Sony has announced the end of Netflix on their older models of televisions and smart Blu-ray players.
That it is the end Netflix for older televisions is a fact that we previously covered. Meanwhile, Sony has announced that the video streaming service is ending support for a generation of televisions and smart Blu-ray players stemming from the years 2011 through 2013. And that swing into action as early as coming February to be exact. So Sony is shifting the blame to Netflix. On the other hand, manufacturers are usually not particularly likely to still actively maintain their televisions with software updates either.
Forget smart
Either way, it is clear that when buying a television, you should not pay attention to its smart capabilities. Especially if you are not a frequent viewer, a TV will last quite a few years. That is definitely not true of the computing platform and associated software in those TVs. Much smarter is to look at price and picture quality. Furthermore, do not use the “smart” part of your TV but use an Apple TV set-top-box, for example. Those do get long support in terms of software updates. And when that device too gets really old, buying a new kien box is easy to arrange. Smart in a Smart TV is a nice but soon pointless marketing trick.