Does Your Smart TV Have an Ulterior Motive?

Does Your Smart TV Have an Ulterior Motive?

Andy Marken July 23, 2024

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I suggested a rather unbelievable possibility. Since then, I've come to believe that possibility however unbelievable is now more a probability. - Elijah Price, Unbreakable, Touchstone Pictures, 2000

Buying Vizio early this year for $2.3B has got to be one of the smartest investments the company has made in the history of investments.

Oh sure, they'll still sell you a Samsung, LG, Sony, Panasonic or any other breed and they'll even sell you a separate streaming box if you want.

But they are going to make a very compelling (low, low price) to buy a smart Vizio set.

Smart Buy - Walmart recently made a smart acquisition this year by buying Vizio, a leading smart TV manufacturer. The set provides direct access into consumers home to sell ads and other stuff. Check the price and we're pretty sure that the company that racked up more than $420B last year will make it hard to resist.

The Vizio buy is what's referred to in the business as a long-term strategic acquisition.

If they lose a little money on your purchase, no problem because they'll make it all up and more on the backend.

Actually, all of the smart 4K, 8K OLED/QLED set manufacturers could shave their prices for the same reason.

The set(s) are appealingly smart because they let you instantly connect to the internet. Just plug in the HDMI-2 cable (usually) to your wired or wireless connection and BAM! you're ready to stream all the content you subscribe to.

Okay, it's not quite that dumbed down, but it's pretty easy.

And

Yes, there's always an and and a but .

For Walmart, they have a direct pipe into your home set so they could feed you ads on stuff they want you to buy.

Or more likely, they are now able to sell ads to suppliers/companies who want to reach you while you're being entertained (assuming you're watching content on an AVOD or FAST channel).

Yeah, even easier than that.

It's pretty much the same if you buy an Amazon Fire TV, a Samsung, an LG or any other smart TV.

There's nothing really wrong with that because like every company, they're in the business of selling folks stuff.

Check the definition of business in the dictionary.

Smart TVs have a lot of advantages just ask the salesperson.

Plug it in along with the appropriate internet connection and you can quickly use it with the apps someone paid them to install some good, some suck.

Instantly you'll have access to Netflix, YouTube, most of the major streaming services and others. Don't worry if your entertainment stuff isn't there, you can go online and download the app - video entertainment, gaming, music, etc.

Nearly all of the smart sets include ACR (automatic content recognition) to track what you're watching and other personal/family information so they can show you relevant ads.

No, that isn't what they tell you when you buy one because it's all about making it quick and easy for you to watch what you want, when you want to watch it.

Selection Help - Streaming services monitor subscriber activity in order to develop/acquire content that will be of interest to subscribers. Their research engines also offer show/movie suggestions based on subscriber viewing habits to eliminate frustration.

All of those smarts are there just to keep track of your streaming services and your viewing habits so they can almost instantly offer up all of the services also provide shows/movies based on your entertainment habits.

According to Strategy Analytics, Hub Research and virtually every other market research firm, folks buy a smart TV rather than one of those old-fashioned dumb sets because the dumb sets are just like your computer monitor they don't do a thing until you add a box.

Growing Popularity - Smart TVs offer owners simplified connections and entertainment recommendations so their popularity soars. Of course, they also provide added benefits.

They're great and smart honest.

They provide instant access to wi-fi or ethernet internet connectivity without extra cables/devices. They provide access to all of the popular streaming services and can be used to browse the web.

They're loaded with multimedia/gaming capabilities and can be personalized to your taste, complete with smart assistants and/or voice control.

Because of their built-in functionality and efficiency, 88 percent of the sets purchased this year were smart TVs.

And if you're hellbent on having a smart home, it will connect with your other smart devices/systems so your refrigerator can tell you when the milk is sour/eggs are bad. It can also change your thermostat instead of making you get off the couch to adjust it by hand or turn off the bathroom light you forgot to take care of between commercials.

Boy, you're so 21st century!

Okay, so there are a few downsides.

Watching You - While consumers buy smart TVs for great home viewing entertainment, they often overlook the fact that the retailer and manufacturer can also monitor your viewing activity and even check in with your smart home devices.

The smart TV manufacturer/retailer keep track of your home entertainment habits so they can drop in ads of products/services you'll probably be interested in because as we mentioned, they sorta kinda monitor everything.

To do all that smart stuff they have to have limited computing power and an operating system Samsung - Tizen OS, Vizio - SmartCast, LG -WebOS and others.

Smart Options - While there are a lot of great smart TV options, there are even more smart TV OS options and they all have their pros/cons.

Don't confuse these with your MacOS or Windows OS which you use every day to do computerish type of stuff. You know, create, file/store, backup, and

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