Will Smart-TVs be Another Big Flop?

It started with 3D-TVs. A few years ago, 3D-TVs was "the big thing" at Consumer Electronic Show, the largest technology show in the world. 3D TVs was going to revolutionize how we watched TVs by letting us sit with 3D-glasses. A few years later, barely anyone has a 3D TV nor uses it of those who own a 3D-TV. Today, the TV manufactures has gone away from the 3D-gimmick to "smart TVs". This allows the user to use apps such as Netflix and Hulu on their TV. As many people are still waiting for Apple to come up with their iTV, there are many bottlenecks to be solved with the Smart-TVs as they are today.

Lack of good user-interfaces
What perhaps is the greatest minus with the smart-tvs is the lack of a good user-interface. 20 years ago, the controller for the TV had a power-button, numbers(0-9), and buttons for adjusting the channel and volume (+/-). One should have thought this would be enough, but when the TVs became more advanced, arrows and other menu-buttons were added to the controller. Later on, pause, play, back and forward was added as well in order to integrate with other DVD or VCR devices. It doesn't end there, there was added color-coded buttons for color-coded buttons on the user-interface, EPG, text-TV, back, forward, exit, and the list goes on. A rule in HCI states as following: "The user should not be presented to more than 7 +/- 2 options as the short term memory consists of 7+/-2 short term memory units." In some cases, there are over 30 individual buttons where every single one of them has their own purpose. Sure, my keyboard has many buttons. But the keyboard is something I type on and is a very generalized tool. I do not have one button assigned to open Skype, one to open Word and another one to open Visual Studio. Having to look for the button on my keyboard for Visual Studio would take time, and imagine how many keyboard there would be if there was one specialized for every computer program. It would just not work. It is interesting to see there has been no improvement but the contrary on the development in terms of remote controllers. Where are the designers? Or is it the lack of technology that holds us back? Why is there no remote controller with a touch pad (As on the Playstation 4) so the user can use gestures and use a mouse pointer-like user-interface? Perhaps they tried it out, and found out that the user preferred the traditional controller with hundreds of controllers? I have yet to find an answer to this question. 

Application life-cycles
When you buy a TV, you would expect it to last at least five years. You don't buy a new TV every 2nd year like you would do with a smart phone. When I see a smart-tv, I get the impression that the life-cycle of the applications is lasted only a few years. Sure, the OS may be Android-based, but what happens when we get dozens of different smart-tv platforms and all of these wants Netflix, Skype, Facebook, Twitter, and who is going to fix something in a 3 year-old smart-tv application which has only a dew thousand users? I believe as of this, other "boxes" which would have similar functionality to a home-theater PC would do just as good and perhaps even better. Even gaming consoles such as the recently released PS4 or Xbox One may even provide better quality-applications compared with the smart-tvs as those platforms are targeted to last in the long term. 

The HTPC
But where did the home-theater PC (HTPC) go? Why does nobody have a HTPC in their living-room? It turns out that HTPCs is something only "specially interested" got as they require more technical competence, and it is usually something you can't just "plug and play". On the other hand, the technology moves forward. New products like the Roku proves much of the functionality available in a HTPC and in the smart-tv, there are even small "Android HDMI-sticks" you can plug into your TV which would give you all the smart-tv functionality which you would be missing. Then why buy a new TV over 1000$ when you can buy a Roku or an Android device you hook up with your TV for less than a hundred bucks? 

It still remains to see whether smart-TVs would be such a great success as HD-TV and fit into the smart-device category(Smartphones, tablets, smartwatches?). So far, it looks pretty cool to browse the web from the living-room, being able to watch Netflix without any console or PC plugged in. But I wouldn't say it works very well - yet.