How smart TVs can help Metaverse crack the mass market
LAS VEGAS – Is Web3 ready for prime time?
Some of the TVs unveiled this week at the annual CES trade show reportedly make accessing metaverse worlds or non-fungible token (NFT) wallets as easy as clicking the remote control, escalating a long-running race among manufacturers to produce the displays with the most bells and whistles.
In addition to the usual streaming apps and voice control capabilities, a few manufacturers—notably Samsung and LG—have added Web3 capabilities such as NFT marketplaces and metaverse platform integrations to their Internet-connected “smart” TVs. These moves represent an attempt to ensure their sets appeal to a tech-savvy and, in the long run, potentially influential customer base.
From the other side, Web3 companies see smart TVs as a possible way to reach a mass audience. Samsung and LG are the top two TV manufacturers in the world by market share, and these days you can’t throw a rock in a TV showroom without smashing the screen of a so-called “smart” model.
After unveiling an NFT marketplace on its smart TVs in September, LG this week announced an upgrade to the feature: its TVs now support Blade Wallet. (They previously only used LG’s proprietary wallet, Wallypto.)
Blade is part of the Hedera ecosystem, the same blockchain that powers LG’s marketplace. Why does LG have something for Hedera, instead of say Ethereum, which has the lion’s share of NFT activity? Hedera is backed by a coalition of a few dozen companies, including LG, Ubisoft, Google and others. Although the NFT platforms on Hedera are small compared to large services like OpenSea and Nifty, the blockchain prioritizes security and energy efficiency – probably why it was attractive to a mainstream brand like LG.
Bringing the metaverse to smart TVs
At CES 2023, Samsung and LG announced upgrades to their NFT wallets (Samsung’s marketplace now offers 8K resolution NFTs, according to The Verge). So far, few other manufacturers have bitten into the NFT pie. It’s probably not surprising, given the carnage in the NFT and crypto markets over the past year.
Another factor: Most other major TV brands compete on value, which often means cutting features they consider extraneous. Until large numbers of customers start demanding easier access to NFTs on their TVs, the feature probably won’t spread very far.
However, such a demand may come from another place: the metaverse. While the conversation around metaverse hardware tends to be dominated by virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), smart TVs represent a way for users to easily “browse” metaverse worlds in the same way they would channel surfing .
At least that seems to be the driving force behind yet another LG move into Web3: Oorbit, billed as a “doorway to interactive 3D worlds,” will also be integrated into the Korean giant’s 2023 smart TVs. Users will be able to transfer the same digital identity on-chain between virtual worlds (apps), and elements from one world can be transferred and used in another.
It’s a tangible step toward a mass-market metaverse that even a room full of high-end VR headsets can’t match. It’s also one of the only meaningful developments in a consumer metaverse to come out of CES, which has mostly zoomed in close on hardware or way out on the big, visionary (and, if we’re being honest, nebulous) concept of taking your digital identity or “self” across different experiences.
What’s missing is the bridge between the two: the things that connect the big vision with the devices we all use. Sure, the metaverse is well-suited for VR, but for all the technology’s technical wizardry, the market remains small when stacked against major tech categories like TVs (11.2 million VR/AR headsets shipped worldwide in 2021, compared to 217 million TV -is). If even a small subset of TV buyers chooses to dabble in the metaverse, it might make sense to promote—perhaps even accelerate—adoption.
Certainly no one buys a TV for its links to the metaverse, so any success depends on whether the experiences on offer are as enticing to digital passers-by as the conventional programs the screen was built for.
When thought of in that context, Orbit’s partnership with LG isn’t so much a stake in the ground for the metaverse as its biggest, shiniest billboard.
Which feels very appropriate, given that it was announced in Vegas.
