The integration of microphones into smart TVs has been an increasing trend for a few years now and one highlighted by our sister company, SAR Insight, in its Soundbar market report back in 2021. The integration of microphones was/is the missing link that propels the smart TV into the role of the smart home hub.

DATAportl shows that approximately 200m Smart TVs shipped in 2023 and further analysis from SAR Insight shows that microphone integration is rapidly increasing. With the emergence of Matter as a way to integrate a wide range of smart home platforms, the age of the smart TV as the main home hub is getting closer. This trend has a negative impact on the overall smart speaker market as there is  less need for these devices in the living room and it also means that less soundbars will need voice capabilities.

In the Cord Cutters News article, Rob Caruso (Product Management, UX – Google TV) said “televisions could be the anchor point that ultimately connects all of the devices in the home, from smart doorbells, thermostats, water meters and more”. “We’ve been talking about this for years, both directly at Google, but the TV industry has been talking about this for years as the TV being the center of the home,” he also added “It’ll be interesting a year from now and we’re sitting here and saying, with all these new capabilities coming to that hardware, what is it that the platforms like us and apps ultimately can start to do beyond streaming video?”.

Google is one of many companies that could benefit from this move and we are seeing several partnerships start to emerge between TV brands and smart home platforms, I wrote about this trends in my recent CES post. Interesting times ahead for smart home, could this be the catalyst that finally makes building and using smart home systems easy?