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I see two major problems with this business model of subsidizing TV hardware with adware/telemetry/spyware solutions: 1. The UI platforms + middleware used for
by DoingIsLearning 7y ago
I see two major problems with this business model of subsidizing TV hardware with adware/telemetry/spyware solutions:
1. The UI platforms + middleware used for these TV's are often a low budget MVP development (it's also not part of the core knowledge of manufacturers), meaning you don't need to go far to find customers complaining of unresponsive UIs and sudden crashes.
2. The lifetime of the device far exceeds the likely manufacturer support for the device's software. This means you will end up with an insecure unpatched device connected to your home network.
Both these problems are resolved with a 'dumb' TV/Display, to which you connect your media center of choice.
- scarface74 7y agoMost of the lower end TVs have Roku integrated. While you might not like their business model, Roku knows how to make a good set top UI on cheap hardware.
- timw4mail 7y agoRoku is probably the least evil of the smart tvs.
- DoingIsLearning 7y agoI don't doubt what you say is true in the US retail landscape. Although the HW will work anywhere, Roku as a service is very much a US centric business. At least in Europe the options out of the box integrated in these 'smart' TVs are either Android or some OEM crippled flavour of a nix distro. Also we need to distinguish between released set top boxes from a triple-play provider, and these 'inside' the TV half-baked software releases.