Personally I'm trying to get my hands on the SDK for the software that runs in the driver chip (does the OSD and the scaling and everything else), because I think there's a lot of potential there. But boy it's like pulling teeth.
Similarly, the Exploiteers (née GTVHacker) have done quite a bit of reverse-engineering of the stock boards, so you can just fix the broken-ass firmware they ship with.
Ultimately I'm picturing something like the WRT54G, a single modem that the community coalesces around, to the point that a decade later, third-party firmwares have become such a force that manufacturers build hardware specifically to run it.
Is this something that is practical and commonly done, or only theoretically possible?
I have an older model Sony 4K TV (pre-Android) that is so slow now after its recent firmware updates that it responds to button presses only after 2-3 seconds. It's unbearable!
I'd love to be able to just pop in a new driver board and refresh the TV, but I've never heard of anyone doing this kind of thing before.
Right now I'm working on a project with some M315DJJ-K30 and MV238QUM-N20 panels, but parts are still in shipping so I don't have anything to show for it yet.
Do these boards support HDCP?
I've stumbled into a pile of panels and I have several orders of different driver boards on their way to me from Shenzhen, but nothing in-hand to say if they work yet.
Also, watch out for clueless^helpful friends and relatives who try to “fix” your TV’s WiFi.
1. Normal Traffic
2. Guest
3. Security Devices (Camera's, and other Home Automation)
4. Media Devices (Roku, FireTV, Smart TV's, etc)
media devices only have access to my home Plex server and the internet nothing else
Couldn't you just change the wifi password?
I'd probably say ~helpful~clueless instead though
What about factory reset?
These days won't come. What will happen instead is TVs will start coming with embedded SIM cards for cellular data connection (prepaid or otherwise negotiated between TV vendors and telcos), and then we won't have any choice in the matter as consumers, short of opening the box up and snipping the antenna (and losing warranty in the process).
These days are already here. My TCL bootloops if it doesn't have an internet connection to download ads from, and if you call support, they'll happily walk you through getting it connected to the network.
We're not there yet, but we're on our way. My Philips Ambilight TV pops up a warning every few weeks to remind me that I should connect the TV to the network to benefit from all the smart apps it has bundled. Immensely frustrating.
I have -up2now- not seen 1 device, where the combination of HW/SW was capable of offering ethernet to the Device OS.
AFAIK, no (mainstream) PC/Embedded/Mobile graphics chip/firmware/driver combination supports this. Please do indicate a counter-example, if you know of one.
I consider that unlikely to change too, since Ethernet is limited to 100Mbit over HDMI. Gigabit (Wifi) ate that lunch.
Outside of "Device-Collections" from e.g. B&O, that might use that comm-channel to have a "guaranteed communication backend" available, I see no real (commercially) interesting reason for implement it.
Having said that, I'd be very happy, if GFX-card/TV vendors started implementing the optional parts of the HDMI spec, like CEC,ARC, and Ethernet. I'd find use for it.
Despite the common trope, "selling data" doesn't lower the price of consumer devices. You only see price-less-than-cost plays when companies are trying to buy market share (think Alexa, Google Home, early Kindle, etc).
"The greater strategy is I really don't need to make money off of the TV. I need to cover my cost."
and
"It's not just about data collection. It's about post-purchase monetization of the TV."
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/7/18172397/airplay-2-homekit...
[2]https://www.businessinsider.com/smart-tv-data-collection-adv...
You know, I've wanted something like this as well for a while. I know next to nothing about startups or companies, but I wonder how hard it would be to create a hardware startup around this. On one hand, you arent really designing anything new, you're more or less creating a version of an existing product, with existing technologies, except removing undesirable parts. On the other hand, I have mo idea how someone could get started without previous experience in TV design / manufacturing.
I do not understand why so many other markets have a number of luxury/craftsman brands and in computers we only have Apple. Cars have tons. Even woodworking has 2 built-to-last brands and 2 others that like to flirt with that moniker.
You will have to pay though, if you want the company to stick around. If you buy something that lasts 3x as long then they get less revenue from you, and the smaller volume means every sale includes paying off the initial R & D.
I recall when Lian Li first came onto the scene and the notch-up in ergonomics of computer cases that followed. Maybe we need something like that for consumer electronics.
The problem is that people like small and clean, which is where Apple excels (to the exclusion of accessibility), so I wonder what bomb-proof consumer electronics built for modification would look like.
Starfleet technology. Sleek and sturdy, but opens up when pressed the right way, and generally can be completely disassembled with ease, have pieces of it replaced, and then put back together.
It's fictional, but it shows the way.
If the hardware is a commodity and the market is for a bare-bones, self-serviceable “just a TV”, then the startup should have significantly lower engineering costs and benefit from the low component costs. Given that people on this thread are stating that they would pay a premium for such a product makes it seem even more viable.
Maybe other people have different “serviceability” definitions, but I once replaced the main board of a broken Vizio smart TV —- there were only two components —- a power board and the main electronics board. The hardest part was tracking down a replacement board, but $35 and a few screws later and I had a working TV again. That met my definition of self-service.
* You can't compete on price because the TV guys are selling access to the data they collect for ad targeting / attribution.
But don't let anyone stop you from doing it. None of us thinks this is worthwhile, so you might be on to a Thiel Truth.
Suppose end consumers think fixing this is worth $50 but not worth $100. If the outfit selling a "SmartTV" gets $80 lifetime value from the "SmartTV" features like forced advertising and margins are slim you probably find you can't offer this "dumb TV" for $50 extra without losing money, and you have no customers and go out of business.
On the other hand, it could go pretty well. We know advertisers see people who buy premium products (which such a "dumb TV" would be since it costs extra) as more valuable in a lot of categories, so maybe you charge $50 extra for the dumb TV and - as it takes off - that undercuts the advertising income of the existing products, so they have to raise prices to remain profitable and that actually improves your affordability compared to the market. Or else they make advertising even more intrusive and pervasive to keep the revenue up, and it makes your $50 premium appear a bargain by comparison for those sick of advertising.
In practice I suspect many of these systems barely function, each is a special snowflake, and that any bad input from controller could result in fire or water damage to your house.
So maybe TVs and fridges are a good place to start and we should give washing machines a while to figure it out.
But the average person wouldn't, and "fickle hacker news user" is not a wide open market.
To address your question, I think they’re all “smart” now. I ended up getting a low-end Samsung 4K a few months ago and it’s been good so far. It starts up very quickly, maybe 1-2 seconds. We use it exclusively with an AppleTV because of privacy / advertising concerns that have been raised. I’m just waiting for the day when all TVs require a working internet connection and we have to start hacking their hardware and software to protect our data.