Smart TV App Development

Authors

Apps for Samsung Tizen, Amazon FireTV, GoogleTV and other Smart TVs are basically web applications.

Smart TV App Development Intro

To put it simply, when you want to develop an application for TV you basically develop a web application. This is how the TV Manufactures describe it. Simple. Well... Not at all.

When looking into the details of how Smart TV Web Applications are made you will notice a lot of challenges that need to be solved:

  • The key navigation needs to work, but a web browser where the application is running is not really made for key navigation especially if you can only use the up, down, right, and left keys (and not the tab key) Needs to run in fullscreen
  • Font sizes need to be much larger than on your web app so that you can still read everything on your sofa
  • You need to be able to scroll through the content
  • You can not just run your web application on a server. You need to package the application and need to bring it through the approval process of the tv manufacturer
  • UI Lagging: The processor on your TV is slow. And when I tell you it is slow, I mean very slow. Most people care about the screen resolution, size, or the quality of the tv picture, not about the processor. So, make sure that the application is not using so many resources. Otherwise, the UI will lag.
  • Older TV Models: As a Web developer in the year 2023, you don't need to care so much about browsers anymore. It usually works as it should. Most features you develop can be used across all browsers. But when you develop software for TV, the browser engine can be outdated. So you need to adapt your code for older TV Models.

So for all the points above I already have a solution. Issues on older TV Models can be easily fixed by simulating older browser engines. I have a solution in place to scroll through your content, and I will continuously work on the performance of the TV App. You need navigation on your TV? I know how to handle the keys of the remote control.

TV App development from reactjs vue or solidjs to html css and js to any tv platform like samsung firetv lg or google tv

And the best thing: I develop the app in a common frontend framework, like ReactJS, VueJS, or SolidJS. This code is then compiled for all TV targets, like Samsung Tizen TV, Amazon FireTV, GoogleTV Stick, LG WebOS, and others.

So I develop the code once, and then it can run on all TVs Models.

To conclude, if you want a Smart TV App: Contact me.