We have a Samsung “smart” TV, hooked up to an AppleTV box. The TV’s original remote is in a drawer somewhere, forever unused.

I have the apps that I need, the tiny Siri Remote turns on the TV and handles volume, and, apart from the aggressively, insanely, mind-blowingly horrible on-screen “keyboard” / text input (we don’t have Apple phones we can use to mitigate this, sadly. Also, what the fucking fuck, Apple?!) we’re happy. For now. I trust Apple to make the experience incrementally worse as a fact of life.

Not perfect, but leagues better than dealing with Samsung’s interface.

either

Is there any indication that they won’t implement this shit at some point?

Also, should we be trying to come up with the most insane “features” in this vein that we can imagine (knowing full well that some corporation will come up with them eventually), and then patent them to protect humanity from them?

Is there any organization that collects patents just to block them (in the consumer’s favor)? A kind of white-hat patent troll? And, if not, should we create one?

I spy a research rabbit hole in my near future … 🐰

Edit: ESPHome is a system to control your microcontrollers by simple yet powerful configuration files and control them remotely through Home Automation systems.