Excluding bedrooms, I am talking in the main viewing room, boggles my mind.
Chiropractors gotta be loving it.

I am temporarily in an apartment while our house closes and these places have 9 foot ceilings and I can't tell you how many people have their televisions plastered up against it.

One guy has his maybe 50 inch at the 8 foot level and his fake fireplace hanging under it at a more respectable viewing level...and he is a low volt guy for his electrical company! At least the wires are in the wall.

Ok I'm done.

Sometimes there is a "reason" like a design element or the way that its used. With an open floor plan the TV gets mounted high sometimes so that the kitchen, dining, family room can all see the screen. Or in a game room where you might want to see the TV over the sofa. A fireplace or built in cabinets or paneling on a wall might cause you to mount it higher.

In this one there is no place to put a TV without moving the furniture round where a sofa would block the fireplace.



This one is an easy fix...move the TV down below on the right.



Other times its because people don't know what they are doing.

Oh I get at times there are design elements that dictate, I have been forced to use them for clients.
I have been talking people out of hanging them so high for years and after reluctance and foot stomping they end up thanking me eventually.

But in this place its all the bottom picture. There is nothing dictating that here.

Remember all those Mitsubishi rear pros we lugged up and down stairs back in the good ole days? Remember how the screen was about 2-3 feet from the floor depending on the size of the TV? Perfect viewing height. What happened?

Also, remember the time you installed that 65" Mitsubishi CRT rear pro above a fireplace 7 feet above the floor? Remember how it looked like garbage and you had to build ramps to roll it up at an angle and then screw in 2x4 wedges to keep the thing from tipping forward and on to the floor and killing everyone?

Maybe the first large screen TV that they saw was in a bar and that high location brings back fond memories of bachelor days. Also, everyone is usually standing while discussing the room layout and the TV is logically installed at viewing height (while standing).

I think that there is an equate between large TV and large artwork and everyone thinks that pictures should be hung high. (picture viewing is done by walk through and "high" is at viewing level)

Designers are more concerned with pier approval than anything that makes physical sense. They'd be embarrassed to show photos of projects with TV's hung low because their mentors hung high.


In fairness, a few designers get it and they'll ask me where I want the TV, then they'll balance it with other design elements. But it often works like some sort of negotiation. They compromised with the TV location, now I have to reciprocate and hide the speakers under or behind something, or just use the TV's speakers -- it's all the same, right? It's all just ugly, impossible to use tech junk.

[Edited spelling typo]

Buzz is right on.
I cant believe I have been using tilt brackets forever. I should just mount them lower.
4 ft to the bottom max is what I shoot for. Even lower on the largest screens. Obviously if there is a design element, that changes everything.

Don't forget at the afore mentioned chiropractors, their waiting rooms are filled with TVs mounted a foot or so below the ceiling. This is to get it into the minds of people that it's "ok" to have them mounted so high.

And the reason why other doctor's offices are the same way, is because the chiropractors and them are in con-hooks.

KOT

In an office environment I can see it being high so people staring at phones do not bump into it. Before flat screens and phones they were just so big they had to be high to avoid bumping into them.

I had to bite my tongue recently.

Designer actually had good drawings, modern fireplace low, TV above was positioned well. (I personally hate TV's above fireplaces)
Builder raised fireplace by at least another 1.5 feet, his logic - you might not see it very well because a coffee table will be in the way.
When I mentioned this puts the TV a bit higher than it should be, he said "your going to use a tilt mount aren't you" " I always put the TV up around there"
Just because a tilt mount is getting used doesn't mean you no longer have to "look up" to watch it if it's too high.
Client said it was fine, they were getting used to watching like that in the rental place they live in.

You give people too much credit by thinking that they debated how to influence people's belief of how high a TV should be. Waiting rooms have chairs all around, and you don't want anybody standing up (or worse yet, sitting down) and bumping into a TV, so they go up high. Too high.


That's "cahoots." Again, I don't give them that much credit. It's copying others, it's not thinking it through, it's the thing that MLK said is one of the most dangerous things in the world: conscientiously applied stupidity.


Let's stop talking generically -- can you cite how many inches up the TVs are? Naming the inches in a discussion like this is kinda like naming model numbers -- it gets things pinned down so the facts can actually be used.

I've had this challenge recently. A TV was to go over a low fireplace in a bedroom. I chose a 65" and mounted it so if the guy was in bed, his view would not be obscured by his toes sticking up in the bed. It came out that the image center was at 58" off the floor.

In the same house, an 85" sits some 8" up from a 24" cabinet surface. I haven't measured to the center height yet -- I designed a cabinet, it's being built, and everyone thought the TV should be 2" higher.

Next, I mounted a 42" TV in a bedroom, and to my surprise, the proper height for this one also put the center of the TV 58" off the floor.

lets no forget the builders that put the outlet for the TV 6" above the mantle so you can see it from the seated position.

Y'all read too much into jokes.

KOT

I agree with Buzz...it has to be something with them seeing them mounted up high in public spaces.

I just put a 12' wide screen where the bottom is 7' off the ground

It's to counter act the affect of "Text-neck"! Gotta stretch out those necks after staying bent over all day staring at their phones!