hahaho-smarttv

Investigate options for a maker's smart TV and document the selected design

Table of contents

• Introduction
• Requirements
• Commercial devices
• Hacking a commercial device
• Open source smart TV projects
• Rating the maker's options

Introduction

Introduced around 2015, smart TV's have become the dominant form of television sets in 2023. Although smart TV's may have enriched the watching experience of their users compared to traditional TV sets in some ways, there are two main objections against smart TV's:

1. Smart TV's are basically an advertizing platform. The manufacturers of smart TV's force advertizements on the user. In addition, the manufacturers do not respect the user's privacy and monitor their viewing habits to enable targeted advertizements.

2. Although smart TV's are based on platforms that allow for a fair amount of tinkering, they are remotely managed by the manafacturer, forcing firmware and software updates that may act against the user's interests. In this respect, smart TV's do not comply with the maker's manifesto that envisions applying technology as part of a making process that is 'fundamental to what it means to be human'.

Parallel to the introduction of smart TV's, traditional TV service providers extended their offerings with interactive TV, by putting an internet-connected mediabox between "the cable" and the user's TV. At least, the users can choose which party gains the insight in their viewing behaviors.

In this git repository, the author and (hopefully) collaborators investigate what options exist to own a smart TV that does not suffer from the objections listed above. Many software and maker projects for smart TV's have preceded the current one. The current project aims at the following added value:

• providing a long term alternative to a commercial smart TV rather than a temporary add-on to an old dumb TV
• explicitly addressing access to Dutch television service providers

The investigation is carried out under the umbrella of the HaHaHo Makers Lab Utrecht. Rights to the name HaHaHo belong to the HaHaHo Foundation (in dutch).