The Wi-Fi connected HDMI dongle is emerging as a serious solution not just for accessing online content but also for bringing broadcast services to legacy TV sets. There are several reasons why this is happening, perhaps the primary one being the state of flux the TV and broadcasting industries are currently in.
It is hard to predict where television in general and pay TV in particular will be even two or three years ahead, compared with only a decade ago when changes were relatively slow and somewhat predictable. This means it is imperative for operators and broadcasters to be light on their feet and able to adapt their strategies as they go along.
At one time the smart TV with in-built Internet connectivity was touted as the future proof solution for operators, but that idea has now gone out of the window. It foundered on the reality that the big screen TV may be the place people view most premium content but will never be the centre of the digital universe, being hopelessly ill-equipped for the task. The main weakness was that the intelligence is embedded in a device whose main function is as a display with an expected life cycle of a decade or more. The only way therefore to stop a smart TV becoming obsolete within a year or two is to bolt on hardware upgrades, as Samsung has done with its Evolution Kit. But this is cumbersome and expensive compared with emerging connected boxes and that was even before the cast dongle came along.
Another reason the cast dongle has become popular, whether for accessing broadcast material or just OTT content, is that Wi-Fi has really come of age as a broadcast capable wireless technology, able to deliver premium TV to connected devices around the home. This includes dongle-enabled TVs and explains why Google’s Chromecast dongle has so quickly become the biggest selling Internet connected TV device in the US, ahead of the Apple TV and Roku boxes, with 10 million sold last year. In response Roku came out with a dongle version of its box, while Amazon brought out its Fire TV Stick. Now that Wi-Fi has been reinforced with smart antennae and mesh technologies to provide consistent high bit rate coverage around even large homes build with materials hostile to radio signal propagation, the argument against dongles on quality grounds is fast melting away. So is the case for investing in expensive home wiring such as MoCA.
The dongle also scores by being cheap to manufacture and distribute. But above all it accords neatly with the emerging model for video distribution and consumption based around the TV as the best place for viewing content. The dongle then enables the surrounding consumer ecosystem of mobile devices such as tablets, phablets and smartphones to play a growing role in OTT content acquisition, for navigation and control, and for operation in companion mode. Operators can then exploit the huge range of apps available for the leading mobile platforms such as Android and iOS, as compared with the limited number for even the leading brand smart TVs from Samsung, LG or Philips.