Smart TV - really smart ?

Just a few thoughts after returning (and digesting the input) from IFA in Berlin last week. Like 3D has been the top topic for the last two years, this year the most prominent topic was SMART. Everything was supposed to be smart – washing machines, a plethora of smart TVs and even the universe of smart way of living. Although the latter one would be rather a topic for some esoteric event, it was pretty obvious that the majority of exhibitors thought that “smart” is the name of the game. I was really wondering where this sudden move to smartness was coming from. As the shining star of 3D was somewhat pale this year, it was probably the success of “smart phones” which made the consumer electronics industry jump on bandwagon of smartness. And really, it felt like most of the companies tried to copy the smartphone-look to their TV-sets. However - adding a web browser to the TV set and setting up a portal to display as many as possible colored icons doesn't make a TV smart. On the contrary. Watching visitors playing with the all-new-all-smart devices clearly showed that all the smartness is in vain as these shiny new devices are hardly usable. Overloaded remote controls, tiny buttons on mini-keyboards, crowded user interfaces where an average user would need a two-week training course for, endless loading times to get to the content you want – just to name a few topics observed on fairground. Certainly, a lot of interesting technology has been put into these devices which is anything but trivial – but still, most of the complexity of these technologies is exposed to the viewer. That's not smart. Unlike on smartphones, the user just wants to sit down, lean back and relax. The rest should be done by the TV.  It seems, there is still some way to go...