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Smart TVs are dumb

incredimike.com

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Re: Smart TVs are dumb

#11

Post by incredimike »

danudey wrote: post #3

With the whole 'built-in Plex' thing that LG TVs had, I was actually pretty interested in getting one. After seeing them in action, I've realized that these people obviously don't test their software in any real circumstances. Companies building 'smart' devices need to ensure that the core interactions people are going to have with their devices are as good as or better than the alternatives. What LG could easily hav…

This is exactly what they should have done. Instead, they tied everything into their clunky UI.

The built-in Plex stuff is cool, but suffers all the same problems as the rest of the TV. People are better off with a dumb display + Apple TV.

Re: Smart TVs are dumb

#12

Post by tbeseda »

tomwilson wrote: post #6
tbeseda wrote: post #2

A Samsung Smart TV is similar. I have often ranted aloud to my television about hardware developers considering Single Responsibility when designing. Most of the time I just need my screen to be a screen.

My samsung "smart" tv doesn't load the smart part until you tell it to, so just turning it on and using it like a tv is much faster than the lg one shown in that video.

Interesting. Mine seems to make a few blocking HTTP calls (seemingly for things like on-demand and app store listings).

Re: Smart TVs are dumb

#13

Post by philsnow »

mietek wrote: post #7

It's time for Apple to step in and show everyone how it's done. Of course, once this happens, a lot of people will develop selective amnesia, as it happened with phones.

Horseshit.

It's time for manufacturers to get their heads out of their asses, cede this space to those who are best at it, and make "dumb" devices like they did 5 years ago.

Every year they persist in this effort will be a disservice to everybody who buys their products.

Yes, I own one of these "smart" TVs, and I'm still bitter about my purchase.

Edit: when I said "horseshit", it was because I inferred that you were saying Apple should make Apple-branded TV hardware, not just Apple TV boxes that plug into TVs. If my inference was bad, then.. well you should be more clear. ;)

Re: Smart TVs are dumb

#14

Post by mullingitover »

It's time to start calling these things what they are: monitors.

Nobody would touch a monitor with a 30-second startup time. Retailers should start listing startup as another statistic in the product info, along with screen size and the number of inputs.

Re: Smart TVs are dumb

#15

Post by pavanky »

mietek wrote: post #7

It's time for Apple to step in and show everyone how it's done. Of course, once this happens, a lot of people will develop selective amnesia, as it happened with phones.

There are tons of TVs that are doing it right. Apple doesn't need to "show everyone how it's done". This particular example is of one manufacturer messing up one product line.

Re: Smart TVs are dumb

#16

Post by macspoofing »

philsnow wrote: post #13
mietek wrote: post #7

It's time for Apple to step in and show everyone how it's done. Of course, once this happens, a lot of people will develop selective amnesia, as it happened with phones.

Horseshit. It's time for manufacturers to get their heads out of their asses, cede this space to those who are best at it, and make "dumb" devices like they did 5 years ago. Every year they persist in this effort will be a disservice to everybody who buys their products. Yes, I own one of these "smart" TVs, and I'm still bitter about my purchase. Edit: when I said "horseshit", it was because I inferred that you were…

>It's time for manufacturers to get their heads out of their asses, cede this space to those who are best at it, and make "dumb" devices like they did 5 years ago.

They aren't going to do that. And you can't rely on set-top boxes (which themselves are largely terrible), media centers and game consoles to pick up the slack, since, as the OP points out, you still have a pile of manure at startup, while changing inputs etc.

You really do need someone like Apple to create a hardware/software product that shows everyone how to do it properly.

Re: Smart TVs are dumb

#17

Post by Glyptodon »

I don't have a smart tv per se, but my TV does have a USB port, ostensibly to play back video, music, and pictures or something, all three of which it pretty much completely fails at if anything is the least bit atypical. Though it does mostly work with the pictures. I'm not sure why they even bothered.

Of course it wasn't even a smart TV and it took me ages to figure out that I needed to enable 'gaming' mode to make it display my PC's output over HDMI without zooming or making the colors really bizarre.

Count me in the camp who wants TVs to be more like monitors. In fact, if you could get a 40 or 42 inch monitor for the same price as my TV, I'd have gotten the monitor. However, a decent TV is often a half or a third of the price of an equivalently sized monitor, even at the same resolution.

Presumably TV IPS (or S-PVA, or PLS, etc.) panels are somehow cheaper than monitor IPS (or S-PVA, or PLS, etc.) panels? (Or maybe TV demand is higher enough volume for there to be meaningful economy of scale difference?)

Re: Smart TVs are dumb

#18

Post by macspoofing »

pavanky wrote: post #15
mietek wrote: post #7

It's time for Apple to step in and show everyone how it's done. Of course, once this happens, a lot of people will develop selective amnesia, as it happened with phones.

There are tons of TVs that are doing it right. Apple doesn't need to "show everyone how it's done". This particular example is of one manufacturer messing up one product line.

>There are tons of TVs that are doing it right.

Like .... ?

Re: Smart TVs are dumb

#19

Post by philsnow »

pavanky wrote: post #15
mietek wrote: post #7

It's time for Apple to step in and show everyone how it's done. Of course, once this happens, a lot of people will develop selective amnesia, as it happened with phones.

There are tons of TVs that are doing it right. Apple doesn't need to "show everyone how it's done". This particular example is of one manufacturer messing up one product line.

It's unfortunately endemic to the whole industry. My "smart" TV is a Vizio.

Really I wish TV manufacturers would offer "monitors" (screens without TV tuners). If one manufacturer goes this way, people who only want a screen for e.g. their Roku might buy that one instead.

Re: Smart TVs are dumb

#20

Post by sk5t »

MiguelHudnandez wrote: post #10

One reason to resent the pervasiveness of new technology -- not that it's inherently bad or that we're becoming luddites, but we don't want to deal with each company's separate and probably-shitty implementation of something we can do well on our computers. My refrigerator does not need to tweet. My refrigerator is supposed to keep things cold. That's all I expect from it. I don't want a half-baked inventory manageme…

On refrigerators: Hmmm, maybe. Given the amount of food the average person wastes, some kind of inventory helper is a seriously good idea. I just don't want it to tweet, ever.
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