Theta Network explores integration for smart TVs

The Theta Network is exploring the possibility of integrating its product into smart TVs.

The news was announced on Theta’s Medium blog page. The post details how Theta has been contemplating how to navigate toward mass adoption.

One key focus has been the ever-growing smart TV market from leading manufacturers such as Samsung, LG, Sony, and Panasonic.

Smart TVs are internet-enabled and represented 67% of all TVs sold in 2018.

Theta has now outlined its first experiment as it attempts to integrate its network into smart TVs.

The company has made a number of “low-level” protocol modifications to its Android software development kit (SDK) to port Theta to operate on Android TV OS and soon Samsung and Tizen.

Theta has also released a video which displays the outputted logs to provide insight into how the processing occurs on the device, enabling it to become a fully functioning node on the network.

The hardware in smart TVs and TV set-top boxes is specifically designed for video streaming, which means integrating Theta was the next logical step for the company.

The native Theta core is not computer intensive, meaning running it on a smart TV is a relatively “seamless” process, according to Theta.

“TVs become relay nodes that are effectively on the edge of the edge network, and onboarding hundreds of thousands to millions of these devices could significantly bolster Theta’s network capacity,” the company states.

Interested in reading more Theta-related stories? Discover more about the Theta Network, Sliver.tv, and tokenised bandwidth sharing with our introduction on the topic.