I would be surprised if consumer home electronics like this would be shipped with anything other than bluetooth/wifi radios.
While the advertising / data sharing revenue is valuable to them, the vast majority of those are going into homes where they're going to be internet connected already. The cost of a modem + service fees for it wouldn't be worth it for most of them.
Amazon is starting to ship their Sidewalk protocol[1] which will be embedded into a bunch of their devices - but that seems to be mainly for low-power/remote devices to connect back to a Sidewalk access point, rather than to provide an alternative data-path for (say) customer metrics.
We are shipping a SmartTV, we expect our users to therefore have internet access, because the device is mostly non-working without it.
Why would we then include: a cellular radio AND make us pay for a cellular data service on an ongoing basis? Is the data from some small fraction of users who don't already have wifi valuable enough to pay off the hardware and service costs in every other TV? Seems unlikely.
You'd only have to pay for cellular data service for devices that don't connect to WiFi. So the only real cost is whatever the modem costs.
I think what'll really happen is they'll become always online devices where if you're offline for more than X days they quit working and claim they need an update - please connect to the internet.
Kindles with Whispersync over 2G was subsidised directly by you buying books.
You'll note though that getting a Kindle with 3G nowdays means paying for the more expensive models - Paperwhite or Oasis.
> Nobody is making you pay for service
I think you missed what I said. I was talking from the perspective of a manufacturer.
The cost of buying and integration the new hardware, and also an ongoing monthly sim cost for the benefit of getting analytics and ads from a tiny fraction of your userbase that does NOT already have their TV hooked up to wifi is significant, and I doubt it comes close to the added revenue you might get from that fraction of users.
That also assumes that those who don't have their Smart TV hooked up to wifi are going to be in cellular range.
LTE-M1 chips are getting closer to that region. Besides, cars have had it for decades, under “telematics” terminology. Intention is Google Analytics for physical cars, but they OTA, connects to internal CAN bus, technologically not infeasible to cause unintended accelerated drive into walls if taken, and it’s completely on the house, free of any payment.
If a cellular network IoT is the future, why is it blocked by 5G deployment? Seems like it could just happen now with 4G. Does 5G relax the need for a phone number (which I believe all 4G devices have, even if they can't make calls) or something?
