Lg's $1,800 TV for Seniors Makes Misguided Assumptions

I don’t think I know anyone that actually wants a smart TV.

This won't do anything to help. I work as a health care worker who visits seniors in their homes. I can not even count the number of times I have had to help them "fix" their TVs. The biggest culprit is not the TV itself but the digital service provider box.

For those of use old enough to remember how TV was back in the day you would turn on your TV and less then a second later the display would be on and you would be on the last channel you had on before it was turned off. It was instant and it was easy. Most seniors grew up with exactly that and it was easy. Fast forward to digital boxes and it stopped people from splitting the signal and running as many TVs as you wanted and forced people to pay extra for running more TVs. So it was a big money grab for providers with very little benefit for users.

The biggest issue I have now days is how most digital boxes do not just turn on and put you where you were last. Most turn on to some front page that advertises movies you can rent or "smart" services you can log into. This is where I see a lot of seniors get hung up. To you and me ya it is totally simple to navigate to the live TV but to an elderly person many can not do so even if you show them 500 times. And it drives me crazy. You want to help seniors build a TV that can offer them all the local channels without the need for a service provider's digital box and have it so those channels are exactly what they get when they turn on the TV and it takes them to the last channel they had on when it starts. That is what seniors need.

It is nice to see a remote with lots of clearly labeled buttons at least. If you look at the non-senior version of the remote it's covered in mystery-meat icons that in my experience seniors struggle with. Now redesign the home screen area for clarity with labels and proper hierarchy, then we'll really be talking.