Soon they'll be coming with their own 5G chips that phone home over cell networks - no wifi access required.
Or, like the Amazon Echoes, they'll form a mesh network with your neighbors TVs and other devices and then just use your neighbor's wifi to phone home.
It's coming. I'm buying Spectres and I suggest others do the same.
> Soon they'll be coming with their own 5G chips that phone home over cell networks - no wifi access required
This is something I never understood about the IOT bullcrap, even if something can connect to a mobile network, they'd still need the expense of a data subscription which render the whole thing pretty moot. It's not as if 5G providers were operating their network for free.
I'd expect that a company the size of Samsung is able to negotiate data plans at least an order of magnitude cheaper than anything available to the average consumer.
The device manufacturer will eat the cost of the 5G subscription, since it will likely be lower than the revenue generated from the harvested personal data.
It will be only tracking and surveillance data that the TV uploads to the mothership. It's not like they will let you stream YouTube, Netflix or Prime on their inbuilt 5G connection.
So the cost will be minimal and further reduced by the bulk volume that the manufacturer would purchase from the telco. Like how Amazon Kindle comes with a free 3G connection to download your books and upload your reading habits.
You're not answering the question, I'm not asking anything about streaming anything over 5G. I'm asking about the cost of IoT subscription, plus all the logistic to put in place in every country where a company intend to your product.
> So the cost will be minimal and further reduced by the bulk volume that the manufacturer would purchase from the telco. Like how Amazon Kindle comes with a free 3G connection to download your books and upload your reading habits.
I have no doubt a TV manufacturer selling millions of devices could get any US LTE carrier to sell them a low-bandwidth data service for pennies per device per month. You're talking about retail rates, when a bulk IoT buyer like this will not be paying anything close to retail.
As for the logistics, it's not that hard. They already have to produce separate SKUs for various regions for the power adapters. So you just add another variable: included SIM card. US gets a [Verizon|ATT|T-Mo] SIM, EU gets one of their carriers, etc.
When we had satellite TV (more than a decade ago), one of the conditions was to keep the receiver plugged into the phone line. If it wasn't plugged in, there'd be a $5 surcharge on the bill that month.
I figured this was because they were collecting data on viewership habits. Each customer profile must have been worth $5 or more, based on the surcharge amount.
(The phone line was useful for other things too, like ordering PPV/on-demand/premium channels through the menus directly, as opposed to calling them in through a 1-800 number.)
Lol, if this all gets too onerous, I will just stick with my plasmas and CRT displays.
I have a few of each, they are in great condition and will be collecting a few more.
OLED may prove compelling enough to get me interested, but nothing LCD will, except as computer display.
I got super lucky on the plasma. It is big, beautiful and not all that smart. Got two of them, one seeing very light use.
Those things said, chances are the display tech that performs on par with fast plasma and CRT will probably come with the worst of this "smart" code.
Fine. I am game. Lets play. I will probably win, but it will also probably be a pain in the ass too.
Maybe I will just get a third plasma...
The other thing which has happened as a result of all this is I personally do not bother with TV much. Just hate the ads. Too much, too frequent, too repetitive.
Then they are just dumb HDMI panels.