Is Android TV DOA?

I have a fairly adequate Samsung “smart” TV. It’s a 2010 model, so, as you can imagine, the “smart” part of it is not so smart anymore — YouTube app just disappeared a couple of years ago, Netflix was never there to begin with, etc. But otherwise I’m still quite happy with the TV (as in screen + ports + remote) itself.

Last year Netflix expanded worldwide (more or less), followed by Prime Video, and I thought that it’s about time I retrofit my TV with new “smarts”. Initially I just wanted to get Netflix + YouTube + consumer friendly setup as cheaply as possible. After some research I figured that my 2 best options are Amazon Fire TV Stick or Roku Streaming Stick.

Both are only supported in a few markets, so I had to import them somehow. I got Fire TV and, while I kinda liked it, I found myself wanting more: local TV apps are not available on Amazon’s App Store (while available on Google Play), Fire TV OS puts content that I cannot get (for geo reasons) front and center, etc.

Enter Android TV

As I looked at my “issues” with Fire TV, I realized that all of them should be addressed with a “real” Android TV Box. For some reason I expected that everyone is making them. Oh, was I wrong!

If you go to the official Android TV site you see 5 items on the device list: SHARP and SONY TVs (which are of no interest to me at this point), Xiaomi Mi Box, NVIDIA Shield and Razer Forge TV. That's it. You may think that this is just a short featured device list, but unfortunately it is pretty much all there is.

OK, 3 options is not great, but it is still 3 options to choose from, right? Not so fast:

• NVIDIA Shield is more of a competitor to Xbox One and PlayStation 4 rather than a media streaming box. It starts at $200. Not exactly a competitor to $40 Fire TV/Roku sticks.
• Razer Forge TV is a bit cheaper (still north of $100 though), but it seems that it has reached an end-of-life point and is hardly available anywhere.
• Xiaomi Mi Box seems like a winner, but it is also very scarcely available and if you want to import it from somewhere you risk getting a Chinese version. Even when “ships from and sold by Amazon.com.” people get “This is not the Mi Box Android TV player with Marshmallow 6. It is a Chinese variant made for chinese users. Does not work with the Google App Store.”

But this can’t be it, I thought, and entered “android tv” into Amazon’s search box… Hooray, 4,000+ results in “Streaming media players”!

Android non-TV boxes

Android being open(ish) this picture suggested what I expected is the case — a huge number of 3rd tier manufacturers making plethora of choices.

After some digging around I settled on Leelbox S1

Why this one, specifically? Well, it has all the ports I cared for (and more), Android 6 and costs $39 — on par with less capable (on paper) Fire TV/Roku sticks.

When this thing arrived it looked quite fine at first — decent looking little box, snappy, universal remote that can be used to control basic TV functions. But on the first visit to Google Play I realized that it requires an “air mouse” to get around and is not an Android TV version of Google Play but rather a phone/tablet one.

So what this box actually runs is either a tablet version of Android or, more likely, AOSP hacked together somehow with Google Play Services into some sort of a Frankenstein system. Not exactly an “Android TV” box, but rather an Android “TV box”.

To be clear, it is usable, but not exactly a consumer-friendly solution.

What’s the status of Android TV?

I meant to post this last week but decided to postpone in hopes that some new products will surface at CES. We’ve got news of Google Assistant coming to Android TV (alive after all?) and just one (as far as I’ve seen) new TV box — Dish AirTV Player (a niche local product again).

So, I’m puzzled: is there just no global market of “Smart TV” boxes? Is Google focused on Chromecast rather than Android TV? Is everyone buying new TVs every 2 years? Is everyone using Apple TV? What do I miss?