Few weeks back Samsung Smart TV users could notice that the Skype for TV app has disappeared from their TV apps list. Although such announcement was done a while back by Microsoft, it came to many people as an unexpected move. Other TV brands either have followed the route or will see the same fate, so do the companies who have built their solution on top of Skype.
Well, where does it leave people who used video calling on their TV? The smartest approach is to unbundle value added apps from your smart TV, as TV operating systems are not being updated at the pace that Android/iOS is. It basically means that trying finding any solution natively on your TV's appstore will be soon obsolete.
We have seen people on the forums and Youtube suggesting Android TV boxes with Skype application running on it. While suggesting external Android box is a smart recommendation, as they get updates and are having the latest Android OS running on them, the suggested boxes typically do not have Android TV (leanback versioon) running on them. This means one has to use a mouse and keyboard to navigate around the box. Also, many of these boxes are unreliable performance-wise, as for instance video calls put high requirements towards CPU.
SentabTV, an Android TV box developed by Sentab, has been designed ground up to be very simple and user friendly and does come with a video calls. Moreover, it has native Android TV OS with SentabTV's proprietary simple user interface. The HDMI In capability allows SentabTV to be a pass-through box to your cable feed, so it is very convenient in merging your TV viewing with auxiliary video calling feature and accessing apps. You can check out more on YouTube or the product details page.
So, for us it’s a no brainer – of the options out there, SentabTV is THE solution.