Smart TV stories really show the bubble that many here are in.
“Why would anyone use a Smart TV?! Just build a home theatre PC to connect to your old TV via a 60ft HDMI cable and use a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. I’ve been doing this since 2005”
As if any normal person wants that kind of setup. Not to mention the difficulties with the above for higher end content such as 4K Dolby Vision playback.
People want a basic interface that doesn’t require downloading files beforehand. Click a few buttons on the remote and you have high quality streaming video without the fuss.
What is hard to understand about why people like smart TVs? It’s just convenience.
I would just like an option without the smart-stuff. It seems impossible to find, it's either very small and ugly TVs or built for something else like digital signage and very expensive.
I also have the impression that "everyone" buys an apple tv/Chromecast/etc anyways because of limitations in the smart tv or just ease of use. It makes a lot of sense to have these things separated except for TV manufacturers that want you to buy a TV more frequently.
That's ironic. You can pay your way around the nonsense surveillance/advertising infrastructure by buying the expensive functional displays that were intended for uninterrupted advertising infrastructure.
Can we produce substantially inexpensive black-boxed hardware that they desperately want in order to cut costs, but interferes in dissatisfying but barely tolerable ways with the quality of life too? Can we occasionally make it send messages in-store to their customers that the execs wouldn't want or approve of but find themselves putting up with because it's relatively benign compared to a worse bottom line?
Unfortunately, you still really have to do your research to find a decent one.
My Samsung TV has never been connected to the internet - we use a Roku box to feed streaming content to it - but it's still laggy and unresponsive by default, getting worse over the course of a few months until we decide to factory reset it again.
At one point it was so bad that I pressed the "change source" button a couple times, noticed it wasn't working, pressed the volume buttons, then the menu button, assumed the remote was dead, went to find some batteries in a drawer, took the remote batteries out, and then the TV rapidly switched sources, changed volume and opened the menu over the course of half a second.
I mean I don't expect my TV to work like a snappy appliance from the 1990's. I expect my TV these days to be a slow super low cost ARM computer with poorly written buggy software.
But I expect that of my car infotainment, my computer monitor, and a recently purchased signage screen as well. Finding a device (any device) that didn't behave like this would me more shocking. I tend to think that the best thing to do is buy the most popular product, from a known brand. Because at least then there are millions of people having the same experience, increasing the chance of a fix.
We get amazing hardware in many cases these days. The quality of the screens in TV's these days is completely unbelievable. And you can get a decent one for a few hundred. I too wish there was a brand that would spend a little more on better UX (both hardware and software). But the harsh reality is that it doesn't sell. Rumor doesn't spread that BrandX has snappy intuitive menus, fewer bugs or less ads. The commercial says that UsualBrand has new magical colors and ultra high def thingamajigs, and that sells TVs.
My Roku TV is set to automatically go to the HDMI source where my AppleTV is connected. The remote for my AppleTV turns on the TV and controls the volume.
The ARM chip in the AppleTV is anything but slow and the only thing I had to do to prevent ads on the Home Screen is to remove Apple’s apps from the top bar and replace them with my most used apps.
Do you... change your tires? Or just get a brand new car every year to avoid the hassle of dealing with car shops?
Problem with Smart TVs is they become obsolete super fast software wise. And basically, unsafe to connect to the internet in a few years.
Most TVs have CI+ ports. I can easily imagine an upgradable "smart module". Just buy a new compatible one (which, effectively could just connect for power and HDMI) and get the brand new stuff.
There is no bubble, smart TVs are a consumerist trap and it will require government intervention to fix because nobody has any incentives otherwise.
Gonna skip over your tyre comparison as I don't think it makes much sense sorry.
Having a switchable "compute" module that the user can upgrade without replacing the whole TV would be great but the truth is that is what a streaming box is doing just not integrated into the TV but connected via HDMI.
I treat my smart TVs like a dumb TV. It doesn't have internet access as I have explained elsewhere. I just use the TV OS to switch inputs and change picture settings but never use any of the built in apps.
Having said that my parents do use the apps and haven't reported any issues with them on their LG C8 from 2018. I have tried to get them to use a streaming box but they didn't see the point in complicating things to use the same streaming services. Maybe if the apps get slow or crappy they will change their mind rather than replace the TV.
Sure, if they worked, but they don't. Sadly it's pretty hard to get any real numbers on this. I do know people who use the smart bit of their smart tv, and to be fair, their use case might be exactly what the designers had in mind. The apps on the TV is a supplement to live TV. So mom and dad will watch just regular cable TV, maybe stream a movie once or twice a month, while the kids will use the YouTube app.
For people who are basically done with cable or over the air broadcasts, smart TVs just aren't good enough (for the most part). I think you can get high-end TVs now that are fast enough and where the software is reasonable. However, if you buy your TV in the supermarket, or just pick the cheapest one in the right size or color, when you can safely add something like a ChromeCast or even an AppleTV and it will still be cheaper.
You're right that a "normal person" simply do not want a home theater PC with a keyboard and mouse. They also don't care about Dolby, Atmos or soundbars. They just want a TV and if the speakers are built in, then perfect, less to worry about... In fact I'm kinda normal in that sense, my TV is a screen, it has speakers and inputs, it's fine. What's not fine is the shitty apps and the fact that I can reboot my AppleTV twice in the time it takes to open the Netflix on the TV. The AppleTV is my current baseline, you have to be at least as good or better.
Then there's the apps, you can be certain that whatever streaming subscription you want will have an AppleTV app or it works with ChromeCast. Does it work on a random Philips TV.... Will it ever get updated on your Samsung TV from 2016? Most likely not.
The concept of smart TVs are very convenient, but the TV manufactures lost this one. Either they stuff some Android stuff into the TV and upgrade the hardware or at least add in a small shelf in the back of the TV for me to put the AppleTV into, like B&O did at one point.
> Either they stuff some Android stuff into the TV
Are you aware of Google TV? It basically is android on the tv, and it's on lots of low to high end tvs across a bunch of manufacturers (Hisense, Tcl and Sony last I looked).
It's more than good enough for people who are done with cable and broadcast (I'm one of them). There are apps for all the streaming services, both my country's tv channels and the big players like netflix, apple, disney etc, and they perform great.
Not all Android TV devices support all the streaming services. Mine works fine with Disney+, Amazon, and Apple TV+, but Netflix won't support the device for some reason.
> Not all Android TV devices support all the streaming services. Mine works fine with Disney+, Amazon, and Apple TV+, but Netflix won't support the device for some reason.
That must be... an extremely niche device. With some considerable knowledge of the space, I cannot think of an Android TV device that supports Apple TV but not Netflix ever.
You mean the company that abandons software quickly? That’s the last thing I would want on my TV. At least Roku has a history of supporting its hardware.
Sure, android has totally been abandoned, damn shame.
And you know what? If they do abandon it, I'm still free to buy an add-on of some sort, so I haven't lost anything compared to people who have this weird obsession with dumb-tvs.
I think you picked the extreme to make your point(Desktop PC in another room and long cable). I’m aware of all the BS that TV manufacturers pull with “smart TV” and chose to never ever let my TV connect to any home network. Instead, I had an old Mac mini laying around(from 2012 that is not up to snuff for main desktop, but is okay for a browser on TV to view Netflix, Apple TV, YouTube and basically anything accessible by a web browser). This is really not as complicated a setup as you were talking about before.. The Mac mini is just behind the TV, and is quiet.. a mini Bluetooth keyboard, and a mouse is all I need to have my own Internet TV.. using smart TV as a dumb display is the best.
Sure if you have old hardware capable of decent media playback it isn't a bad option but old hardware is quickly the limiting factor for higher quality media such as original HDR or Dolby Vision BluRay video streams.
Of course not everyone cares about that but if you're going to spend good money on a nice 4K HDR TV I suspect you want to actually be able to watch HDR content.
Yes, that part is true. I wanted to get a Sonos Beam Gen2 sound bar for my TV, and realised it support Dolby Atmos Audio. Now, I kinda want to buy the Apple TV 4K just for Dolby Audio support, and replace the Mac mini with it..
But, even for that, I personally would not let my TV connect to the Internet and ruin my teaching experiences with ads.
Like most things in engineer's life, tradeoffs and people choose to trade different things.....
- I don't want my TV crash regularly
- I don't want to connect my TV to the internet
- I don't want my TV to spy on me
- I don't want to have ads on my TV
- I do want to have control over image/video processing
- I do want to watch stuff on my TV for which no app is available
- I don't want to pay extra for compute which is already available with my PC
- I do want to be able to access my existing file and disk based media library
For me, convenience is having my dumb TV connected to my PC. It's not impossible to get a remote for a PC too you know.
Yeah, in fact I have the skills for such a setup, but I don't bother. Why would I?
The LG built-in system is actually pretty nice (and the reason why I buy LG TVs). Netflix and Prime Video are a click away. If I have downloaded something, I just plug a USB stick or use the built-in software (SmartShare) to stream from my computer by WiFi. If I want to play some games in the Steam Deck, I plug it with an HDMI cable and it just works. If I want to show my kid a Youtube video, it's a little more inconvenient with the on-screen keyboard but not a big deal. By the way, I have a Sonos Amp connected through HDMI Arc, feeding two wired front speakers and two wireless back speakers, and it works with many versions of Dolby surround sound - I haven't bothered to check if this is easy on PC, but I suspect it might not.
Maybe it's just that I don't watch a lot of TV so I'm not fussy, but I haven't found any particular feature I would like to have that isn't reasonably easy with my smart TV, while I do find significant drawbacks in the PC setup (basically more stuff in the living room, why would I need a keyboard or mouse there?).
So yes. I'm a nerd, and I like my smart TV. Go figure.
Indeed. I have been making my TVs "smart" since around 2001 so that I could watch content from my computer on the TV. I've done it all from DivX CD players to a home theatre PC to network streaming boxes.
Back in the 00s I had a nice setup with a networked media player (connected via SCART back then) that could play my DivX/XviD DVD rips from a network share.
These days I have a NAS running Plex with an Apple TV 4K (2nd gen) and use Infuse for playback that happily plays back 150GB 4K HDR Bluray REMUXES over the network instantly. Also it is accessible anywhere I have internet so I can access my whole media library on a phone, tablet or laptop while away as easily as I can Netflix.
I use my LG "smart" TV like a dumb TV. I don't let it have internet access as it doesn't need it for how I use it although it is connected to the network but it has its own blackhole VLAN just to stop the "connect your TV to complete setup" message it always shows.
I have exactly one reason to fiddle with my smart tv: to use an youtube app with adblocker and sponsorblock. The first could also be achieved by buying premium. But sponsorblock? No, I need to be able to sideload apps for that.
SponsorBlock on my TV would probably be the biggest single value add feature I could do. I pay for YouTube Premium because it is cheap so it is worth it to remove the YouTube ads but it is frustrating how much sponsored crap there is in the videos themselves these days and SponsorBlock is wonderful in the browser.
The problem with WebOS and any other smart TV platform that is not Apple or Roku is that new streaming services either get ported late or not at all to it.
how do you do streaming with SmartShare? closest thing i could find was that the tv supports airPlay off all things. But that seems quite useless without any apple products.
While I think you are right, I also think in 2022 the required skills for the alternative should be part of everybody's education.
Pretty much everyone believes their own specialist skills should be part of general education curriculum. If you ask a lawyer if law should be taught in schools, or an accountant about accounting, or a translator about languages, or a mechanic, or a nurse, or literally any person in any job they all think their own skills are appropriate to be taught to everyone. Obviously that isn't going to work.
Oh come on. Scripting and coding is not some specialist knowledge in a world where a big chunk of people spend a good chunk of their time feeding data into bureaucratic systems. Most white collar jobs would immensly profit from knowing a little about scripting. Some of the tasks that take them days could be done in seconds if they just had a basic understanding how to transform data. And I will stand for it, this is something they should teach in school.
Given that even farmers have to spend more time behind the computer than anybody is willing to admit, a little bit of understanding ans ability to automate the boring things is just a basic skill that should be thought. Not to solve any specific problem, but to learn how to find your own solutions and be clever about work processes.
Any society that teaches this will massively outperform one where specialists put up walls because they are afraid of sharing the magic incantations. Or we could continue living in a society where clerks print out a form just so the other clerk can type it into another program, because they haven't even discovered the concept of copy and paste.
Everyone should know a bit about the law, everyone should be able to do their accounts, everyone should be able to mend their car (maybe less so with electric cars..), everyone should be able to do basic first aid and look after their health, everyone should understand a bit about politics, everyone should know how money works ... literally everyone believes their job is a special case that ought to be taught in schools.
The fact you believe everyone should learn some basic coding just shows you work in tech. It doesn't make it true. For a start, very few people actually apply the skills they learn at school until at least a decade afterwards (learning at around 10 - 12 years old, getting a first proper job where skills matter in their early 20s). Do you really think basic coding taught today is going to apply to a farming job in 2032 in the light of Github Copilot, visual programming, the death of filesystems and the rise of iOS/Android file pickers etc? Of course not.
It's always been very strange for me that people who use computers hours and hours per day don't customize their workflows in any ways. Same people who customize and spend a long time choosing their car because they sit an hour or two every day in those, who are always improving their efficiency in stuff like building things, cleaning, cooking etc.. Then they go to their 6-12 hour daily stint on computer and use Edit->Copy, Edit->Paste to copy&paste stuff and that's the level they stay on forever, only changing things when updates change it for them.
I mean I definitely have the skills to do these and have done it before. I even have my gaming pc connected to the tv all the time. But I don't want to fiddle with and maintain this setup for video consumption. I just want to turn on my TV, run the Netflix app and have dolby vision 4k video playing without issues.
I don't have any data but I feel like most people (technical or not) are thinking the same as me.
This was not my point. I said anybody should be thought the skills to find a solution for this themselves if they want to. Even if you end up hiring someone or pay for a finished product having a basic idea what a thing entails and how it could be made is a useful skill to have in any evolving techological society.
I am confused you say a normal person doesn't want a smart tv but then on the next line say they do want a smart TV?
I assume you mean normal people don't like crappy smart TV experiences with slow and crappy apps but if they were smooth and fast and easy to use they would like them more? If so that is true of pretty much everything technology related :) Nobody likes using a slow, crappy computer that takes 5 minutes to load a webpage do they.
I think normal people love smart TVs they just wish they were better especially as they age a bit.
What would be fantastic is a modular smart TV where the screen has a standardised connection for a compute unit that you can replace for a much smaller cost than replacing the whole TV itself. If you're happy with your screen it is frustrating you need to buy a whole new TV just because the shitty SoC can't handle all the new stuff Netflix, Disney, etc. add to their apps over time.
> But a normal person doesn't want a smart tv either.
Erm, yeah, they do. They want a tv that's got the netflix and stuff all built in. A 'normal' person doesn't want to deal with an extra device that may or may not have a separate remote control. They want simplicity. Smart tvs give them that.
I'm perfectly happy to have a smart tv, it does what I need without extra wires or remotes. I have zero desire to have a separate box. If I'm still using my tv when it stops getting updates and being able to stream, then I'll investigate and add-on for it, not now, because in 5 years that would likely be out of date too.
I don't get this weird obsession with dumb screens. Device convergence is excellent. The fewer boxes and wires and the more capable the devices, the better.
> I don't get this weird obsession with dumb screens.
My Apple TV is from the previous generation. Little by little it's losing software support. Should I replace the whole TV, which is still pretty good, when I finally upgrade the device?
The TV turns on when there is an active HDMI signal. The two volume buttons are the only thing I use every time I need it. If the Apple TV remote had volume buttons (like the new ones) I wouldn't need the TV remote at all.
It's not an "obsession". It's rational use of resources. Why does my TV need to be a full computer? If it is, what should I do when Netflix drops support for the application it's running?
Netflix never drops support for anything. A couple of years ago, I dug my first generation iPad (2010) out, reset it, downloaded Netflix (you can download the “last compatible version” from the App Store) and it worked.
Netflix still works on the first gen Roku devices from 2011 - at least it did a couple of years ago.
The true solution is "just buy a TV designed for console gaming without any smarts and plug in an apple TV / nvidia shield / roku / firetv stick / chromecast".
It's just unnecessary to have a camera in your TV, that's all I feel. I have an Acer 55" DP monitor instead. And I use chromecast, no problem, it has no cameras.
Well, normal people could use Apple TV (or Google or Fire TV) which generally offer a better experience than whatever TV manufacturer has built in to their "smart" TV. I have this same problem with smart home devices, in which every manufacturer has some basic app that does some crappy automations... whereas it'd be much better if they just delegated that exclusively to Google or Alexa or Siri/Homekit.
I totally understand the convenience. Most people think my setup is indeed complex. Fortunately my family was already used on how to use the Xbox and Switch on the tv. Connecting a MSI Trident computer and teaching them how to use Kodi, Steam and the various streaming services via a web browser was quite easy.
Yeah I really hate that I can no longer easily hook up my laptop to my LG OLED tv and just press play on the movie I downloaded. Nowadays I have to download PotPlayer, change the renderer and increase the brightness whenever I want to playback a 10bit HDR movie.
IMHO the best solution for you would be to just fire up Plex/Emby/etc on your laptop when needed and use the Plex/etc app on your TV/streaming box and play over the network. Wired is more reliable of course but wifi works fine most of the time too.
You can play back HDR and Dolby Vision 4K content just fine with Plex and it is all decoded on the TV (or streaming box) so no need to mess around with Windows video settings to get HDR looking not-shit.
People like the smart in smart tvs when they just bought it but 6 months in almost nobody uses it because 9 out of 10 times it just stinks. They use a chromecast, Apple TV or some other set top box.
My parents still use all the smart TV features in their 4+ year old LG C8. They don't have any streaming boxes, I tried to give them my old Apple TV a year ago but they didn't like the remote (don't blame them for that, it is garbage).
They use Netflix, BBC iPlayer, YouTube and the Disney+ apps daily. No complaints other than when the wifi sometimes goes out but that isn't a fault of the TV.
I can guarantee you that most people aren’t buying extra devices to watch TV when the apps they use are built in. Most people definitely aren’t buying $150 AppleTV devices. Roku is by far the most popular streaming device and they are aggressive about getting their software included with most low end TVs.
> I can guarantee you that most people aren’t buying extra devices to watch TV when the apps they use are built in.
No shit, the reason you jailbreak a tv is to put apps on it that were not built in (or remove apps that are intrusive.) This is just like saying that people who are happy with things aren't unhappy with things.
Set top boxes and chromecasts are selling pretty well so obviously people are using them, but I guess there’s quite some people content with using a mediocre implementation, for as long as the api that’s used is supported by YouTube and Netflix.
It probably depends on the kind of crowd you sample.
Are you going to buy a Roku stick if your TV already has built in Roku? Are you going to buy a TV with Amazon FireTV built in and then buy a Roku stick or vice versa?
Yes, if I think or conclude the smart in smart tvs sucks and I can’t buy a non-smart tv because they simply are not for sale, I will not use the smart in the smart tv and replace it with another, better solution.
1. I can’t stand watching TVs in many hotels because of settings, you get the “soap opera effect”. My wife isn’t bothered by it.
2. Most cable boxes had channels with both the standard definition feeds and HD feeds. How many times have you seen people watching the SD feeds on large TVs and it didn’t bother them?
3. On another note: how many people do you see walking around with cracked phone screens who you know could afford to get it fixed. But it doesn’t bother them? I couldn’t even deal with a scratch on my screen. Related : bad displays because of a screen protector on their phones and it doesn’t bother them.
I never said that I am in any way representing a majority.
You incredulously ask: Are you going to X?
I say: yes, I am going to X.
I’m not sure what your anecdotes are purporting to say. Clearly neither of us has done the research, I made an observation, you made another. Get over it.
“Why would anyone use a Smart TV?! Just build a home theatre PC to connect to your old TV via a 60ft HDMI cable and use a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. I’ve been doing this since 2005”
As if any normal person wants that kind of setup. Not to mention the difficulties with the above for higher end content such as 4K Dolby Vision playback.
People want a basic interface that doesn’t require downloading files beforehand. Click a few buttons on the remote and you have high quality streaming video without the fuss.
What is hard to understand about why people like smart TVs? It’s just convenience.