[kevindong]

I've had my Vizio TV (P55-F1, 2019 model; a mid range model) for about 2.5 years now. Image/sound quality is great. But the annoyances and overall mediocrity of the OS and its updates [0] made me just disconnect the TV from the internet and fully switch over to using an Apple TV for all consumption rather than using the native Vizio OS.

[0]: The OS is terrible and the remote randomly stops working sometimes. Sometimes the TV would take tens of seconds to turn on, but then other times it was near instant.

Every single update since I've gotten the TV seems to make the TV even slower/more laggy. There was even an update about two years back where the Youtube app's volume was inexplicably an order of magnitude lower than every other input's volume (e.g. a volume of 100/100 on the Youtube app ended up being equivalent to a volume of 10/100 for all other apps/inputs). It took Vizio 1-3 months to fix it.

Unblockable ads on the home screen and genuinely multi-hundred millisecond response times on the app launcher infuriated me.

[vlunkr]

Just don't bother with it. Disconnect the tv from the internet and get a dedicated streaming device. The apps and OS will almost certainly be better than what's on the TV

[wombat-man]

yeah I had all kinds of issues casting to the vizio smartcast thing. it's their built in chromecast implementation I guess. I had to routinely power cycle the tv, sometimes by unplugging it.

reset the tv and didn't connect it to wifi. Connected a dedicated chromecast. Works 100x better.

[H1Supreme]

I'm ready to do the same thing with my Vizio. The worst part about these updates is they happen without any regard for what I'm doing.

I'll have Netflix or Hulu open. Next, the TV will update, close my app, and take me to the startup screen advertising something like "We have Apple TV now!". Or, it will update and go to a blank screen which requires me to physically power off the TV because it's stuck. The remote is useless in this case since it clearly doesn't power down, but put it into sleep mode.

[dylan604]

Does Vizio actually make the YouTube app? Why is it Vizio's responsibility to fix? I can see YT prioritizing this app's dev time waaaaaay lower than other devices. If the stats don't justify it, no PM at a FAANG is going to let their team work it.

[emodendroket]

Why does every television need a propietary system with custom apps?

[dylan604]

Why does your phone need a proprietary system with custom apps? Not really sure what you're trying to get at though.

[emodendroket]

Well, good point. That’s why most manufacturers go with Android instead of making their own.

[dylan604]

I think most go with Android so they don't have to think about it and can roll out quickly. I'd be willing to guess that everyone wishes they could do what Apple did, but instead just roll out crap hardware with crap software ontop of the OS they didn't make.