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| TVs are a staple of our living rooms |
This is all set to change with everyone releasing "Smart" TVs! Except, whenever someone mentions buying one, my response is: Don't!
TL;DR
Don't buy a Smart TV. Instead, buy a normal (dumb) TV with HDMI and USB connectors, plug-in a Chromecast, FireStick, Roku, etc. and upgrade the stick if needed instead of the whole TV.It's safer, cheaper, easier to repair, and you can incorporate newer features more frequently.
Now, onto the rest of it.
Smart TVs are actually a good idea
I understand the appeal of smart TVs, and am genuinely excited about all our devices being able to connect to each other, share content across them, and people once again watching content on the screen best suited for it.
We can have apps and games we can download - straight to our TVs!
Instead of a dedicated remote you can use an app on your phone. Less chance of losing it.
You can even have profiles for each user, based on their preferences.
Connected devices have so many advantages.
e.g: You can have your entire media collection shared over all your devices
or continue your show on your phone/tablet if you need to leave.
Instead of a dedicated remote you can use an app on your phone. Less chance of losing it.
You can even have profiles for each user, based on their preferences.
Connected devices have so many advantages.
e.g: You can have your entire media collection shared over all your devices
or continue your show on your phone/tablet if you need to leave.
In fact, I would love something like the hand terminals in The Expanse, where a swipe transfers the content to another hand terminal or screen. We aren't there yet, but I can dream.
Ahhh, connected future, space travel, colonizing other planets... but I digress.
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| We just aren't Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay Text added. |
We aren't there yet
The problems I have with Smart TVs are same problems I have with smartphones, but magnified due to time.Obsolescence
We buy TVs for much longer than we buy our smartphones for. We accept the 2/3 year upgrade cycle for our phones, but the same upgrade cycle for TVs?Security and Updates
Most people don't realize the importance of updates, especially security updates. Every software has bugs. When they are found, most companies issues software patches to ...um... patch those bugs.Smartphones get at max 3 years of version updates and maybe 2 years of security updates, and this is extremely rare. Most smartphones stop getting security updates within 2 years. TVs last more than 5 years, but no device manufacturer has shown any inclination towards maintaining software for anywhere close to that.
Lookup cryptojacking. This can affect your electricity bill now too.
How does the security of your SmartTV look after just a couple of years of updates?
Features
Technology gets better every year. The features the SmartTVs advertise today will be overtaken within a few years and these devices are going to feel dumb. The way to keep up with features (that aren't dependent on hardware) is through software updates and they aren't guaranteed for the lifetime of the device (see above). It's too expensive for the manufacturers to guarantee software features over the lifetime of a device.Repair
There are a lot of repair shops for normal "dumb" TVs. To repair these "smart" ones, you'll be dependent heavily on the manufacturer. Authorised service center doesn't always mean good service center.
Sub-standard repair parts affect TVs today. Imagine what sub-standard software is going to be added by repair-shops (authorised or otherwise). There's the whole security thing again.
Privacy
I feel like a broken record at this point. If you aren't concerned about your privacy, there is nothing I can say to make you care. Give it away, I don't care about your privacy either.For the rest of you, consider this. Safeguarding privacy requires that the data that's collected about you, needs to be:
- not be collected in the first place! I'm tired of "loyalty programs" and their incessant need for my personal details!
- if it is, it used for the purpose it's collected. This is not going to happen, because it's just too profitable to use it for everything.
- not leaked due to lax security or some misconfiguration. Admittedly, a company more experienced in making software (Google, Amazon, etc.) are going to have the best security, but they don't make TVs and that software is modified by other less experienced vendors before it reaches your devices. Add to it the fact that these udpates don't flow to devices fast enough.
Ads
When we are running software from a device manufacturer, there is a temptation for them to run ads on your device. It has and will happen. Money demands it so!
We have slightly better alternatives
Simplest
Buy a "dumb" TV and add a casting device like Chromecast, Firestick, etc. to it and you now have a "Smart" TV! When updates stop for the it, upgrade only that device. It's cheaper than upgrading your TV.Newer features (wifi6 for example) would be available on a newer version; you get to keep your TV for as long as HDMI is used as an interface.
This solves all the problems except the privacy issue, since you're now dependent on Google, Amazon, etc. to protect it. Again, they can do it better than most software shops, but the ideal solution would be to not collect data at all. That would reduce functionality (recommendations) and the devices' competetiveness. So, there is no incentive for companies to value your privacy.
I don't know if Roku collects data or if it directly connects to the services that you subscribe to, so, I can't say much on that front. However, Roku does have good functionality.+
Also, TVs with built-in chromecast don't fall into this category. Unless you can physically upgrade the chromecast, it is just a Smart TV that will be dumb soon.
Best
Buy a Raspberry Pi, Pine64, ASUS Tinker board, or any of the Single-board comptersConfigure it, attach it to your TV, update it regularly, etc.
I can't recommend it to everyone though, since it's not exactly plug-and-play.
It is so much fun though!
I'm leaving out Miracast, as those mirror your phone/tablets. Right now, it's good for showing photos, or the odd video. Unless your phone interface is useable on a TV, it doesn't work.
I also haven't found a miracast dongle that works reliably.
What I prefer
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| Raspberry Pi 3B+ commons.wikimedia.com |
I prefer the Raspberry Pi. I use it as a media server, so all my media is streamed to every device.
It runs more than just TV stuff, it's a computer. Raspbian, which is the official OS for it, is based on Debian, which is also the one I'm most familiar with. I'm still experimenting with the GPIO pins. It has has a lot of potential and is a lot of fun!
For my parents, I would ideally get a Chromecast and hook it up to their TV, except for the fact that there is no internet where they live. A chromecast would just be dumb (why does it need to connect to the internet to boot anyway?). An RPi Zero W configured for casting makes sense, but supporting it from far away needs the internet too.
They watch cable tv, without me mucking up the viewing experience with my experiments, for now...
Location services are usually for the streaming services to adhere to geo-blocking. They don't have rights to stream data in all regions. It's a stupid media thing, and they do lots of stupid stuff like that. They could get the same info from your ip, unless you're using a vpn.
ReplyDeleteI had forgotten that these things have mics and cameras!!! I haven't seen any option to turn the mic off, at least none that actually turn it off. Unfortunately, unless you go in and cut the wires, replace the mic with an equivalent resistor, that mic is staying.