[ghaff]

Smart TVs doubtless sound like a great idea if you're a TV manufacturer who desperately wants to shorten upgrade cycles and sell higher-margin "value add" in a world where so many people already have HD TVs that are pretty much as big as they have room for. For everyone else? Not so much.

Not only does it make sense to put the smarts and connectivity in devices that are either cheap, that people already have anyway, and can be easily upgraded but the user interface in a phone/tablet/etc. tends to be far better than a typical remote.

In general, I tend to prefer the Chromecast model of just casting video from a general purpose device, but the Kindle stick and Apple TV are OK as well. By contrast, I rarely used the Smart TV features on my Panasonics because they were just so painful to use.