Smart TV apps are convenient, but you should really stream with a device

If you’ve cut cable TV out of your life, you probably spend a ton of time on streaming services. 

TV manufacturers like Samsung and Vizio know this and have started packing their latest releases with built-in streaming apps. Convenient, but better in theory than in practice.

There are plenty of reasons not to rely on the all-too-convenient streaming apps that appear as soon as you turn on your smart TV. You may not want to hear this after spending hundreds of dollars (at least) on a shiny new living room display, but you should really shell out for a streaming device.

Even if it’s something on the cheaper end of the spectrum like a Roku Stick or a Fire TV Stick, you are likely to have a better streaming experience than you would by relying on what’s built into your TV. 

Life in slow motion

The number one thing you’ve probably noticed if you’ve ever relied on a smart TV’s native streaming interface is just how slow they can be. Trying to navigate from one menu item to the next is practically glacial; you can feel yourself aging as you try to figure out the best place to watch that Marvel movie you forgot to see in theaters.

I swear I’ll get to Captain Marvel eventually.

Anyway, this is a real problem with smart TVs. I reviewed Vizio’s newest M-Series Quantum set earlier this summer and it really put a damper on the experience. The menus were well laid out and actually streaming things was fine, but getting there was a massive chore. 

The hardware powering an Apple TV or Roku is most likely going to be more powerful than the processor inside a smart TV. In addition, smart TVs can become outdated quickly. So can streaming devices, but they’re cheaper to replace on a regular basis. 

Keeping up with the Joneses

Sadly, the smart TV version of Netflix, Hulu, or any other streaming service app might not be the latest release with every new feature. Netflix, for instance, offers HDR support through Dolby Vision or HDR10 on a host of devices, including PlayStation 4 Pro, Xbox One S and X, Chromecast Ultra, and so on.

Image: Chesnot/Getty Images

That feature is available on some smart TVs, but not all. The same goes for Hulu’s Live TV feature, which is available on “select models” of smart TVs from various manufacturers, but also available on pretty much any recent streaming device. 

Instead of worrying about whether or not your TV can support the latest version of each app, you might as well cut out those headaches by just getting a streaming device. According to a 2016 Forbes interview with a TCL executive, app makers are much more likely to support their apps on a handful of popular devices than do it for every model of TV under the sun.

Smart TVs are creepy

One of the inevitable realities of connecting any device to the internet is that it’s probably tracking what you’re doing to sell things to you. The world is a cold, bitter, and cynical place like that.

Smart TVs are no exception. Once you connect your shiny new TV to a network, there’s a good chance it’s tracking your activity, so it knows which shows to advertise to you. 

Seriously, there are already enough ads on TV. We don’t need to see them on the main menu.

As The New York Times pointed out last year, the easiest way to turn tracking off might be to never turn it on. If you just don’t connect your TV to the internet, it’s a lot harder for it to track what you’re doing. 

Since streaming devices are also connected to the internet and made by companies that want to make a profit, there are privacy concerns with them, too. 

The good news is you can research the privacy protections that come with each individual streaming device. If you don’t like what one device does with your data, just use another. Problem solved.

Between the performance and privacy issues, and delayed feature updates, it’s hard to make a case for relying on a smart TV’s native apps.