around this, leave yourself able to open it.

The options, roughly in order of effort

On a shelf or in a media unit

The obvious answer and, for most people, the right one. Air, access, no construction. If there is already furniture under the television, the box goes in it and the cable runs down the wall in trunking. Done in an hour.

Surface trunking down the wall

Paintable plastic channel stuck or screwed to the wall, cable inside, painted to match. Less invasive than it sounds and, once painted, far less visible than people expect. Crucially it lets you use the cable that came in the box, because nothing is buried. This is the answer for rented homes, solid walls you do not want to chase, and anyone who would rather not open a wall for a television.

Recessed box behind the television

A back box cut into the wall behind the set, with the One Connect box sitting in it and a socket inside. The tidiest result — nothing visible at all — and the most work. Two cautions: it must be a proper recessed AV box rather than a hole in the plasterboard, and it must not be airtight, which brings you straight back to the ventilation problem. Plenty of people cut a recess and then discover they have built an oven.

In-wall run to somewhere else entirely

The cable goes into the wall behind the television and comes out at a socket, a cupboard or the next room. The cleanest look for a wall with no furniture under it, and the option with the real rules attached — see below.

The two rules that are not style choices

The supplied cable must not go inside a wall. It is thin, white, tidy and looks made for exactly that, which is the trap. It is not CL2 or CL3 rated, and unrated cable in a stud cavity is a fire-safety failure — the kind an insurer can point at afterwards. Samsung sells in-wall rated versions of the cable for this purpose. Buy the rated one, or keep the supplied one in surface trunking. Those are the two acceptable answers.

Adding a socket is an electrician's job. Putting a power outlet inside a recessed box, or moving one behind the television, is electrical installation work — notifiable under Part P in England and Wales, with equivalent rules elsewhere. Feeding a low-voltage cable through a wall is DIY. Wiring a socket at the end of it is not, and this is not a distinction worth being brave about.

What we would actually do

If there is furniture under the television: box in the furniture, cable in painted trunking. It is reversible, it costs almost nothing, it needs no electrician, and once the trunking is painted almost nobody notices it.

If the wall is bare and you want it perfect: recessed AV box with a socket fitted by an electrician, and a rated cable if anything is going through the cavity. Do it once, do it properly, and leave the recess able to breathe.

Either way, sort it before the television goes on the wall — see the mounting guide for the order that avoids taking it down again.