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Comment by stingraycharles | Hacker News Reader

The Netflix appliance is pretty good in my experience. No reason Google couldn’t pull something similar off themselves, unless they’re being very Google about it.

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They have some incredible hardware talent (TPUs, Pixels), but I'm guessing this project will not get the polish of those more public facing products

Given the myraid of issues they seem to have, I am not sure I would classify Pixels as having polish. But yes, they definitely have the talent to make some good hardware. It's just a matter of whether their priorities match those of their users.

I can't think of a major phone brand that hasn't had some kind of major issue over the years. The batteries of the Note 7, iPhone "antenna gate" (and the more recent lack of advertised AI debacle), etc.

How would you say it compares to those?

I think Pixels are pretty polished, at least compared to all the cheapo off-brand Android options out there. Some people like Samsung better but I can't stand their UI. Apple would be fine if I could sideload...

Samsung with a 3rd party launcher works pretty well

Do they only sell those to ISPs or could a housing developer or a hotelier get their hands on those?

They don't sell them. But, if the developer / hotelier had a sufficiently large network, think providing service equivalent to the number of rooms at a US state university system network (multiple universities), then they might qualify: https://openconnect.netflix.com/en/

There are plenty of hotel groups big enough for that, but their properties are geographically distributed and I can't imagine they'd benefit from running fibre for their own multi-site network. Better to just connect each property to a local ISP like everyone else.

Maybe there are some exceptions. Disney World? MGM Resorts in Las Vegas?

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