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Vizio, the leading LCD TV brand in the US, is working with Google to promote 3D apps for its televisions as it switches to Android from supporting Yahoo’s Connected TV technology.
Vizio is also announcing plans to break out from televisions and launch a smartphone and a tablet device at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week.
The Californian company has been a disruptive influence in the US TV market. It began by making low-cost TVs through its relationships with Asian component suppliers and has grown to challenge major players Samsung and Sony in both sales and premium features.
It has expanded into Blu-ray players and soundbars, but the move into its own-designed phones and tablets – a 4-inch-screen smartphone and 8-inch tablet are expected to be sold in stores such as Walmart later this year – represents a major leap.
Their introduction are part of its Via Plus strategy, where its internet-connected TVs will run similar apps and will be able to share media with and be controlled by the mobile devices.
Via – or Vizio Internet Apps – has featured Yahoo Connected TV widgets up to now, but, in a blow to the Silicon Valley internet company, these will be phased out during 2011 in favour of Google’s Android platform for television.
“One of the things Yahoo was not very successful at was getting 1,000s of developers to write 100s of thousands of apps on the widget platform. Google has already demonstrated they can do that and do that very well,” Matthew McRae, Vizio chief technology officer, told me.
Unlike Sony with its models, Vizio is not adopting Google TV wholesale – it will base its TVs on Google’s Android operating system, but has designed its own interface to run on top.
“We think Google TV is a very powerful platform underneath, but there were some shortcomings around the user interface,” said Mr McRae.
“We’re designing a consistent interface for from four-inches [on a smartphone screen] to 65-inches plus [on a television].”
Vizio is not the only TV maker to express qualms about the first version of Google TV. Toshiba confirmed last month it had dropped plans to show sets featuring the Web TV service at CES, saying the product was not ready enough.
But Vizio is particularly excited at the possibility of Google’s developer community working on apps that can link all of its devices and exploit features such as 3D on its televisions.
“One of the areas we’ve been working a little with Google on is 3D apps – it becomes possible because of the standards we are moving to. They could be 3D games they could be media consumption, they could be [3D in] the user interface itself,” said Mr McRae.
Vizio overtook Samsung in the US market in the third quarter of 2010, shipping 1.6m LCD TVs for a leading 20 per cent share, according to the iSuppli research firm.
