WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.760 These days, there are a lot of things that have unnecessary smart features built into 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. 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 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 00:00:21.200 --> 00:00:25.920 user interfaces, poor responsiveness, and even instability in some cases. 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. 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 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? 00:00:43.400 --> 00:00:47.720 Well, it helps to understand the business model of the average TV manufacturer. 00:00:47.720 --> 00:00:52.280 Some of them are companies who primarily manufacture TVs, such as Vizio, while other companies 00:00:52.280 --> 00:00:57.160 like Samsung might make tons of different products, but their TV division might be left 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 00:01:03.120 --> 00:01:06.640 powerful hardware the same way a phone manufacturer would. 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 00:01:11.400 --> 00:01:16.600 phones, phone manufacturers know that their products rely heavily on app-driven experiences 00:01:16.600 --> 00:01:22.120 and laggy, unstable behavior on modern smartphones would quickly put off consumers. 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 00:01:28.720 --> 00:01:33.240 good or at least acceptable picture quality at a competitive price. 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 00:01:37.000 --> 00:01:40.140 also something they haven't had to worry about until recently. 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 00:01:44.720 --> 00:01:50.120 digital menus and HDMI ports, but lacked any kind of fancier operating system that supported 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 00:01:56.720 --> 00:02:00.720 items, meaning they don't typically make a whole lot of profit for the manufacturer, 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 00:02:06.200 --> 00:02:09.840 go with increased competition, driving prices down. 00:02:09.840 --> 00:02:14.840 And the fact that smart TV manufacturers get revenue from all the ads their sets contain 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 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 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 00:02:33.080 --> 00:02:37.000 hardware would cut even further into their already thin margins. 00:02:37.000 --> 00:02:41.280 Besides, when customers go into a store or even browse for televisions online, they're 00:02:41.280 --> 00:02:46.040 mostly still shopping based on size and picture quality, meaning there just isn't very much 00:02:46.040 --> 00:02:50.040 incentive for manufacturers to improve the user experience. 00:02:50.040 --> 00:02:53.600 Especially when you consider these TVs all have HDMI ports that mostly allow the user 00:02:53.600 --> 00:02:59.040 to bypass the smart features and just plug in their own Chromecast or whatever. 00:02:59.040 --> 00:03:04.080 Indeed, small streaming sticks or boxes from companies like Roku, Google, NVIDIA and Apple 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 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 00:03:15.040 --> 00:03:20.560 user experience, not to mention these companies focus more on well designed software and incorporating 00:03:20.560 --> 00:03:23.960 hardware that can run it properly to begin with. 00:03:23.960 --> 00:03:27.720 Many people have switched to using external streaming devices for just this reason, even 00:03:27.720 --> 00:03:31.160 though they can get the same content directly through their smart TV. 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 00:03:35.440 --> 00:03:42.640 for TV manufacturers to replace their own proprietary and bad operating systems with Android TV 00:03:42.760 --> 00:03:46.280 or the new Google TV, which are typically a lot more stable. 00:03:46.280 --> 00:03:50.320 But again, standardization only helps if the hardware is up to scratch. 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 00:03:54.800 --> 00:03:59.360 use better chips, unless you just really love dongles. 00:03:59.360 --> 00:04:03.200 Hey, that was a Techquickie! 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