Telly is an ad-supported 55" TV set shipped free of charge to customers willing to watch extra commercials, piped into a secondary display beneath the main one. The company says it'll ship out 500,000 by the end of the year, with a waiting list stretching into 2024. It's not just ads, either: these are straight-up camera-equipped telescreens, bristling with personally-identifying tracking tech.
To even use the thing, you'll need to commit to having your viewing data sucked up and used by advertisers. If you're okay with that, you can also use the secondary display to show widgets that surface sports scores, a news sticker, the weather, and more. The TV features a camera (with a privacy shutter) for fitness programs as well, along with a set of built-in games.
Additionally, Telly announced that it's working with Nielsen to "collect and interpret first-of-its-kind viewership and ad effectiveness insights" for advertisers and TV programmers. It's also working with Microsoft, Magnite, and MNTN to power the ads on the TV. Microsoft became Netflix's advertising partner for its new ad-supported tier last year.
Let the "Telly hacking" commence! I wonder if these will all end up in thrift stores, next to the Juiceros, when Telly winds up and the sets brick themselves trying to access ad servers that no longer exist.
