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A “Dumb TV” is something I’m exploring developing. There is a gap in the market for a TV with a great panel, no internet connection, and only the processing st

by nrp 7y ago

A “Dumb TV” is something I’m exploring developing. There is a gap in the market for a TV with a great panel, no internet connection, and only the processing strictly required for various types of signal processing and format conversion. The closest available solutions are large commercial monitors that cost an arm and a leg.

kingcobraninja 7y ago
The commercial monitors cost more because the price isn't subsidized by user data collection.
- nrp 7y ago
  The data on your viewing habits isn’t worth that sum (making it even sadder that TV OEMs are selling you out). The price deltas are driven by what the market will bear. As expensive as the commercial monitors are, they are a small fraction of the other costs of fitting out the conference rooms and facilities that use them.
  - kalleboo 7y ago
    It's not just data on viewing habits but they also make money though selling shows in the built-in apps, probably also get affiliate payments for people who signed up for Netflix etc through the TV. From the mouth of the CTO of Visio: > So look, it’s not just about data collection. It’s about post-purchase monetization of the TV. > This is a cutthroat industry. It’s a 6-percent margin industry, right? I mean, you know it’s pretty ruthless. You could say it’s self-inflicted, or you could say there’s a greater strategy going on here, and there is. The greater strategy is I really don’t need to make money off of the TV. I need to cover my cost. > And then I need to make money off those TVs. They live in households for 6.9 years — the average lifetime of a Vizio TV is 6.9 years. You would probably be amazed at the number of people come up to me saying, “I love Vizio TVs, I have one” and it’s 11 years old. I’m like, “Dude, that’s not even full HD, that’s 720p.” > But they do last a long time and our strategy — you’ve seen this with all of our software upgrades including AirPlay 2 and HomeKit — is that we want to make things backward compatible to those TVs. So we’re continuing to invest in those older TVs to bring them up to feature level comparison with the new TVs when there’s no hardware limitation that would otherwise prevent that. > And the reason why we do that is there are ways to monetize that TV and data is one, but not only the only one. It’s sort of like a business of singles and doubles, it’s not home runs, right? You make a little money here, a little money there. You sell some movies, you sell some TV shows, you sell some ads, you know. It’s not really that different than The Verge website. > Q: One sort of Verge-nerd meme that I hear in our comments or on Twitter is “I just want a dumb TV. I just want a panel with no smarts and I’ll figure it out on my own.” But it sounds like that lifetime monetization problem would prevent you from just making a dumb panel that you can sell to somebody. > A: Well, it wouldn’t prevent us, to be honest with you. What it would do is, we’d collect a little bit more margin at retail to offset it. Again, it may be an aspirational goal to not have high margins on our TV business because I can make it up downstream. On the other hand, I’m actually aggregating that monetization across a large number of users, some of which opt out. > It’s a blended revenue model where, in the end, Vizio succeeds, but you know, it’s not wholly dependent on things like data collection.
alkonaut 7y ago
Dumb TV's are more expensive so you wouldn't be able to find enough people willing to pay that premium I think. What would be great and much easier technically would be an (open, non-google) Chromecast clone that you can plug into a smart TV and then just not give the smart TV an internet connection.
- nrp 7y ago
  My hypothesis is that dumb TVs don’t need to be more expensive, and that the savings of not needing a beefy SoC and more DRAM and Flash offsets what would otherwise be coming in from advertising.
  - alkonaut 7y ago
    Yeah I also don’t know why that’s some sort of established truth but it’s been going around for years now. It especially took off a couple of years back when a manufacturer exec (Bravia? Can’t find link now) said as much. I assume the info they can sell must be worth quite a lot of money if they can throw $50 or $100 worth of stuff in it “for free”, where many of the TVs probably never even get an internet connection! That leads me to another guess: manufacturers can’t have people not connect their TVs. So they’ll start offering rebates that you only get if you plug your tv to the internet.
    - kalleboo 7y ago
      > It especially took off a couple of years back when a manufacturer exec (Bravia? Can’t find link now) said as much The Visio CTO has been open about it https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/7/18172397/airplay-2-homekit-vizio-tv-bill-baxter-interview-vergecast-ces-2019 https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/7/18172397/airplay-2-homekit...
sailfast 7y ago
I would be interested in this device.
goombastic 7y ago
Would be interested as well.
soared 7y ago
Did you do any market research? You can very easily go to any store and still buy dumb TVs. I don’t know where people get the idea that 100% of tvs are smart tvs, but that is false.
- nrp 7y ago
  Rtings pretty comprehensively catalogs and reviews mid and high end TVs. The only TV released in the last two years without WiFi or associated smart functionality is a pretty mediocre 49" TCL. While you can certainly still get smaller 1080p TVs without smarts, you shouldn't have to choose between getting a decent size and panel quality or not having a beefy OS built in.
  - hajhatten 7y ago
    So you're saying he didn't do his market research? :D
- tenebrisalietum 7y ago
  I did. I went to Walmart for their pre-Black Friday sales that start at 6pm, and couldn't find any. Sample size: Easily 500 people in and out of that store per hour, I was there 2 hours. Walmart represents a store that is easy to go to for much of the US population. That means a good percentage of people in the US are buying TVs at places that don't offer non-smart TVs for sale.

by nrp 7y ago

kingcobraninja 7y ago

The commercial monitors cost more because the price isn't subsidized by user data collection.

nrp 7y ago
The data on your viewing habits isn’t worth that sum (making it even sadder that TV OEMs are selling you out). The price deltas are driven by what the market will bear. As expensive as the commercial monitors are, they are a small fraction of the other costs of fitting out the conference rooms and facilities that use them.
- kalleboo 7y ago
  It's not just data on viewing habits but they also make money though selling shows in the built-in apps, probably also get affiliate payments for people who signed up for Netflix etc through the TV. From the mouth of the CTO of Visio: > So look, it’s not just about data collection. It’s about post-purchase monetization of the TV. > This is a cutthroat industry. It’s a 6-percent margin industry, right? I mean, you know it’s pretty ruthless. You could say it’s self-inflicted, or you could say there’s a greater strategy going on here, and there is. The greater strategy is I really don’t need to make money off of the TV. I need to cover my cost. > And then I need to make money off those TVs. They live in households for 6.9 years — the average lifetime of a Vizio TV is 6.9 years. You would probably be amazed at the number of people come up to me saying, “I love Vizio TVs, I have one” and it’s 11 years old. I’m like, “Dude, that’s not even full HD, that’s 720p.” > But they do last a long time and our strategy — you’ve seen this with all of our software upgrades including AirPlay 2 and HomeKit — is that we want to make things backward compatible to those TVs. So we’re continuing to invest in those older TVs to bring them up to feature level comparison with the new TVs when there’s no hardware limitation that would otherwise prevent that. > And the reason why we do that is there are ways to monetize that TV and data is one, but not only the only one. It’s sort of like a business of singles and doubles, it’s not home runs, right? You make a little money here, a little money there. You sell some movies, you sell some TV shows, you sell some ads, you know. It’s not really that different than The Verge website. > Q: One sort of Verge-nerd meme that I hear in our comments or on Twitter is “I just want a dumb TV. I just want a panel with no smarts and I’ll figure it out on my own.” But it sounds like that lifetime monetization problem would prevent you from just making a dumb panel that you can sell to somebody. > A: Well, it wouldn’t prevent us, to be honest with you. What it would do is, we’d collect a little bit more margin at retail to offset it. Again, it may be an aspirational goal to not have high margins on our TV business because I can make it up downstream. On the other hand, I’m actually aggregating that monetization across a large number of users, some of which opt out. > It’s a blended revenue model where, in the end, Vizio succeeds, but you know, it’s not wholly dependent on things like data collection.

alkonaut 7y ago

Dumb TV's are more expensive so you wouldn't be able to find enough people willing to pay that premium I think. What would be great and much easier technically would be an (open, non-google) Chromecast clone that you can plug into a smart TV and then just not give the smart TV an internet connection.

nrp 7y ago
My hypothesis is that dumb TVs don’t need to be more expensive, and that the savings of not needing a beefy SoC and more DRAM and Flash offsets what would otherwise be coming in from advertising.
- alkonaut 7y ago
  Yeah I also don’t know why that’s some sort of established truth but it’s been going around for years now. It especially took off a couple of years back when a manufacturer exec (Bravia? Can’t find link now) said as much. I assume the info they can sell must be worth quite a lot of money if they can throw $50 or $100 worth of stuff in it “for free”, where many of the TVs probably never even get an internet connection! That leads me to another guess: manufacturers can’t have people not connect their TVs. So they’ll start offering rebates that you only get if you plug your tv to the internet.
  - kalleboo 7y ago
    > It especially took off a couple of years back when a manufacturer exec (Bravia? Can’t find link now) said as much The Visio CTO has been open about it https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/7/18172397/airplay-2-homekit-vizio-tv-bill-baxter-interview-vergecast-ces-2019 https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/7/18172397/airplay-2-homekit...

sailfast 7y ago

I would be interested in this device.

goombastic 7y ago

Would be interested as well.

soared 7y ago

Did you do any market research? You can very easily go to any store and still buy dumb TVs. I don’t know where people get the idea that 100% of tvs are smart tvs, but that is false.

nrp 7y ago
Rtings pretty comprehensively catalogs and reviews mid and high end TVs. The only TV released in the last two years without WiFi or associated smart functionality is a pretty mediocre 49" TCL. While you can certainly still get smaller 1080p TVs without smarts, you shouldn't have to choose between getting a decent size and panel quality or not having a beefy OS built in.
- hajhatten 7y ago
  So you're saying he didn't do his market research? :D
tenebrisalietum 7y ago
I did. I went to Walmart for their pre-Black Friday sales that start at 6pm, and couldn't find any. Sample size: Easily 500 people in and out of that store per hour, I was there 2 hours. Walmart represents a store that is easy to go to for much of the US population. That means a good percentage of people in the US are buying TVs at places that don't offer non-smart TVs for sale.