Comment by georgemcbay | Hacker News Reader

Comment by georgemcbay | Hacker News Reader

In the last days of Chumby we were doing a lot of work with "Smart TV" platforms from Insignia[BestBuy]/Tivo, LG, Samsung, Vizio, etc, and this problem is (or was as of a year ago) pervasive among almost all the "Smart TV" platforms we developed for. It seemed ludicrous to me that they thought it was okay for your TV to have a 30 second to 2 minute bootup time.

The Samsung TV we had was the only one actually smart enough to be able to turn on and function as a dumb TV nearly instantly prior to the "Smart TV" functionality booting up. Based on various comments here it seems like not every Samsung TV does this, but the one I had access to (I forget the model number) did do this, which was very nice compared to all the others. On the down side, the Samsung's remote control was downright horrific to use and had these oddly modal states where it expected you to type lots of things in using a T9-style keypad despite the unit also having a qwerty keyboard (which only worked in some modes/apps) on the backside.

Developing apps for these things was enough to get me to decide I'd never buy a "Smart TV" as a consumer. It makes way more sense to get a good "Dumb TV" and enhance it via set-top boxes like consoles (The Wii U is quite a nice media player, if slower than it should be), or Roku or such. Not only is the out of the box experience way better this way, but you can much more easily upgrade the set-top box with new features every one or two years whereas there's very little reason to get a new TV less than once every 5-10 years.

"but you can much more easily upgrade the set-top box with new features every one or two years whereas there's very little reason to get a new TV less than once every 5-10 years."

This is the same problem I have with car audio (source,at least), built-in navigation systems, etc. The rate of improvement in cars and screens compared to the cost of upgrading is quite small compared to the value proposition provided by newer navigation/audio/etc. offerings every couple years. I want to buy a just a screen with a single digital video input -- no speakers even. And, I want my car to have a standard hole in the dash for an audio source box coupled with some power/speaker/GPS antenna/etc. inputs. Of course, my desires directly oppose the pipe dreams of industry executives who want to turn their products into Trojan horses of continuing revenue streams for years to come. I recall laughing as the Honda salesman tried halfheartedly to sell us a DVD/Nav system for our minivan. Would I rather pay $2K for a car DVD system or buy two, $500 iPads? Hmmm....

Edit: Another thing that bothers me about these artificial couplings is that the hardware-centric manufacturers rarely provide updates for more than a few months after a product's launch. How long until the browser in a "smart" TV can no longer render most sites? If Roku doesn't support its $50 box after a year or two, I can just buy another brand or a newer model. However, I'm pretty mad if I have to upgrade my $1500 TV.

This is why Ford's Sync and Toyota's Entune use your phone as a computer and simply provide a dumb screen.

Wat?

Entune uses your phone for Pandora & whatnot, but the maps interface is 100% old-skool (non-phone). The audio interface is built-in software. The things that come from your phone are your music, your phone calls, album art, and some data. The whole interface is some 1990s reject touchscreen abomination.

Data (stocks, weather) is provided by XM satellite data, and other data (updating apps) uses your smartphone.

I can't think of a more ridiculous mashup of technologies than Toyota's Entune.

Source: I have a 2013 Prius with premium nav.

Try Android stick PCs, there are quadcore models on the way and its amazing how well it works considering its not much bigger than two packs of juicyfruit.

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