Guide
What size TV for a bedroom
Published . Updated . By the DisplayScale team.
A bedroom asks the size question differently from a sitting room. The throw is short, the wall is usually narrow, and you watch from a position no sofa puts you in.
Skip to the calculator with a 160 cm wall already set.
The two distances that matter
Most bedrooms put the screen two to two and a half metres from the pillow. That small difference moves the answer a whole step:
| From | Range | Best balanced | Across your view |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2.0 m | 43–65 inch | 50 inch | 31° |
| 2.5 m | 48–65 inch | 55 inch | 27° |
| Used for | Sit | In feet | Field of view |
|---|---|---|---|
| General TV | 1.8 m – 2.2 m | 5 ft 11 in – 7 ft 3 in | 28–34° |
| Sports | 1.7 m – 2.1 m | 5 ft 7 in – 6 ft 9 in | 30–36° |
| Gaming | 1.6 m – 2.1 m | 5 ft 3 in – 6 ft 9 in | 30–38° |
| Movies | 1.5 m – 1.8 m | 5 ft 0 in – 5 ft 11 in | 34–40° |
| Home cinema | 1.3 m – 1.7 m | 4 ft 5 in – 5 ft 7 in | 36–45° |
At two metres a 50 inch is the strongest match and a 43 inch is the conservative one at 27°. At two and a half a 55 inch takes over, and the 43 inch drops to 22°, which is where a picture starts to feel like it is happening somewhere else.
The wall is the harder limit
| Size | Active area | Active area (in) | Body, approx. | Height on its stand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 43" 16:9 | 95.2 cm × 53.5 cm | 37.5 in × 21.1 in | 96.8 cm × 56.1 cm | 68.1 cm |
| 50" 16:9 | 110.7 cm × 62.3 cm | 43.6 in × 24.5 in | 111.9 cm × 64.1 cm | 69.1 cm |
| 55" 16:9 | 121.8 cm × 68.5 cm | 47.9 in × 27 in | 123 cm × 70.3 cm | 75.3 cm |
| 65" 16:9 | 143.9 cm × 80.9 cm | 56.7 in × 31.9 in | 145.1 cm × 82.7 cm | 87.7 cm |
A bedroom wall is often a 160 cm stretch between a wardrobe and a door, and that is where the shortlist ends. A 55 inch uses 77 % of it. A 65 inch uses 91 %, which fits on paper and looks wedged in practice. A 75 inch needs 167 cm and does not fit at all — no distance makes that work.
Height, not just size
A bedroom is the one room where the usual mounting advice inverts. Elsewhere you put the centre of the picture near seated eye level, about 107 cm from the floor. In a bedroom you are lying down or propped against a headboard, and the screen usually needs to sit higher and tilt down towards you.
The calculator draws the centre height for whatever zone you give it, so the quickest way to check is to put your own numbers in and look at where the middle of the picture lands.
Ours: a 58 inch at 2 m, and a 75 inch at 3.4 m
Our main gaming room is a bedroom, and we play lying in bed. The television there is a 58 inch 4K, directly in front of the bed with the pillow 2 m from the screen. It spans 35.6° of our view, a step up from the 50 inch the table above ranks first at that distance and well inside the 43 to 65 inch range it gives. We mounted it close to the ceiling for a better angle from the bed, which is the height advice above in practice.
In another room we had a 75 inch on the wall and gamed on it from bed, with the pillow about 3.4 m away. It is by far the bigger set, 166 cm of picture against the 58's 128.4, yet from its pillow it spanned 27.4°, less of our view than the 58 takes from 2 m. In a bedroom the distance to the pillow decides how much of your view a screen takes more than the diagonal does.
The console on it is an Xbox Series S, which is designed around 1440p gaming rather than 4K. From the pillow that matters less than it sounds. A 1440p picture on a 58 inch gives 69.6 pixels per degree at 2 m, already past the 60 at which the calculator counts individual pixels as invisible; a 4K picture gives 104.
Our complaint about it has nothing to do with its size. With the lights off, the edges of the picture glow and dark scenes look washed out. It is odd to look at, and we live with it because this is a set for streaming and games in bed. If yours will be watched in a dark room, look at a dark scene on the model you are considering before you buy it.
Draw it on your own wall
On a 200 cm wall at 2.5 m, the strongest match is a 65 inch television. Open the calculator to use your own measurements.
Common questions
- What size TV is best for a bedroom?
- From about 2 m, a 50 inch: it spans 31 degrees and is the strongest match. From 2.5 m the answer moves up to a 55 inch at 27 degrees. Both fit a 160 cm wall.
- Is a 65 inch TV too big for a bedroom?
- Usually. It fits a 160 cm wall at 91 % of the width, and from 2 m it spans 40 degrees — immersive in a sitting room, and a lot of screen to face from a pillow.
- Is a 43 inch TV too small for a bedroom?
- Not from a short throw. At 2 m it spans 27 degrees, which is the same claim on your vision that a 65 inch makes from 2.5 m. It is the conservative pick, not a bad one.
- Is a 58 inch TV a good size for a bedroom?
- From 2 m it spans 35.6 degrees: inside the 43 to 65 inch range the calculator gives at that distance, and a step up from the 50 inch it ranks first. Our own bedroom TV is a 58 inch, 2 m from the pillow and mounted high, used for games and streaming from bed.
- Is a 75 inch TV too big for a bedroom?
- On a 160 cm wall it does not fit at all. On a wall that takes it, distance decides: we had a 75 inch in a room we gamed in from bed, with the pillow about 3.4 m away, and from there it spanned 27.4 degrees, less than a 58 inch does from 2 m.
- How high should a bedroom TV be mounted?
- Lower than you would think, then higher. You watch a bedroom television lying down or propped up, so the centre usually wants to be above seated eye level. Ours sits close to the ceiling, for a better angle from the pillow.