It's also not subsidized by selling your user data.
You can try to compete by charging a reasonable amount for your hardware and software, but you'll be competing against economy of scale and wrestling for shelf-space with products that are (don't forget retail percentage mark-up) at least 30% cheaper than yours, which means your units don't move, which means you don't get (or keep) shelf space, and hello death spiral. Also if you somehow manage to make it despite that, as soon as an MBA gets in charge you'll just switch to selling data, too.
Looking at Vizio's financial records[0], the numbers make it clear.
They seperate everything into 2 distinct businesses, Device and Platform+.
Device represents their hardware business of selling physical TVs and soundbars. Platform+ covers all of their other "software-related" business, mainly consisting of ad delivery and selling user data to third parties.
2019:
- Device Net Revenue = $1.7 billion
- Device Gross Profit = $125 million
- Platform+ Net Revenue = $63 million
- Platform+ Gross Profit = $40 million
2023:
- Device Net Revenue = $1.0 billion
- Device Gross Profit = -($8.6 million)
- Platform+ Net Revenue = $598 million
- Platform+ Gross Profit = $364 million
So over the course of just 4 years:
- hardware revenue is down 40% and is actually losing money (confirms they are indeed selling the TVs at a loss)
- Ad/user data revenue, however, is up almost ten-fold (+949%)
- total gross profits of the two combined are up over 54%
[0] https://investors.vizio.com/financials/quarterly-results/def...
No, not weird. The extra stuff is there to show you ads and/or track your behavior, which generates a stream of revenue for the TV maker. W/o the extra stuff, the only revenue comes from the one-time purchase.
Most often those are some embedded linux board running some Android fork, shouldn't there be some TV models on the market that are a good hardware/price deal with firmware that can be replaced?
Even something that just permanently shows HDMI input with no popup overlays would be good, but AOSP + VLC/Jellyfin would be even nicer.
Get a used mini-pc, install Linux on it, and don't allow the TV to connect to any networks. This is a 50-75 dollar solution. Good if you are on a budget and are not interested in any wiz-bang features like HDR.
There are a few TV-dedicated Linux systems out there, like libreElEC.
Or get a more powerful system with a AMD GPU and install Bazzite on it. That way you get something like "SteamOS for your TV". Pairs nicely with controllers like 8BitDo.
It would be nice to have TVs as open as PCs, but the manufacturers and media companies are ran by dirtbags and would rather have victims then customers.
As someone who tried that route I'd strongly recommend against it for anyone who isn't core HN audience or just loves tinkering. You're much better off with an Apple TV or an Nvidia Shield unless you really want the "beefy gaming media center".
I walked the mini-PC/RPi road and they came up short every time even for me, let alone the rest of the family. Even when I put in place the perfectly optimized initial setup I was still left with a bad compromise of performance, power consumption, noise, boot time, ergonomics, and the constant trickle of things breaking down or needing tweaking because of some update.
When trying to watch a movie with the family the last thing I want is to troubleshoot random issues.
Maybe there are smart TVs out there with a SoC that's been reverse engineered enough to do something with. If there is, that should be shouted from the rafters. But I kinda doubt it.
Weirdly they always seem to be more expensive than a TV though.
Configuring subpixel-layout per monitor is something that most OS won't allow. So if you use several monitors, you usually have to mount the BGR-ones upside down. (Otherwise fonts will be blurry...)
For some time now there are really cheap 4K Monitors with BGR-layout available. If you mount those upside down you're fine... (I use LG 4K Monitors mounted upside down in combination with other screens)
It could make a nice CrowdSupply project, except for the cheap distribution of the huge packages. Sounds not that hard though: Just get some nice 50" 4k smart tv's and remove all the junk. Cool features like DP daisy chain or something and one could have a nice project. But i'm guessing there is (too) much money to be made in user info and ads. :(
