Every year, almost without fail, I publish a piece about “reading the manual” and how that will allow you to maximise the use of a gadget – whether it be a smartphone or a microwave oven – by learning about what clever things it can do beyond what you may already know.
I’m not doing that this year, but perversely, somewhat the opposite.
Now I like gadgets; I like to learn all about the ingenious things any device can do and try and use every function if at all possible. But today I wondered if manufacturers in some areas have not just gone a tad too far with so-called “smart things”.
Recently, we bought a new TV, a Samsung as it turns out. And they have changed something that we have all got used to over decades, the remote control.
Manual
I’d love to say I can learn this newfangled way of designing a remote’s operation, and therefore the TV, by reading the manual, but sadly, this model Samsung doesn’t come with one. You have two choices here, reading it on the TV itself as an embedded document in the TVs operating system, or downloading the PDF version from the Samsung website.
I get that TVs these days do a tad more than just let you watch free to air / streaming broadcasts from 30 or so channels built in to the unit, and any number you can add yourself via apps, but the manual for this particular Samsung, and its nowhere near top of the range, is 281 pages long!
Isn’t that a bit of an overkill? 281 pages!
Suggestion
So, I have a suggestion for TV manufacturers; why not sell a base TV for a minimal price for those people that simply don’t want gaming hubs, parental controls, multi-view or what Samsung calls “smart things”? Make them options people can buy and then unlock them with a code they get on purchase of said feature.
Oh, you say, but people will try and hack them or copy codes and pass them onto others.
So what? Software manufacturers have dealt with this issue for decades and found ways around them.
Not everyone wants every known bell and whistle in their TV, so why not just keep it simple, and allow those that want the complexity to get those bits they require if and when they want them?
To quote a famous TV car review personality, “how hard can it be”?