[stravant]

Why wouldn't you want it to be a computer? Then it can be connected to your devices AND also do the job itself in a situation where it's awkward to connect to a device.

If already needs a computer in it to drive menus / modern display protocols. Having that computer be powerful enough to also decode content is barely an extra cost.

[fulafel]

A rooted piece of trashy IOT is trashy IOT. It's an acquired taste, the excitement of putting a black box insecure linux device on the home network to add to your home infra admin duties.

[pessimizer]

A rooted computer is the opposite of a black box. This makes no sense.

[fulafel]

Rooting gets you additional means to reverse engineer the proprietary software system but doesn't automagically lighten the box.

It's all relative of course, maybe you view anything you can Ghidra as not-black-box. (though this is kind of tangential to rooting - for a many/most devices you can get a hold of the blobs to reverse engineer without rooting anything)

[olyjohn]

If someone can get access to the TV on your local network, you're already in trouble.

[lenkite]

> Why wouldn't you want it to be a computer?

Because I can then easily upgrade my computer without upgrading my TV.

[pessimizer]

Do you have to upgrade your computer when you upgrade your router?

This entire subthread is not computer-literate. Your monitor contains a computer. A dumb display contains a computer. Your keyboard contains a computer.

You can strip the software down on them so they do nothing but take commands and drive whatever electronics you have attached to them, but it will still be software on a computer. If there's a lot of RAM and a fat processor, like on a rooted smart TV, I might (but not necessarily) make it do a little more than that.

[wiether]

For the same reason I don't want a self-heating mug.

[michaelsalim]

Why wouldn't you want that? Genuinely curious

[boerseth]

Modularity and separation of concerns can extend into other domains than software.

For me, it seems so much simpler to keep the two separate. You won't be forced to wash the heating element every time you wash the cup. Can't heat a different cup while the other is in the dishwasher, unless all your cups are self-heating. Normally, the only way for a cup to break is if it shatters, but with an inbuilt heater there's electronics that can break too. And should the cup shatter, now the heater is unusable too, or vice versa.

[wiether]

Exactly!

I have to have a kettle for other purpose (including heating water for other mugs than mine), and no self-heating mug is going to be as efficient as a kettle to heat water.

Furthermore, I also put cold or room temperature liquids in my mug. With a self-heating one, I would be carrying the heating parts for absolutely no reason.

Same goes for a TV. By keeping things separated, I can decide what I do which each device and manage their lifecycle separately. If the device reading video files is included in the TV, I can't plug it to another TV or a projector or even take it with me to use it elsewhere. While I've upgraded three times my video playing device to follow tech evolution, I've kept the same TV to plug them in.

[MomsAVoxell]

I have a multi-purpose kettle that I can use to boil water, heat the room, cook a small amount of food, or use as a sand battery for when its cold in the desert, where the kettle is designed to operate as long as there is a handful of material to burn.

It is fair to observe a separation methodology, but I also have to say, in some cases multi-purpose devices have their place.

If, say, the self-heating mug involved solar harvesting, I'd put a couple in my kettle bag, for sure.

[saalweachter]

But like, a coffeemaker is a thing.

You can make coffee with a kettle, but if you are making enough coffee often enough, it does make sense to bundle a second kettle into a dedicated coffeemaker, even if you are reducing the functionality of it by doing so.

[wiether]

It's a thing and it's convenient as a smart TV is convenient for people who don't care much.

But as a "power user" of a TV, I want to compose my own setup.

In the same way, "power users" of coffee don't use a coffeemaker. They use things like French press.

(I use instant coffee myself in my non-heating mug so in this comparison I would be the person not owning a TV and watching everything on their phone?)

[IanCal]

Arguably the outcome you’d want there is to be able to add your own kettle to the coffee maker, so you can have the best value/option for you if you want it. Want a cheap thing or none? Fine. Want one with remote start and modded temp controls or whatever? Fill your boots. Got a new coffee part but like the existing kettle? Reuse it.

This applies less for some physical items, I know some people are already preparing to explain why it’d be harder to make or dangerous or something but that would miss the point. Computers are incredibly easy to swap out, we already have so many ways of doing that.

Maybe I want a fast computer. None. Maybe I want to upgrade later. Maybe in a year there’s a faster cheaper one. Maybe mine is just fine right now but I need a new screen. Why do I need to bundle the two things together? There’s a simplicity for users unboxing something but there’s not (I think) an enormous blocker to having something interchangeable here.

[thaumasiotes]

The microwave in my house is built into the oven.

This provides absolutely zero advantages to the oven or to the microwave. It does cause a lot of stupid, easily foreseeable problems:

- There's only one control panel, and if the oven is currently active, some of the microwave controls get disabled.

- The microwave is awful in various ways -- regardless of whether the oven is active -- which wouldn't ordinarily be a problem, because microwaves are very cheap. But...

- It's impossible to replace the microwave, a $50 device, without simultaneously replacing the oven, a $2000 device.

[ozim]

Most likely it will not be dishwasher safe.

[ryandrake]

> Why wouldn't you want it to be a computer?

The same reason I don't want anything else in my life to be a computer. A computer is one more component that can fail and take down the whole product. I want my computer to be a computer and that's it.

[Itoldmyselfso]

How about the abdysmal security Smart TVs either have right of the shelf or for certain after they are no longer kept up-to-date? I don't want to worry having my TV act either as botnet or spying device (many come with microphones and cameras nowadays). I rather purchase additional device that has decent security that I can attach to the TV if I need to.