Is Sky Glass a smarter TV

[Exiled-in-HH]

It seems to be, according to the adverts, because it supports voice search!

BUT all good quality Smart TVs support voice search🤔

[J_Tyler]

Never believe advertising. From any company. 

[Exiled-in-HH]

From my question I'd suggest I'm skeptical of the claim🤔

[MarkGoldsmith]

The issue is that its a bit misleading. 

I think there claim is due to the fact that the voice search works across all apps that are available on the platform, whereas that isn't the case for most smart tvs ( mainly due to them using larger apps stores and therefore allowing more apps to be downloaded). Wheresa of cause Sky doesn't use an app store and bakes all the apps into the OS which of course means that only a couple of new apps a year tend to be added because they have to integrate it all into the search and playlist functionality.

[TimmyBGood]

@Exiled-in-HH 

As @MarkGoldsmith indicates, the aim of Sky is to have Voice Search extend to every service carried in the platform and present the results in a unified UI as a promotion point for subscriptions: that's a very different business model to television hardware vendors.

[Exiled-in-HH]

Voice search on good quality Smart TVs works across apps🙂

[Exiled-in-HH]

What is Smarter supporting many APPs or a limited number of APPs?

[MarkGoldsmith]

Not to the level Sky currently offer with its playlist, continue watching and voice search functionality.

Is there the potential for smart TVs to be this in-depth in the future, most likely providing they want to go down that avenue and put a lot of development resources into the operating systems the TVs are running on.

This is essentially the USP that Sky have provided on Sky Glass/Stream to make is different to most other smart tvs (particuarly in the same price bracket).

[TimmyBGood]

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@MarkGoldsmith wrote:

Is there the potential for smart TVs to be this in-depth in the future, most likely providing they want to go down that avenue and put a lot of development resources into the operating systems the TVs are running on.

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And which they don't earn currently subscription income from.  As I said: different business model.

[MarkGoldsmith]

Completely agree, the Sky subscription model allows them to invest and develop their own unique OS.

This has advantages and disadvantages, using generic Andorid OS on Smart TVs leaves you at the hand of the Android developers to fix bugs etc and means you can only differentiate your TV by hardware. Obviously creating your own OS is expensive but gives you far greater control. Yes you are more likely to have bugs for particularly use cases that weren't though about during the developement and testing phase, but its like that for most used software and generally improves greatly as the years go by.

Also just look at other technology services switching from generic Android OS to their own developed operating system like Amazon are doing for their Alexa products.

[Exiled-in-HH]

Good quality Smart TVs don't use generic Android!

[TimmyBGood]

@Exiled-in-HH 

Several major manufacturers (Sony in particular) thought Android TV would be as successful on big screens as Android has been on phones.  Turns out they were wrong, but that's a different topic.

[MarkGoldsmith]

True not all Smart TC brands use Android TV OS, some like LG use Web OS. However these are still generic OSs outside the control of the manufacturers.

Sony in the past used to use Android, then layer their own code on top of it, essentially creating their own version (for TVs, tablets, phones). Which proved absolutely horrendous and awful and thus persuaded them to switch just to a more genercic Os choice.

[TimmyBGood]

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@MarkGoldsmith wrote:

some like LG use Web OS. However these are still generic OSs outside the control of the manufacturers.

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WebOS is a weird one, going back over a decade to HP making one of their typically eccentric business decisions and splurging a billion dollars to acquire Palm

Technically it's not 'generic' but there is an Open Source release alongside the one on the LG televisions themselves.

[Exiled-in-HH]

Good quality Smart TVs have voice search that works across apps!

So we return to question does Sky's voice search mean Sky Glass are Smarter TVs?