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Comment by herbst | Hacker News Reader

Android TV is a surprisingly bad system anyway. Barely apps, I can access maybe 100 games from my TV. The far majority absolute, and filled, trash games. I suddenly found myself locked out of thousands of things I used to watch because the browser, if even enable-able, sucks and so many sites/services have no interest in having an app. Owning a TV still feels like a step down for me, since I was used just streaming on my computer.

Without the kodi app I would see no reason to recommend a android smart TV over any cheap TV and a small Kodi box.

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My Nvidia Shield experience has been great. I can basically use it as another computing device:

- since it easily mounts external hard drives over the network, I can use it as a NAS for backing up photos from my phone via SMB.

- Likewise, the Plex server has made it easy for me to make good use of my huge library of music on my external hard drive.

- GameStream is awesome. Streaming games from my PC to my TV is trivial and is much more enjoyable than sitting at my desk.

- I don't get the complaints about the interface. It's the perfect level of intuitive for my entire family. TV on, my entertainment system + Shield switches on quickly via CEC, getting to Netflix/Amazon is trivial.

My experience is different.

I love it especially now that I can install VPN. I can access US-version of Netflix, Disney+, etc while traveling.

I am not saying smart TVs are bad. Just that android really isn't the best example. You can do this with Kodi or any alternatives too. Even my dump smart TV has VPN.

Also taking your TV put to travel definitely is a rare edge case ;P

Edit:// wait? Was that just a subtle Nord placement?

Oh I don't travel with my TV.

I'm referring to the OS in the newest Chromecast.

It's Google TV which is built on top of Android TV.

I think he means he can access US Netflix in hotels because I had a similar experience somewhere.

You can get pluggable Android TV which plug into HDMI ports in Hotel TVs and things like this.

Last few times I brought my laptop and HDMI cable to a hotel and it was nice. We usually go to places for outdoorsy things and in the night there's not much to do

What apps do you need? I use mine for watching video, and the video apps (YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Sling, Prime Video, ESPN, etc.) work well for me.

Most stuff I/we care about is regional things. Most German TV stations run their own 'netflix' (some free, some paid) all of which someone made a Kodi app for, none for Android.

Also: - Porn (it's annoying to depend on your phone for that, and many good sites don't have push to TV yet). Kodi has those apps :)

- 'illegal streaming' which is huge in German speaking countries and legal here in Switzerland. No streaming apps on Android, plenty and more on Kodi

Also I don't count the original android YouTube app. With the amount of ads it is basically not useable.

My parents have an Android TV and often have to reboot it to for the internet connection to work. Makes all the streaming apps a pain to use.

I don't think that's specific to android tho. I got a Xiaomi one explicitly because they have good WiFi chips. This was one of my main worries, and I never had issues so far

How do you find out which ones have good WiFi chips?

I honestly don't know. Thing is I have had Xiaomi devices before, and they are my only smart devices that do not have connection issues (for me) and work in my back garden. My new Xiaomi phone is the only of our phones that streams in hd in my backyard. So yeah just personal experience and bad experiences with things like Samsung

No wifi issues, it's connected to ethernet

The entire Android TV experience is one of constant tweaking of F-Droid, Aurora Store, and Bromite System Webview app updates with upstream adblocking, firewalling, and rooting in an attempt to stymie this sort of crap from Google and other big, bad corporations. I ditched all of that and now run Libreelec (Kodi) on a Pi4.

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