donatj
commented
3 years ago It's been in consideration for a while.
The biggest hesitation thus far is that they're not very locked down, and vary a lot not just between manufacturers but from device to device. This makes them a lot to detect and a lot to support.
I was curious what kind of usage there was for these devices, so while not totally scientific, I parsed through 850 million access log rows from a number of sites I manage.
Apple TV
none
Unsurprising as the browser is only embedded within Apps for authorization and such and not a general purpose browser.
Google Chromecast
none
I don't imagine many people cast their browser to their TV, and I doubt this will remain sniffable in the future anyway with Chrome locking down their user agents.
Amazon Fire Stick
| Records | UA String |
|---|---|
| 18 | Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 5.1.1; AFTT) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Silk/86.1.106 like Chrome/86.0.4240.110 Safari/537.36 |
| 9 | Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 7.1.2; AFTMM Build/NS6265; wv) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Chrome/70.0.3538.110 Mobile Safari/537.36 |
Roku
none
Samsung Smart TV
| Records | UA String |
|---|---|
| 33 | Mozilla/5.0 (SMART-TV; Linux; Tizen 2.3) AppleWebkit/538.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) SamsungBrowser/1.0 TV Safari/538.1 |
| 155 | Mozilla/5.0 (SMART-TV; Linux; Tizen 4.0) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) SamsungBrowser/2.1 Chrome/56.0.2924.0 TV Safari/537.36 |
| 33 | Mozilla/5.0 (SMART-TV; Linux; Tizen 5.0) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) SamsungBrowser/2.2 Chrome/63.0.3239.84 TV Safari/537.36 |
| 4 | Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; NetCast; U) AppleWebKit/537.31 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/26.0.1410.33 Safari/537.31 SmartTV/5.0 |
| 3 | Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; NetCast; U) AppleWebKit/537.31 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/38.0.2125.122 Safari/537.31 SmartTV/7.5 |
| 68 | Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; NetCast; U) AppleWebKit/537.31 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/53.0.2785.34 Safari/537.31 SmartTV/6.0 |
| 92 | Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; NetCast; U) AppleWebKit/537.31 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/53.0.2785.34 Safari/537.31 SmartTV/8.5 |
| 17 | Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; NetCast; U) AppleWebKit/537.4 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/22.0.1229.79 Safari/537.4 SmartTV/4.6 |
| 16 | Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Chrome/53.0.2785.34 Mobile Safari/537.36 (SmartTV/8.5) (NetCast) (Android) |
| 61 | Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/537.36 SmartTV/7.0 (NetCast) Android |
Sony Bravia
| Records | UA String |
|---|---|
| 35 | 35 Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Andr0id 8.0.0; BRAVIA 4K GB Build/OPR2.170623.027.S34) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/59.0.3071.115 Safari/537.36 OPR/46.0.2207.0 OMI/4.11.2.40.DIA4.93 Model/Sony-BRAVIA-4K-GB |
Toshiba Smart TV
none
Philips Smart TV
none
However I have two records for other non Philips HbbTV devices
| Records | UA String |
|---|---|
| 1 | Mozilla/5.0 (;;;) AppleWebKit/534.6 HbbTV/1.1.1 (+DL+PVR; inverto; IDL 6654N Volksbox Web Edition +; 1.0; 1.0;) hdplusinteraktiv/1.0 (NETRANGEMMH;) CE-HTML/1.0 |
| 1 | Mozilla/5.0 (;;;) AppleWebKit/534.6 HbbTV/1.1.1 (+DL+PVR; telestar; DIGIO; 1.0; 1.0;) hdplusinteraktiv/1.0 (NETRANGEMMH;) CE-HTML/1.0 |
LG WebOS
Very surprising to me none.
I actually have own a Smart LG TV but I never use the smart features. I don't even know if it comes with a browser. I'll have to poke that some later tonight.
Based on this, none of them individually reach 1% saturation, let alone as a whole. 1% is my usual "is this worth supporting" line.
I'll leave this ticket open though and pin it for future consideration.
Would you consider detecting popular smart TV operating systems? (like LG WebOS). What about detecting Apple TV, Google Chromecast and others? I know that most of them are running Linux, but it would be nice to get more specific results.
Samrt TV UA strings: https://deviceatlas.com/blog/list-smart-tv-user-agent-strings List of LG WebOS user agent strings: http://webostv.developer.lge.com/discover/specifications/web-engine/