On the eve of LG’s launch, I sat down with webOS’s head of product management and design, Itai Vonshak, as well as Colin Zhao, director of product management for LG’s Silicon Valley Lab. As they demoed LG’s new interface to me, I was by turns intrigued, bemused, and doubtful that it was up to the task of convincing people that it would be worth buying a new TV for. Most of all, I was impressed by the clarity of vision behind the new interface. For better or worse, webOS has an opinion about how smart TVs should treat their users, and by all appearances that opinion is executed very, very well. LG is better known for pretty schizophrenic Android skins on its smartphones, so to see the company produce something this coherent was a shock.
It looks quite amazing – but I still find it very hard to be excited over a TV.
I don’t know; out of all the platforms, the Smart TV seems to make the most sense to me. The form factor is about right, most people have one, and there’s no denying that TV is moving towards Internet based delivery, so having a computer with some cleverness in it at the consumer end seems to make perfect sense.
I can get a lot more excited at the idea of a Smart TV than I can about a watch or a pair of glasses.
Eh. I can’t hardly get excited about yet another device that plays Netflix and its ilk. These days, you can probably find HDMI dongles that do this in boxes of Cracker Jacks. Another problem is that people tend to keep their TVs for longer than 5 years; I can’t imagine this thing is going to stay up to date that long, so you’ll eventually need a dongle or set-top box anyway, making smart TVs pretty much a waste of time.
There is no advantage to embedding the smartness into the actual tv.
Bill Shooter of Bul,
“There is no advantage to embedding the smartness into the actual tv.”
I disagree, I think there is merit for having a smart TV that only needs an ethernet connection or wifi and can natively stream contents from anything else on the network and elsewhere. We wouldn’t need any other boxes around the TV at all. Obviously everything is technically possible with external gadgets, and if that’s the way you’d want to go I’d have no problem with that, but IMHO internalizing these basic features into a smart TV makes sense. Maybe a standardized swappable slot for those who are worried about obsolescence would be good, however providing great connectivity options would be more important than having an uber-fast rendering processor. Consider that with such a smart TV standard in place, all the TVs in the house could connect directly to powerful gaming consoles anywhere else in the house, maybe even from a neighbor’s house.
Even simple things like TV notifications with caller id is a great feature, but unfortunately today it only works with services bundled together (ie cable tv box + cable telephony), it simply doesn’t work once I switch my dumb TV’s input to another device such as to play the WII or a DVD. With a smart tv, features could be converged and wouldn’t be exclusive to specific hardware any longer.
A smart TV standard would bring about tons of innovation with home automation as more devices become smart TV aware, ie I could lower the house thermostat from the TV in a bedroom, the TV could connect to the baby monitor or security system, it could dim the lights when I play a movie, etc. Connecting everything individually to the TV is not a good solution and having a bank of unintegrated devices having separate remotes isn’t a good solution either. Dumb TV’s are limited by number of physical connections, and if they weren’t you’d still have a rats nest of cables going around the house, and even with wireless A/V gear, you’d still have zero integration between components and a lot more interference. A smart TV standard offers integration for the masses that will never happen so long as everything is forced to remain on it’s own technology “island”. The best possible outcome is to have a standard where all gadgets are IP enabled and auto discoverable on the network by a smart TV/phone/tablet/computer without needing to buy/connect any extra proprietary equipment.
This is well within easy reach of today’s technology, but getting vendors to cooperate together on a standard might be the biggest challenge since many don’t want their devices to integrate with competing devices.
Or a box that connects to an HDMI port? If all these external devices are pretty shitty right now (which they are), I don’t think having this stuff embedded directly into the TV would make it any better. Of course, TV manufacturers would love it, since they could just stop updating their TVs a year after release to force you to buy a new one, as they currently do with phones and tablets. Personally, I’d rather replace a $100 box every few years than a $1,500 TV.
WorknMan,
Not really, I suggested having a standardized slot, something along the lines of minipci or some such that you wouldn’t even have to source from the manufacturer of your TV.
Trust me, I’m well aware about the perils of vendor lock, and unfortunately it’s not a forgone conclusion that the smart TV’s will be standardized such that vendor lock is not a problem. Our modern corporations love forcing us onto proprietary junk. Never the less, in principal the key is in having open standards such that these things are interoperable and we are not under the control of any single vendor.
“Personally, I’d rather replace a $100 box every few years than a $1,500 TV.”
You’d always have the option to do this of course. The smart tv doesn’t really hurt you in that scenario. At some point though it’s not going to make sense to consider buying a dumb TV because the marginal cost difference will be miniscule (much less than the $100 you cited).
Edited 2014-01-06 22:33 UTC
WorknMan,
Just to clarify my opinion:
I speak in favor of the concept of smart TVs, however I won’t be happy with smart TVs UNTIL there’s a vender neutral standard for them, which might not even happen.
Failing that, I would accept an adhoc vendor standard provided that the device itself remained open and didn’t force users to go through the manufacturer for third party services. This is exactly the kind of vendor lock which is ripe for abuse. Something like a roku built into the TV would not be acceptable on this basis. I’d demand an open device, not something where the manufacturer retains control over our devices after sale.
There already is a standardized slot… it’s called an HDMI port
Why are we trying to re-invent the wheel? I really don’t think we’re going to get anything more vendor-neutral than that, esp inside the TV.
It seems more logical to have boxes that can connect to *ANY* TV, instead of every TV manufacturer rolling their own. Problem is that TV manufacturers don’t want to be the ISP equivalent of a dumb pipe, and we’re all gonna suffer for it.
WorknMan,
“There already is a standardized slot… it’s called an HDMI port
”
Yes, however that’s limits us to a dumb video devices with little to no smart integration. Whether it interests anyone here or not, there’s no denying that smart tvs would have the potential to offer much better integration between devices, those are the benefits I’m primarily interested in from a smart tv. That and obviously eliminating all these pointless external boxes needed for every tv in the house. Even at best HDMI offers a fragmented experience by switching between non-integrated external devices causing features to come and go depending on which device is selected. For example, I can chat with friends when my xbox is on, I can get caller ID when my cable box is on, I get other DVR features from my XBMC player, however all the features are mutually exclusive without a smart TV to tie them together. Higher level integration would require more than what HDMI can offer today.
I guess maybe HDMI could be expanded to offer smart tv capabilities, that’s something worth considering. However I’d probably prefer standardizing an Ethernet / IP solution to truly go for maximal flexibility and interoperability. Implementing a smart stack on top of HDMI in the long run would probably end up needing to duplicate most the technology already in IP networks. I wouldn’t see the point in not going to ethernet from the get-go.
“It seems more logical to have boxes that can connect to *ANY* TV, instead of every TV manufacturer rolling their own.”
I believe that I’ve been pretty consistent with regards to the need for interoperable standards. Is your objection _merely_ that you wouldn’t trust manufacturers to adopt a smart tv standard? If so, then I agree this would be a problem due to vendor lock and fragmentation that was brought up earlier. However I’m getting the impression that your objection goes beyond this, that even if we did have vender neutral standards you’d still oppose the smart tv for reasons that I’m not understanding yet.
Edited 2014-01-07 04:20 UTC
I thought I had posted a response, but I must not have. I don’t believe there is any chance in hell that there will be a single standard for a tv slot that won’t ever change. In any case, there isn’t one now, so it would be fair to say that you don’t approve of the ones available now?
If there were such a magical standard, I think I would still buy an external device that accepted the card and output hdmi, due to my lack of faith in it not being obsoleted by magical standard 2.0 a year after I bought my smart tv.
Considering the cable industry couldn’t even agree on/properly implement CableCARD to make the “TV tuner” interchangeable, I really don’t hold out any hope of them being able to make an interchangeable “TV PC” card.
There’s just too much potential for ecosystem lock-in in “smart TVs”. No OEM would want to implement an interchangeable standard.
The best we can hope for is for an STB like Roku, XBMC, XBone, Tivo, whatever to gain enough traction to become a de facto standard.
Stick all the functionality (from the cable tuner, to the OSD, to the media centre, to whatever) into an external box, plug it in via HDMI with support for CEC, et voila! The “perfect” “smart” TV with all the integration you could ever want … fully under your control and upgradeable as needed.
phoenix,
This seems to miss a rather obvious deduction: Once something takes the lead as a defacto standard, there’s no reason for it to remain in an external box. Defacto standards *will* make their way into TVs. Marginal price will approach zero, and rational consumers comparing features will opt for the TV that fills the smart tv checkboxes without needing external accessories (further reinforcing the defacto standard).
This is _eventually_ going to happen, so we should be focusing on what we want that standard to look like. I’d rather have constructive feedback rather than just hearing that it shouldn’t exist…
IMHO functionality is more important here than being able to push exceptionally rich bleeding edge video through it’s GPU. It shouldn’t try to be a replacement for top of the line consoles, such as a PS-X or XBox-X. Rather, it should enhance the ways we can use them. So for starters, ideally I should be able to use my consoles from any room in the house without physically moving it. I can purchase more controllers to be able to use a console on different TVs simultaneously for games that support it.
Smart TVs could forward the controller signals to the console over IP. Without the need for boxes to be physically present, there’s zero noise, heat, and space. No more need for a grotesque number of wall warts to supply power to all the devices. The TV can be mounted on the wall and be entirely self contained. Other consoles (if any) can be hidden away anywhere and communicate wired/wireless via IP.
We’d want to have a smart tv remote control standard that all devices & apps could support. This isn’t to rule out additional controllers where they actually make sense, but at least the smart TV remote will provide a baseline of functionality that all devices can use. We want to cut down on the number remotes that duplicate functionality, get lost, and need batteries.
A smart TV needs to support event notifications, so a device/service can inform the user about something even though it’s screen is not active.
It should support *3rd party* interactive applications. These would get picked up using a zero configuration mechanism similar to UPNP. So the cable services, weather apps, local game consoles, mp3 players/stereos, self-hosted computer apps, security/baby monitors, digital cameras, etc can all show up automatically by name/icons if they’re in range.
It would be ultra-cool if the user could run his own application shell. Winamp like theming for my TV
Features like picture and picture should keep working but include support for even more types of content.
An SD card slot would be nice either for loading apps or reading camera files, but in the long term it would be nice for smart tvs to inter-operate with these kinds of devices wirelessly (there are some bluetooth cameras, or possibly something like eyefi).
These are just a few off the cuff ideas, obviously we’d want a lot of bright people coming up with ideas. Many of these things are within easy reach of today’s technology, however the main barrier isn’t technological at all, it’s a fragmented market with proprietary solutions and walled gardens. We will not see the real benefits of smart tvs without open & ubiquitous standards such that every new device maker has an incentive to support it as a matter of course.
Edited 2014-01-09 17:47 UTC
My main point is that I’d rather keep as much functionality OUT of the TV as possible, because technology changes a lot more rapidly than I’d like to replace a TV. In that sense, TVs should be like computer monitors – displays, and little else. If some cool new video service comes out in a year that I’d like to use, I don’t want to be at the mercy of my TV manufacturer to update the firmware so I can get access to it.
If we have to have all these separate boxes to get the functionality we need, I’m not sure how you think we can integrate all of this functionality into a TV. If we can do that, why not integrate the functionality into a box that connects to the TV instead?
The idea of having a TV that can help these different boxes talk to each other sounds intriguing, that’s not what I’m seeing from these new TVs. At best, they seem to be just trying to duplicate the functionality I already have in a Roku, and similar devices.
To be honest, I’m hoping someone will come up with a package:
SteamMachine with SteamOS and PVR with multiple tuners, Netflix, etc.
One open/upgradable box for all your viewing/gaming living room pleasure.
no, no, no! but you can obviously upgrade your software! it’s just a software! look at android!
yup, you make a valid point – at my house we have two TV, one is not even those new shiny flat hd – we are simply not bothered and probably change it when this one breaks (it has about 10-15 years now)…
LMAO, you forgot the /s tag
I’m still waiting for sarcasm typeface
FWIW I always wanted something opposite to SmartTV – a dumb monitor and a multimedia center that would somehow manage all data sources and allow for all kinds of stuff. Now that they try to concentrate everything into TV I have to think hard about the possible changes in multimedia delivery within coming years when I buy one, because if I buy a SmartTV that doesn’t support DVB-T300 which is rumored to enter mainstream in 5 years in my location, I may be out of luck, as well as if the other rumor about mass transition to DVB-S500 is true instead. Or may be youtube, netflix, etc. will be lost in abyss the next year after vendor stops updating my firmware (next year?) and I’ll have to solve the problem of connecting to new shiny Web 4.0 service all on my own… And what about HEVC, VP9 and Daala that are going to overtake the video world any time soon?
When I buy things I’m going to use for quite some time I want them to be stupid and extensible, not smart and self-contained.
Edited 2014-01-06 19:57 UTC
ddc_,
“FWIW I always wanted something opposite to SmartTV – a dumb monitor and a multimedia center that would somehow manage all data sources and allow for all kinds of stuff.”
“When I buy things I’m going to use for quite some time I want them to be stupid and extensible, not smart and self-contained.”
I also want TVs to connect to everything, yet having dumb TV’s is preventing them from being extensible in the digital age. Being a “dumb monitor” is an impediment to integration possibilities. Think about any new feature that would extend the utility of the TV, now consider how such a feature has to be implemented as an add on device for a dumb TV versus as being integrated with a smart TV. Even something as simple as an on screen notification is a major problem without getting a service provider to integrate it in some proprietary way on their end. Today’s dumb TV’s are creating fragmentation of functionality between devices that in my view should be integrated into a smart TV.
Many TV’s already have microprocessors in them. With scales of economy, I don’t think it would be cost prohibitive at all to transform them into smart tvs that allow the devices to more intelligently interact with each other as well as with the user. We really need good vendor-neutral standards though, that’s key, but that’s also a huge source of uncertainty for the future of smart tvs.
I suggested above, I just want some tuners for PVR and watching TV on a SteamMachine from Valve.
Everything in one box: games, tv/pvr, online streaming and yes, even youtube.
The box is open/upgradable.
Looking at the designs that came out of CES, I don’t think anyone thought about leaving room for a tunercard.
Edited 2014-01-07 09:52 UTC
provided that they do not put any camera or microphone on it I think we will be fine.
Before a webos phone and tablet?
I would love to see WebOS on a 5 inch screen phone. Would be sweet!
Umm…
? Ummmmm…. Did I miss something
Possibly the bit where Palm & HP have both produced WebOS phones and tablets prior to selling it LG? HP even had a nice fire-sale of WebOS based TouchPads.
Am I the only one that thinks that this is stupid in a TV?
Nope. http://doctorbeet.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/lg-smart-tvs-logging-usb-f…
… will the new WebOS TVs be better at spying on your internal network and sending to LG everything they can find?
“will the new WebOS TVs be better at spying on your internal network and sending to NSA/GCHQ/FSB/etc/etc/Advertisers galore/LG everything they can find?”
There fixed it for you.
I’m sorry and you are quite welcome to call me a Luddite after all I am distantly related to Ned but I find it really hard to understand any valid reason why I should jump on this ‘internet of things’ bandwagon and connect up everything in my home including myself to the internet. It is simply not needed.
I will never ever connect my TV to the internet. I won’t subscribe to cable (Virgin sucks big time).
Why should I tell ‘the man’ what I had for breakfast?
Now, please feel free to tell me that I am crazy but IMHO this has to stop somewhere.
Luddites Rule Ok!
The thing that irks me about SmartTVs (besides not being actually that smart) and that according the article could be somewhat fixed in this WebOS model is how all the “smarts” are plastered on top of an otherwise common flat TV as a separate module with almost no integration whatsoever.
For something that ships inside the TV I would expect to have some advantages over pluging an external device, but it seems that’s actually the opposite: you don’t get faster access to apps (actually slower), you still can’t browse apps while keeping any other input fullscreen on the background and the functionality can’t be updated.
I think it’s about time for TVs to stop bundling crappy features and focus on pretty much the only thing they are actually relevant for (besides the display): managing the input sources.
Apply the “smarts” to that, rather than on just a new component that runs crappy apps as a new different input.