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I sense that hn does not like Samsung (for some reason?) but Apple recently introduced a monitor with similar (albeit currently unused) computing power. Person

I sense that hn does not like Samsung (for some reason?) but Apple recently introduced a monitor with similar (albeit currently unused) computing power. Personally I think "smart" monitors is the way to go and we will moving away from devices that require a physical connection to your computing device whether that is a physical computer underneath your desk, your phone or something in the cloud - netflix, a document on microsoft 365 etc. This space is obviously young so there will be a lot of exploring, fails and hickups. Also noteworthy is the Huawei Mateview 28" with their project your phone to the screen nfc pad.

jayd16 5y ago
Yeah I think it's short sighted to not at least consider what an ideal smart monitor might be. If we're moving to hybrid offices and temporary workstations it might be useful to imagine modern thin terminals in the office space.
- tuckerman 5y ago
  What’s the advantage of a thin terminal over a dumb monitor with a thunderbolt/usb-c cable to hookup to your laptop? At least personally I feel like In the last 5-6 years laptops have become powerful enough and have sufficient battery life that most companies I know besides Google have dispensed with desktops. If we did want smart monitors, I think table stakes would be coming up with a great input experience (fumbling around to find a remote or playing with the few buttons on the bottom/back don’t seem ideal) and figuring out how to do peripheral discovery/control better. Today, my Samsung tv sometimes forgets what is plugged into it and goes into a weird “detecting your device” mode for a very long time so that it can try and let me control it via the remote.
  - throwaway4good 5y ago
    It is a bit like asking 20 years ago what is the advantage of wifi compared to a cable when it is so slow and unstable? Once the tech is ironed out connecting wireless to your display will be cheaper, far more convenient and in practice just as stable as a wired connection.
    - tuckerman 5y ago
      Wireless connectivity and being a smart display seem different to me though. Being able set my laptop down and not have to worry about cable routing seems amazing; being able to have my monitor run apps, show me ads, or require a remote to operate doesn’t seem appealing. Edit: I think we’d also need to figure out wireless power delivery then?
      - throwaway4good 5y ago
        A lot of thinking comes from the way that technology works right now. But as tehnnology grows cheaper and better a lot of constraints that used to be taken for given disappears. You mentioned wireless power delivery. What if in the future displays become so power efficient that they don't need wired power at all? Why does a display have to be connected to a single computer? It could be connected to multiple devices; some showing windows from my computer underneath my desk together with a video call in another window that goes through my phone. And the weather widget that I configured on desktop computer, why not that keep running on the display, even after I disconnect the desktop computer? These ideas are not new; they have been in distributed computing for ages. What's new is that they now are being explored commercially.
  - jayd16 5y ago
    If you're just using google docs and email, maybe you don't even need the laptop most of the time?
- car_analogy 5y ago
  > Yeah I think it's short sighted to not at least consider what an ideal smart monitor might be. One where the user controls the software, not the other way around. All the misfeatures of smart TVs and monitors are only possible because users are unable to replace the hostile manufacturer-imposed software with something of their choosing.
kitsunesoba 5y ago
I don’t see problems with a monitor “smart” enough to be able to connect to devices wirelessly. That seems fine. As soon as the thing sprouts a UI and can do things on its own you’ve got problems, though… this means that it has an onboard computer, and probably not a good one — these types of devices tend to have “smarts” on par with those of ancient low-to-midrange Android smartphones from 6+ years ago, because that’s what can be bolted in at almost no extra cost. That lack of overhead in power means that the device has a short lifespan right out of the box. Web apps continue to get heavier and more resource intensive and will quickly make it inadequate for such basic things as Google Docs. The manufacturer also won’t support it for more than a couple years because nobody wants to take the extra time and energy to write software lean enough to run on old weak hardware. So if “smart monitors” are to be a success, they’re going to need to do two things: 1. Don’t use such unreasonably cheap and underpowered “smarts” 2. Put the “smarts” on a module or card that can easily be swapped out so when it inevitably gets slow as mud you can upgrade it Alternatively web app devs could make efficiency more of a priority and manufacturers could continue to provide updates for a decade+, but both of those seem highly unlikely.
tomjen3 5y ago
You are right, but I cannot come up with a reason why I would want to have no physical connection to my laptop - atleast not until we get true wireless power. At that point I can see the idea in that I can leave the laptop in my bag and use the keyboard/mouse/screen combo on my desk when at home. That will be convenient. But true wireless is something people actually want, so of course that is not going to happen.

jayd16 5y ago

Yeah I think it's short sighted to not at least consider what an ideal smart monitor might be. If we're moving to hybrid offices and temporary workstations it might be useful to imagine modern thin terminals in the office space.

tuckerman 5y ago
What’s the advantage of a thin terminal over a dumb monitor with a thunderbolt/usb-c cable to hookup to your laptop? At least personally I feel like In the last 5-6 years laptops have become powerful enough and have sufficient battery life that most companies I know besides Google have dispensed with desktops. If we did want smart monitors, I think table stakes would be coming up with a great input experience (fumbling around to find a remote or playing with the few buttons on the bottom/back don’t seem ideal) and figuring out how to do peripheral discovery/control better. Today, my Samsung tv sometimes forgets what is plugged into it and goes into a weird “detecting your device” mode for a very long time so that it can try and let me control it via the remote.
- throwaway4good 5y ago
  It is a bit like asking 20 years ago what is the advantage of wifi compared to a cable when it is so slow and unstable? Once the tech is ironed out connecting wireless to your display will be cheaper, far more convenient and in practice just as stable as a wired connection.
  - tuckerman 5y ago
    Wireless connectivity and being a smart display seem different to me though. Being able set my laptop down and not have to worry about cable routing seems amazing; being able to have my monitor run apps, show me ads, or require a remote to operate doesn’t seem appealing. Edit: I think we’d also need to figure out wireless power delivery then?
    - throwaway4good 5y ago
      A lot of thinking comes from the way that technology works right now. But as tehnnology grows cheaper and better a lot of constraints that used to be taken for given disappears. You mentioned wireless power delivery. What if in the future displays become so power efficient that they don't need wired power at all? Why does a display have to be connected to a single computer? It could be connected to multiple devices; some showing windows from my computer underneath my desk together with a video call in another window that goes through my phone. And the weather widget that I configured on desktop computer, why not that keep running on the display, even after I disconnect the desktop computer? These ideas are not new; they have been in distributed computing for ages. What's new is that they now are being explored commercially.
- jayd16 5y ago
  If you're just using google docs and email, maybe you don't even need the laptop most of the time?
car_analogy 5y ago
> Yeah I think it's short sighted to not at least consider what an ideal smart monitor might be. One where the user controls the software, not the other way around. All the misfeatures of smart TVs and monitors are only possible because users are unable to replace the hostile manufacturer-imposed software with something of their choosing.

kitsunesoba 5y ago

I don’t see problems with a monitor “smart” enough to be able to connect to devices wirelessly. That seems fine. As soon as the thing sprouts a UI and can do things on its own you’ve got problems, though… this means that it has an onboard computer, and probably not a good one — these types of devices tend to have “smarts” on par with those of ancient low-to-midrange Android smartphones from 6+ years ago, because that’s what can be bolted in at almost no extra cost. That lack of overhead in power means that the device has a short lifespan right out of the box. Web apps continue to get heavier and more resource intensive and will quickly make it inadequate for such basic things as Google Docs. The manufacturer also won’t support it for more than a couple years because nobody wants to take the extra time and energy to write software lean enough to run on old weak hardware. So if “smart monitors” are to be a success, they’re going to need to do two things: 1. Don’t use such unreasonably cheap and underpowered “smarts” 2. Put the “smarts” on a module or card that can easily be swapped out so when it inevitably gets slow as mud you can upgrade it Alternatively web app devs could make efficiency more of a priority and manufacturers could continue to provide updates for a decade+, but both of those seem highly unlikely.

tomjen3 5y ago

You are right, but I cannot come up with a reason why I would want to have no physical connection to my laptop - atleast not until we get true wireless power. At that point I can see the idea in that I can leave the laptop in my bag and use the keyboard/mouse/screen combo on my desk when at home. That will be convenient. But true wireless is something people actually want, so of course that is not going to happen.