Commentary

More Voice Control For TV? Tell Marketers To Go Away -- If You Dare

Voice-controlled devices seem like a good idea when you need to concentrate on other things -- like driving a car. But how much talking do you need to do with your TV?

As part of Amazon’s Fire TV streaming video set-top device, voice remote control will be somewhat of a key differentiator in a field that also includes the likes of Apple TV, Roku and Google’s Chromecast.

“Hello, Fire TV. How about sending me just a few commercials this prime-time hour? Hey, I’m not greedy.”  That should warm the hearts of some TV advertisers -- that is, unless, Fire TV offers up a quick TV commercial from say, Dish Network and its Hopper set-top device that can skip lots of TV messaging.

Fire TV, AppleTV, Roku, and Chromecast seem to be a transitory effort for early-generation smart TVs looking to morph into the next big seamless TV set/internet-device thing. Voice activation will be a part of this, perhaps until hand-gesture remote controls can get better. Microsoft just announced a Siri-like competitor, Cortana. Google already had a digital assistant, Google Now.

advertisement

advertisement

Still, current voice remote control software can be too limited and not accurate enough, according to analysts. Coming up with more complex and better  “voice-searchers” is the key for the future.  “Please, Siri, I want to watch a TV show like ‘The Good Wife,’ but with some extraterrestrial content. But not too dramatic. Perhaps a little witty.  Oh yeah, I want to hero to be a Jennifer Lawrence-like character. Got it?”

Next story loading loading..