OnePlus will launch its first-ever TV, says CEO

OnePlus founder Pete
Lau.
Twitter/@petelau2007

• Chinese smartphone manufacturer OnePlus plans to move beyond
  mobile devices for the first time ever with a new product: The
  OnePlus TV.
• OnePlus founder Pete Lau says his vision is to make a TV with
  seamless connectivity to a user’s smartphone. He also wants to
  add the functionality of a smart AI assistant, similar to
  Amazon’s Alexa or the Google Assistant, but with more of a visual
  element.
• The OnePlus TV is in the early stages of development, and
  could be launched next year. It will take post-release software
  updates to fully realize its vision, though, says the company.
• Right now, OnePlus is best-known for its low-cost,
  high-powered smartphones — at $530, its current-model OnePlus 6
  is half the cost of an Apple iPhone X, but almost as
  powerful. 

For almost five years, the only products sold by
OnePlus were its well-regarded line of affordable, high-end
smartphones, and the accessories that go with them. 

The Chinese smartphone company has built up a loyal customer
base, who follow each new release with a fervor that can only be
compared to Apple fans at the launch of a new iPhone. Few Android
phones, if any, get city block-spanning lines
of prospective buyers when a new model comes out. But OnePlus
does, and did.

On Sunday, the company is announcing that it’ll be expanding its
product lineup into TVs, bringing OnePlus beyond smartphones for
the first time ever. 

It’s perhaps an unexpected move, but many OnePlus smartphone
users have already asked the company why it doesn’t make a TV,
OnePlus founder Pete Lau told Business Insider in a phone
interview, speaking via an interpreter.  And while many
details on the TV are still unclear, Lau says that OnePlus is
thinking big with the new product.

“At present, we feel the current
market of TVs is still feeling quite traditional in their
functionality and experience. And they haven’t really
well-integrated the internet into the experience, and making the
experience match with what would be expected in today’s connected
society,” Lau said regarding the current state of smart
TVs.

As for a release date, Lau is
cautiously hopeful that OnePlus will release its first TV in
2019, with software updates gradually making it smarter and more
connected over the five years following the launch. In other
words, Lau expects it to take some time for the product to live
up to its full promise.

“This will have to be a process
that proceeds step by step. It wont be something that’s perfect
and absolutely complete and revolutionary from the start. So we
can’t get everyone’s hopes up too soon,” Lau said.

Rethinking the TV

We also don’t know what kind of specs to expect in the OnePlus
TV, including whether or not it’ll come with 4K resolution or HDR
(high dynamic range for enhanced colors and contrast). But Lau
says that OnePlus is building a premium, flagship TV, and
promises it’ll have specs to match. 

For now, Lau wants to talk about
the company’s vision for a TV. In a world where artificial
intelligence (AI)-powered assistants and smart speakers are
increasingly common, Lau believes that connected TVs can feel a
little stale in terms of their potential. 

To begin with, the OnePlus TV is
going to be smart, Lau says. But Lau’s vision is to evolve
the typical smart TVs, and he wants to make them smarter and
better connected to smartphones, still the primary
device in many people’s lives.

A
Samsung smart TV.
Samsung

With a OnePlus TV, Lau wants to
bring the best of all worlds. He envisions the TV as
having seamless connectivity between your smartphone
and TV, as well as the type of AI smarts and assistive
functionality offered by devices like Amazon’s Echo and Google’s
Home.

That means beaming photos and home videos to your TV without
needing to worry about a clunky app or third-party service. It
also means showing you useful information like your upcoming
calendar events, suggestions for departure times for your daily
commute, and the ability to arrange transportation to and from a
destination. This is just a small example of what Lau thinks
OnePlus could do with TVs, he says. 

At this stage in the OnePlus TV’s
development, Lau didn’t say which company’s AI will be used to
power the OnePlus TV, but he does say that OnePlus is
in talks with major industry players to support current
connected-home ecosystems.

Essential to the OnePlus TV
experience will also be 
a built-in camera, says Lau. To concerns that
having a camera on a TV could be a home-privacy nightmare, Lau
reassures prospective buyers: “We have this in mind, and we will
have a solution.”

The competitive field

Some examples of this kind of
AI/TV integration exist already. Notably, Amazon sells Fire
Edition TVs by Toshiba and Element, which come with Alexa
built-in and display similar information. Google, too, has
increasingly integrated its Chromecast streaming devices with its
Google Assistant, allowing you to display the weather and other
information on your connected TV. 

Speaking of Amazon, it already
makes a device that sounds somewhat similar to what OnePlus is
cooking up. The Amazon Echo Show is an Alexa-powered device with
a screen and a camera, displaying calendar appointments, the
weather, and other information. But the TV is the centerpiece of
your home, and Lau wants to bring intelligence there, rather than
make a separate device. 

Amazon

In true OnePlus fashion, however,
Lau says that the company will solicit ideas from the community
on what features and functionalities it wants from a TV — an
approach that’s served it well in the past. 

What makes OnePlus different

Perhaps what will help
differentiate the OnePlus TV is the company’s philosophy towards
product design.

To anyone who’s not familiar with
OnePlus devices, the company has made its name by building
high-end devices  — with premium design, materials, build
quality, specs, and software — for a price that won’t decimate
your bank account.

For reference, the most recent
$530 OnePlus 6 smartphone easily contends with devices that cost
nearly twice as much, including Apple’s flagship $999 iPhone
X.

“Our users have acknowledged the
excellence in the OnePlus build quality across our smartphone
devices, so we have that reputation and acknowledgement,” Lau
said

OnePlus 6
phones.
Antonio Villas-Boas/Business
Insider

To be clear, Lau and OnePlus have just begun the long process to
making and selling a OnePlus TV, and the company is still in the
very early stages of development — hence the lack of specific
details, or a solid launch date.

“
We have just gotten started,” Lau
said.

Even so, Lau wants to be clear
that OnePlus is taking this seriously, and that the die has been
cast: The OnePlus TV is the next big thing for the
company. 

“We want to be clear and make it
well known that this decision has been made and we are going to
make this product,” Lau said.