In 1993, telecom giant AT&T launched an advertising campaign that somehow predicted quite a lot of aspects of how we work and live today. The “You Will” ad series, directed by now-famed thrill-master David Fincher, was an eerily accurate look at what life in the mid to late 2000s would look like. The ads, narrated by former Magnum P.I. star and professional mustache-haver Tom Selleck, imagined a series of scenarios involving gadgets and technology that didn’t yet exist.
“Have you ever done *insert thing we all do now*? Well, you will!” Selleck would say at the beginning of each ad. “And the company that will bring it to you? AT&T,” he added, at the end of each commercial. The campaign foretold a number of technological advances that would define the decades to come like tablets, smart TVs, remote work, smart watches, and smart home devices.
The central prediction of the ad was wrong, though. As Vox noted a couple years ago, while these ads were “remarkably accurate in predicting the cutting-edge technologies” that would soon arrive, they ultimately missed the fact that the company to “bring it to you” was not AT&T. Instead, it would be a whole bunch of startups that didn’t exist at the time, the publication noted.
That said, it’s uncanny to run down all of the things that “You Will” got right about the future.
Watching television used to be a pretty straightforward experience. At one time, there were roughly seven channels and you got them by fiddling with an antenna. But the proliferation of programming platforms and the advance of technology has made interacting with your television a much more complex experience. Enter so-called “smart” televisions (sometimes referred to as connected TVs), which offer an all-in-one convenience: All the major streaming platforms pre-loaded, Internet connectivity is built-in (usually including the world’s worst web browsing experience), and they even have app stores that let you install other useful utilities, just as you do on your phone.
That’s a lot of reasons to want a smart TV in today’s hyper-connected age but there are actually a lot of reasons why you don’t want a smart TV—and why you should strongly consider buying a “dumb” TV that offers an incredible viewing experience, and leave all the smarts to a separate device. In fact, here’s why you should buy the dumbest TV you can find.
Consider ads and privacy when buying a TV
Smart TVs are marketed to you as the ultimate entertainment experience, but you’re actually not the only customer—or, often, even the most important customer. Many smart TV makers are aggressively selling your viewing data and populating their user interfaces (UI) with advertising. Televisions that cost thousands of dollars come out of the box absolutely riddled with preinstalled apps and huge, ugly, persistent ads everywhere you look.
Worse, they often bury the settings you need to change in order to eliminate most (but not all—never imagine you’d be allowed to actually own the television you just spent a mortgage payment on) of those ads.
And the privacy issue isn’t small. These days, when you power up a smart TV you probably have to click through a legal agreement—and somewhere in there you agree to let the TV’s manufacturer monitor everything you do with the device and sell that information. The companies that buy that information? They will use it to target ads, which will be served up on your TV. So not only will some faceless corporation know that you binge-watch Is It Cake?, they’ll also weaponize that information against you.
Even worse, some TV makers are experimenting with shoving ads at you while you’re watching live television. To be clear: This is in addition to the ads that a broadcast or cable channel might be serving up to you while you watch. And these live ads are calibrated using your own viewing data the TV has been gathering since you powered it up. And other TV manufacturers are rolling out ad models that are increasingly difficult to avoid, like Samsung’s “takeover” ads that pop up every time you turn on the TV.
Want to avoid this advertising hellscape? Buy a dumb TV. With a dumb TV you can hook up any streaming box you want—Roku, Apple, Chromecast—and if that platform starts to mimic a smart TV in terms of advertising and other concerns, you can leverage those free market forces and switch to another.
Security is a concern with smart TVs
When I bought my first “smart” TV a few years ago, having Netflix and other streamers pre-loaded was great. And then, not so great, because the TV’s manufacturer allowed the device’s operating system to decay, and never updated the built-in Netflix app. Eventually, I was basically forced to buy a Roku just to get the current version of the app.
And that’s not unusual. Television manufacturers are typically not software developers, and there is a strong tendency to orphan their platforms almost as soon as they release them. Aside from the inconvenience of having outdated apps, this is also a huge security concern. Your smart TV is an Internet-connected device, after all, loaded with your personal information and attached to your home’s wi-fi or wired Internet. Microsoft issues security updates for Windows on a weekly basis, so how do you think your TV is doing after two years of zero software patches? With a dumb TV you don’t have these concerns—granted, in theory your smart TV can be updated with new features, but no software is going to make a 4K TV into an 8K TV, so the benefits are minimal.
Flexibility is key
Finally, going with a dumb TV gives you the most flexibility and control when it comes to your entertainment experience. With a dumb TV, you can choose whatever streaming device you want. But an Amazon Fire stick or an Apple TV box will offer you all the same options and features, with the bonus of being able to switch any time you want. When you buy a smart TV, you’re locked into that company’s interface and platform whether you like it or not—and those platforms tend to be poorly-designed and frustrating to interact with.
Buying a dumb TV
The big caveat when it comes to dumb TVs is that they are absolutely not the priority in the market, and so it can be difficult to find a dumb TV that has the screen size, resolution, and other features of a smart TV. Still, it’s not impossible. Samsung makes a 65-inch 4K dumb TV, for example, as does Sceptre, but identifying and finding dumb TVs can be challenging. Here are a few tips if you’ve decided to go dumb:
Business displays. You know when you walk into an office or store and a bunch of big TVs are blaring advertising and store content? Those are almost always dumb TVs. They’re usually called commercial TVs or commercial monitors—the word “commercial” is the giveaway. These are fully-functioning TVs that typically don’t have smart features because businesses don’t need them.
Outdoor TVs. Most outdoor televisions lack smart features. They’re not ideal for indoor use, it’s true, because they’re designed to be super-bright to be visible in sunlit areas and often lack built-in speakers, but they’re an option if you run into a wall finding other sources of dumbness.
4K monitors. The difference between a TV and a monitor is getting mighty thin in the streaming age. You can hook your streaming device to a computer monitor, instantly making it into a TV. Monitors tend to be smaller than TVs, however, so finding one bigger than 50 inches or so can be a challenge. Still, it’s an option if those smaller sizes work for you.
In the end, buying and setting up a TV is all about entertainment and relaxation—it should be easy. While you’ll definitely give up some features if you go dumb, you’ll also gain back your privacy and full control over your couch-surfing, which is priceless. But if you decide that the trade-offs for a smart TV are worth it, that’s obviously fine as long as that decision is an educated one.
Your Google TV streaming device may soon be a smart home hub and a Fitness+ rival.Image: Google
It’s no secret that Google’s been vying for a space in your living room for years. Google TV has undergone quite a few branding changes since it first launched in 2010, but it’s still managed to become one of the top streaming platforms. And it’s not stopping: Google has its sights set beyond just casting your favorite TV shows and delivering recommendations for what to watch.
In a chat with Protocol, Google TV’s Rob Caruso, director of product management, indicated that the company is focused on making Google TV devices like Chromecasts more capable this year, starting with smart home and fitness integrations. This would make Google TV decidedly more Apple-like—the latter company’s Apple TV set-top box is pricier than its competitors, but serves as a hub for HomeKit-compatible devices and also integrates with the Apple Watch for Fitness+ streaming workout classes.
We already knew that Android TV wouldn’t get left behind in the rebrand to Google TV, and Caruso confirmed Google will continue to support the platform, which still powers a majority of the active streaming devices still in use.
“Android TV is still out there and it is still being deployed, and it’s obviously still supported,” Caruso told Protocol.
That’s good news for owners of legacy devices, though Android—which Google TV remains based on—isn’t exactly known for its streamlined software updates.
Google also wants to work more closely with content providers to make its universal TV search your one-stop shop for streaming. It’s a strategy that’s as old as time, plucked straight from the company’s search engine playbook. But to achieve its goals, it needs more third parties to come into the fold. Netflix, for instance, is one of the major streaming networks that won’t let you add movies and TV shows to your watchlist. As a Google TV user, I rely on that feature to keep track of what I’m interested in, and it offers the added perk of receiving a notification when it becomes available.
“I hope we’ll see some welcome improvements and innovations in the coming months with not just Netflix, but with many partners,” said Caruso, who actually arrived at Google last August after a stint at Netflix.
With Google’s investment in Fitbit, it’s no surprise to see Google eyeing a fitness integration for Google TV. Caruso told Protocol it’s a “big area of exploration.” It’ll be interesting to see whether Google leverages Fitbit’s on-demand workout classes (which are available in the Fitbit app with a premium subscription), or introduces a new Peloton or Fitness+ competitor.
The smart home may be the last major piece of Google TV’s puzzle. It makes sense with Matter, the smart home standard that promises to unite them all, on the horizon. Google is exploring better integration with smart devices, including Android phones. It’s unclear whether this would go beyond the expanded Fast Pair feature Google announced last week, which enables Android smartphones to pair devices to the network—kind of like a smart hub. It’s not unlike the strategy Samsung revealed with its SmartThings platform.
Google TV’s user numbers have been trending upwards—the platform currently has 110 million monthly active devices, and hardware partners like TCL is reportedly selling 10 million Google TV sets a year.
The question remains if Google can offer a compelling use for its devices beyond simple TV watching. Or maybe it’ll turn out that all it needs to keep users tuned in is to be the best damn search engine for couch potatoes. For now, there’s no timeline for when Google will launch new Google TV features, though Caruso hinted at “some point later this year.”
A cheap $300 TCL TV is one of the best tech purchases I’ve made in recent years. I had just moved to Brooklyn as a cash-strapped 20-something out of college and needed a TV that just got the job done. The TCL with Roku built in was the ideal solution, and since then, I’ve been recommending it to folks on a similar budget.
Now though, anyone in the market for a TCL, specifically those running Google TV, should think twice. Best Buy appears to have removed 5-series and 6-series TCL TVs from its store after widespread complaints of buggy Google TV software.
It’s a rocky start for TCL—the company only began selling Google-powered TVs earlier this year after earning a name with its Roku-powered models. We’ve long considered TCL’s 5- and 6-series TVs to be the best affordable 4K models around, and the addition of Google TV sounded like the cherry on top, but clearly, this cake needs more time to bake.
Chris Welch at The Verge, who reported on the apparent removal of TCL Google TV listings, says he has noticed some “general slowness” and that his roommate ran into crashes and freezes. Digital Trends Senior Editor Caleb Denison had a similar experience, calling the 5-series Google TV “glitchy” and “annoying.” Disgruntled customers echoed those experiences on social media and, as The Verge points out, the 65-inch 6-series model had a lowly 3.5-star rating on Best Buy before it vanished.
TCL still lists the 5 and 6-series Google TVs on its website, which even contains a link to their now-empty Best Buy product pages. Click on said link and you get a, “We’re sorry, something went wrong” message (sorry for the flashbacks, PS5 shoppers).
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We should point out that poor performance as the reason behind the TV’s disappearance from Best Buy is only speculation, although it seems the most likely cause. We’ve reached out to Best Buy and TCL to get confirmation and will update this article as soon as we hear back. Whatever the reason, at the moment, one of TCL’s most popular models is not available at the exclusive U.S. retailer of TCL’s Google TVs, and um, that’s a big problem.
Roku’s newest Voice Remote Pro (left) next to a previous generation of Roku remote.Photo: Catie Keck/Gizmodo
If you go all-in on Roku’s new Voice Remote Pro, you may end up getting one sans the Apple TV+ button seen in marketing materials.
When I was shipped a Voice Remote Pro last week, the one I received had four streaming buttons on the wand: Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, and Sling TV. But marketing images for the Pro depicted the remote with the Hulu button scooched over on the bottom row and an Apple TV+ button in place of a Sling shortcut. The discrepancy was initially spotted by Zatz Not Funny!, and Roku confirmed to Gizmodo that the remote with the Apple TV+ button will take a minute to begin shipping.
“The button transition on the Roku Voice Remote Pro will take a few months but in the meantime customers can use their voice to program a personal shortcut button to launch their favorite channels,” a spokesperson said.
Indeed, a pair of programmable buttons are one of a handful of great things about the Voice Remote Pro, which is also rechargeable. In addition to its “find my remote” and hands-free features, personalized shortcut keys will allow Apple TV+ subscribers to get around this hiccup fairly easily. The button issue will, however, likely be annoying to anyone who is not a Sling subscriber but is a paying customer of Apple’s service.
A marketing image depicting an Apple TV+ shortcut button on the new Voice Remote Pro.Image: Roku
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It’s unclear why the button was depicted in marketing materials and why the change appears to have happened so late in the game. But it does indicate that Roku has doubled down on its initiative to win over Apple users, even for a service that’s fairly new to the space and still working to build up a substantial library of originals.
Roku has aggressively expanded support for Apple users who opt for its streaming devices over Apple’s own set-top boxes, which are significantly more expensive than many of Roku’s devices. Roku finally introduced AirPlay 2 and HomeKit support on its 4K devices with the Roku OS 9.4 update, and its inclusion of the Apple TV+ button directly on its remotes further demonstrates the company’s willingness to target Apple users.
But it does appear that marketing materials jumped the gun a bit. So if an Apple TV+ button is a make-or-break upgrade requirement for you, it looks like we may have to wait a few months before we’ll start seeing it become widely available.