1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,760 These days, there are a lot of things that have unnecessary smart features built into 2 00:00:04,760 --> 00:00:09,440 them, but you'd think the familiar television would be a good candidate for a smart device. 3 00:00:09,440 --> 00:00:13,080 With as many streaming services as we use today, it's a good idea to have them all built 4 00:00:13,080 --> 00:00:21,200 into your TV, right? Unfortunately, smart TVs are actually about as smart as the common garden slug, with clunky 5 00:00:21,200 --> 00:00:25,920 user interfaces, poor responsiveness, and even instability in some cases. 6 00:00:26,040 --> 00:00:30,560 And this isn't restricted to the bargain-basement models that you found at an abandoned Kmart. 7 00:00:30,560 --> 00:00:37,240 My favorite childhood haunt. Even on some premium four-figure TVs, you'll see no shortage of people complaining about 8 00:00:37,240 --> 00:00:43,400 the built-in operating system. So why are these nice TVs coming with such slow interfaces to begin with? 9 00:00:43,400 --> 00:00:47,720 Well, it helps to understand the business model of the average TV manufacturer. 10 00:00:47,720 --> 00:00:52,280 Some of them are companies who primarily manufacture TVs, such as Vizio, while other companies 11 00:00:52,280 --> 00:00:57,160 like Samsung might make tons of different products, but their TV division might be left 12 00:00:57,160 --> 00:01:03,120 more or less to its own devices. These companies and divisions don't focus very much on either software development or 13 00:01:03,120 --> 00:01:06,640 powerful hardware the same way a phone manufacturer would. 14 00:01:06,640 --> 00:01:11,400 Even though many of the same video streaming apps we find on smart TVs are also on our 15 00:01:11,400 --> 00:01:16,600 phones, phone manufacturers know that their products rely heavily on app-driven experiences 16 00:01:16,600 --> 00:01:22,120 and laggy, unstable behavior on modern smartphones would quickly put off consumers. 17 00:01:22,120 --> 00:01:28,720 Many manufacturers don't have the same set of concerns. Their primary objective, as it's been for a very long time, has been to make a TV with 18 00:01:28,720 --> 00:01:33,240 good or at least acceptable picture quality at a competitive price. 19 00:01:33,240 --> 00:01:37,000 Having a good software experience is not only something they aren't focused on, but it's 20 00:01:37,000 --> 00:01:40,140 also something they haven't had to worry about until recently. 21 00:01:40,140 --> 00:01:44,720 It was only around a decade ago that it was very easy to get a dumb TV that had on-screen 22 00:01:44,720 --> 00:01:50,120 digital menus and HDMI ports, but lacked any kind of fancier operating system that supported 23 00:01:50,120 --> 00:01:56,720 apps or web connectivity. Now something else to consider is the fact that the TVs themselves are rather low margin 24 00:01:56,720 --> 00:02:00,720 items, meaning they don't typically make a whole lot of profit for the manufacturer, 25 00:02:00,720 --> 00:02:06,200 especially at the low end. As it's become easier to manufacture TVs over the years, there's lots of supply to 26 00:02:06,200 --> 00:02:09,840 go with increased competition, driving prices down. 27 00:02:09,840 --> 00:02:14,840 And the fact that smart TV manufacturers get revenue from all the ads their sets contain 28 00:02:14,840 --> 00:02:18,920 means prices have dwindled even further, to the point that it's not hard to find smart 29 00:02:18,920 --> 00:02:26,080 TVs for below 200 US dollars. But why does this necessarily mean that your TV has to insult you by being so slow and 30 00:02:26,080 --> 00:02:33,080 laggy? It doesn't care about your time. Well, a big part of the reason is that smart TVs often use low end processors, as better 31 00:02:33,080 --> 00:02:37,000 hardware would cut even further into their already thin margins. 32 00:02:37,000 --> 00:02:41,280 Besides, when customers go into a store or even browse for televisions online, they're 33 00:02:41,280 --> 00:02:46,040 mostly still shopping based on size and picture quality, meaning there just isn't very much 34 00:02:46,040 --> 00:02:50,040 incentive for manufacturers to improve the user experience. 35 00:02:50,040 --> 00:02:53,600 Especially when you consider these TVs all have HDMI ports that mostly allow the user 36 00:02:53,600 --> 00:02:59,040 to bypass the smart features and just plug in their own Chromecast or whatever. 37 00:02:59,040 --> 00:03:04,080 Indeed, small streaming sticks or boxes from companies like Roku, Google, NVIDIA and Apple 38 00:03:04,080 --> 00:03:10,800 tend to offer much better performance. Since so many streaming devices offer a similar suite of apps, including many apps you can 39 00:03:10,800 --> 00:03:15,040 already get built into a smart TV, there's a bigger incentive for them to provide a solid 40 00:03:15,040 --> 00:03:20,560 user experience, not to mention these companies focus more on well designed software and incorporating 41 00:03:20,560 --> 00:03:23,960 hardware that can run it properly to begin with. 42 00:03:23,960 --> 00:03:27,720 Many people have switched to using external streaming devices for just this reason, even 43 00:03:27,720 --> 00:03:31,160 though they can get the same content directly through their smart TV. 44 00:03:31,160 --> 00:03:35,440 Now, the situation might get a little better as time goes on, as there's been a trend 45 00:03:35,440 --> 00:03:42,640 for TV manufacturers to replace their own proprietary and bad operating systems with Android TV 46 00:03:42,760 --> 00:03:46,280 or the new Google TV, which are typically a lot more stable. 47 00:03:46,280 --> 00:03:50,320 But again, standardization only helps if the hardware is up to scratch. 48 00:03:50,320 --> 00:03:54,800 So let's hope that over time it ends up making more economic sense for TV manufacturers to 49 00:03:54,800 --> 00:03:59,360 use better chips, unless you just really love dongles. 50 00:03:59,360 --> 00:04:03,200 Hey, that was a Techquickie! 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