Less a request than just a thought that came to my mind when I was searching for a new TV device. Has anybody thought about /e/ for such devices? They seem to missuse a lot of data including the things you watch or the words you and your guests are talking. Hence, an alternative system would be a great thing. But most probably slightly more complicated to build.
I think this would be a good thing to have. But the developer resources of eOS are limited. But maybe you can promote your idea more intensively at other venues. For example in the fediverse. Maybe some people team up and get things into a working state?
Do you know any custom ROM that is working on smart TVs already?
This is something interesting we have been thinking about in the past.
There are several approaches possible:
Build /e/OS+AndroidTV for rPI, or other devices (FireTV Stick…). This is a tempting approach because we could even create a TV box with all needed software, and there are some AndroidTV builds for rPI that now support hardware video decoding, which in the past was not working.
Add/Improve Chromecast support between /e/OS devices and TVs that support chromecast. This is something we’d like to add enventually.
Also one problem can remains, DRM management Widewine L1 can be tricky to achieve, thus preventing some video features to run, or even some apps to work well (like Netflix).
@theTux - great idea! My smart tv - Samsung, has had Bluetooth for 6 years. I bought new ipods, connected them and first week was fine. All of a sudden, i go to listen to a program private to me, no Bluetooth app ITS GONE! In its place lots of Youtube how tos and other goo…le
Associates. Anyone know if this is from my supplier Telus? I originally downloaded the app.
Smart TVs are connected to the internet and are often used to access files from local network shares too. That’s why privacy and security for smart TVs are important. And I don’t want to be forced to accept a company’s (google) terms and conditions just to setup and operate a TV. /e/OS for TVs would be great. Having google cast or an alternative would be convenient.
I also think this would be a natural nest step for /e/. Not having access to chromecast is the biggest downside since I switched to an /e/ phone, but I ultimately don’t want to use google services, so a companion smart TV ROM for a rPi would be so awesome!
I am currently experimenting with the KonstaKang LineageOS android TV builds for raspberry pi 5, but the process has been less than ideal. It requires installing MindTheGapps and I’m not sure how privacy safe that software is. They also seem to have solved the widevine issue.