I have no statistics handy to back up the following claim – only my casual observation of what seems to me to be obvious. I feel as though that the number of Smart TVs at this year’s CES as a share of overall models has increased dramatically over last year. Last year Smart TVs, those that took advantage of Internet Services (e.g. Netflix, Hulu, Vudu) without an over-the-top box, were certainly around; This year I feel as though they were more ubiquitous.
We saw the big brands continue to push their Smart TV models, but we also saw other smaller brands advertise their TVs as Roku-Ready, meaning they supported the full functionality of the Roku Streaming Stick.
We also saw many, many Android-based devices that can plug into an HDMI port on whatever kind of screen you have. These came largely from the smaller and more obscure vendors, but from the informal survey we took they are very inexpensive.
It’s hard to say when the adoption of Smart TV technology will really accelerate in the marketplace. And with companies like Dish Networks fighting back against cord-cutting with their own ecosystems, it will be interesting to see how this trend progresses.
