Currently I use firetv stick but I hate the ads. I only use it to launch arte, jellyfin and smarttube so it’s OK. But if I would have children it would be very bad because it’s filled with shiny trash everywhere. I wouldn’t want my kids (or anyone) to see that stuff.
I am looking forward to plasma bigscreen in june but I can’t add more value to it right now than donating to kde. Is there something else? I’ve got a Samsung TV which is on the same level of badness as firetv. It could be worse but it’s far from good as well
IMHO, Android still has the best ecosystem of TV remote navigateable apps. The problem is just Google.
I have a ‘Google TV’ android based TV.
It started out terrible, but after removing or disabling almost all apps and installing couple replacements, it’s great now.
Most importantly:
All of that is FOSS and would work completely without Googles involvement, if you find a way to flash a custom ROM onto a TV or TV box.
Alternatively: Anything with an ‘air mouse’.
An alternative to Android, I have used before, was just Linux with oversized app icons and then a G20s (Pro) remote. These cheap chinese G20s remotes work great as a mouse, similar to a Wii mote. Especially with the G20s Pro you can even set numerical passwords for everything and then just type it on the remote. They also have microphone that only works when you press the button. So if you have some tts service on you device, this is also a solution. I haven’t found a solution for it yet, but I believe, using T9 typing as a text input would also be a great solution when using these remotes.
There are also air mouse with a full keyboard built in, like the W1, W3, Q40… But I think, they are all a bit too heavy and too big, feel clumsy at the slight benefit of having a keyboard.
And then there are devices like the A8, which are just small keyboards with a touchpad, that also work as an air mouse, but fail as a remote IMHO. But that entirely depends, on how much typing you want to do on your TV.