The Vanishing TV Cameras: Where Did They Go?
▼ Summary
– Sky is discontinuing its Sky Live smart TV camera in December 2023 and reimbursing customers, ending its interactive features like Zoom calls and motion games.
– Other TV manufacturers like LG and TCL have also discontinued their smart TV cameras, while Samsung has stopped integrating cameras directly into its TVs.
– Nex CEO David Lee explains that cameras alone are ineffective without powerful computing hardware, which most smart TVs lack due to cost constraints.
– The thin profit margins in the TV industry, where devices are often sold at a loss, make it difficult to justify the added expense of cameras and necessary processing power.
– Despite the failure of TV cameras, motion gaming is seeing a resurgence through dedicated devices like Nex Playground, which has sold over 200,000 units this year.
The recent decision by Sky to discontinue its Sky Live smart camera accessory for Sky Glass televisions marks a significant retreat from the vision of interactive, camera-equipped TVs. This move, effective this December, reflects a broader industry trend as manufacturers like LG and TCL also appear to be stepping back from integrating cameras into their television offerings. The ambition to transform the living room TV into a hub for video calls, fitness tracking, and motion gaming is encountering substantial roadblocks, despite initial enthusiasm. Sky has acknowledged the end of this experiment, stating it will reimburse customers while applying the “valuable learnings” to future products.
This pivot away from TV cameras raises important questions about their rapid fall from favor. What would it truly take to make a camera in the living room a compelling success? David Lee, CEO of the startup Nex, offers some hard-won insights. His company collaborated closely with Sky on the development of the Sky Live camera, and he has since launched his own successful motion-gaming hardware.
Lee founded Nex with the goal of bringing engaging, full-body motion games to various platforms. An early partnership with Sky seemed like a perfect opportunity to transition these experiences to the television screen. This involved a deep technical collaboration to optimize games for the specific hardware inside the Sky Glass TVs and the camera itself, a process aimed at minimizing the lag that can ruin interactive experiences.
This hands-on work revealed the core challenge. Simply adding a camera to a television provides zero value on its own. For camera-powered apps and games to function smoothly, they demand a robust computing platform, powerful processors (SOCs), capable graphics units (GPUs), and ample memory and storage. These are components that many modern smart TVs simply lack. The industry operates on notoriously thin profit margins, with manufacturers often selling hardware at a loss to generate revenue through advertising and services. Investing in the necessary computational muscle for a camera accessory becomes a difficult financial proposition.
The fundamental issue is a missing business model. Who is prepared to cover the additional cost, estimated at thirty to forty dollars per device, for the camera and the enhanced processing power it requires? If a company’s primary revenue stream comes from serving ads on a streaming platform, there is little incentive to invest in hardware that doesn’t directly support that goal. This economic reality has stifled innovation, leading to underpowered TVs with built-in cameras that offered little beyond basic gesture controls, leaving consumers underwhelmed.
This is not to say the ideas behind TV cameras were without merit. Video communication is now a daily routine for many families, and motion gaming, once popularized by the Microsoft Kinect, is seeing a resurgence. However, alternative solutions are proving more effective. Apple, for instance, demonstrates that you can bring video calls to a television screen by leveraging the camera already in a user’s iPhone, eliminating the need for a dedicated TV accessory.
Learning from the limitations he encountered in the TV space, David Lee channeled his experience into creating the Nex Playground. This standalone console is dedicated to running motion games featuring beloved characters and has become a hit, with sales projected to surpass half a million units by year’s end. Lee credits the partnership with Sky for providing the crucial lessons that made his company’s own hardware possible, proving that the vision for interactive entertainment is alive, it just needed its own dedicated platform to thrive.
(Source: The Verge)
