Transcript
Paying The Price: In Over-Optimizing For Bill-Of-Materials Cost, The Consumer Experience Is Lost Brian Dipert - December 20, 2010
A few days back (with a more recent follow-up), I wrote about a consumer-targeted device whose developers, in their zeal to squeeze in a bunch of relatively low-priority features, had seemingly undershot the functional fundamentals. The case study I’d like to analyze today short-changes consumers, too, but for a different reason; it undershoots the feature set fundamentals, especially considering its price tag. I’ve talked a lot about online video delivery of late, and I’ve mostly focused on common streaming content destinations; game consoles, both generations of the Apple TV, the Boxee Box, various Google TV-powered products, and Media Center Extenders, for example. But at least two hard drive manufacturers, Seagate and Western Digital, have also diversified into the media set-top box business, presumably desiring to establish sales synergy with their NAS (network-attached storage) products for playback of LAN-housed content. WD recently sent me a TV Live Plus review unit:
Instead of test-driving it myself, I decided to give my girlfriend’s brother-in-law a crack at it. I’ve frequently found in the past that a ‘typical consumer’ is an ideal reviewer because he or she uncovers issues that a more tech-savvy user wouldn’t stumble across. However, in taking a look at the device prior to sending it to him, I noticed two notable omissions: ● ●
No bundled HDMI cable, and No built-in Wi-Fi network connectivity
I’ve reviewed enough hardware with a HDMI output but no included HDMI cables that, on the rare occasion when I find a cable in the box, I’m pleasantly surprised. Analogously, it’s a rare occasion when I find a USB cable bundled with a printer; even the few cents’ worth of incremental cost that’d be incurred by the inclusion would apparently impact profitability too adversely. I can’t help but wonder, too, if there’s some sort of collusion going on between printer (or media player) manufacturers, retailers, and interconnect suppliers such as Monster Cable. The obscene profit margins incurred by brand-name cable manufacturers are well known in the industry; some of that moolah is passed along to Best Buy or whatever retailer’s sales staff is pushing the overpriced wire. And frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that CE device manufacturers are getting a kickback from Monster Cable and its ilk, too. Truth be told, the situation
with the TV Live Plus wasn’t as lame as what I usually encounter; WD included not only the obligatory lowest-common-denominator composite video-plus-audio cable but also a HD analog video-capable component A/V link. Still, I tossed a spare HDMI cable in the box before shipping the TV Live Plus to my friend. The lack of an integrated Wi-Fi transceiver was far more baffling to me. The TV Live Plus’s original retail price was $149.99, although I’ve recently seen it new for as low as $89 (and refurb’d…gee, I wonder why…for $54.99). This is a device intended for use in the living room, likely nowhere nearby a consumer’s router that’s acting as the broadband portal to the home…yet its only built-in network connectivity is a 10/100 wired Ethernet transceiver? WD doesn’t really think that the typical consumer follows my geeky lead and runs Cat5e cable under the floorboards and around the house, does it? Granted, I’m sure WD would love to sell consumers its LiveWire powerline AV network kit, but at $139.99 (or even a price point remotely near that lofty threshold) I doubt the company will find many takers, even assuming that potential purchasers’ power grids are powerline networkingcompatible. And admittedly, the TV Live Plus support portal includes, deeply buried within it, a document outlining (among other things) the USB Wi-Fi adapters that are compatible with the device. But a cryptic, hard-to-find and incomplete FAQ is a poor substitute for a Wi-Fi transceiver embedded within the device, in part because it requires at least two trips to the retailer (the first to buy the set-top box, the second to get the Wi-Fi adapter) before a consumer can get the TV Live Plus working. Consider WD’s competitors; the second-generation Apple TV, for example, costs $99, while the lowest-end Roku Player variant clocks in at $59.99; both products include integrated Wi-Fi capabilities. So why didn’t WD, at $149.99 or even $89? I suspect that the desire to minimize bill-o-materials cost, thereby maximizing profit margin, was behind WD’s omission decision, but I can’t help but conclude that it was a ‘penny wise, pound foolish’ move on the company’s part. To simplify my review partner’s efforts, I tossed a Rosewill RNX-N100 in the box; it was the only spare USB Wi-Fi adapter I had on-hand and, although WD’s FAQ didn’t list it as being compatible with the TV Live Plus, owners reported that it worked fine (as it ended up doing for my friend, too). So what did my friend think of the TV Live Plus? Functionally, he was impressed with it: Once everything was connected, I played around with the WD TV Live Plus without reading the owners manual. It seemed pretty intuitive. I was able to connect our NetFlix account and Pandora within 4 to 5 minutes. I was also able to figure out MediaFly and navigate that OK. But getting to that point wasn’t so easy. Consider these feedback excerpts: Overall, I think connecting the WD TV Live Plus to the TV was fairly simple and easy to follow. Basically, just connecting the device to the TV via an HDMI cable and the whole process taking 5 minutes at the most. The only problem is that they should have provided an HDMI cable…Otherwise, if this was given as a present, the receiver of the present would be pretty bummed that they would still have to go to the store to buy a cable…Or if someone bought it for himself, the lack of an HDMI cable could have been easily missed resulting in another trip to the store. The problem lies in connecting the WD TV Live Plus to the internet…You actually need to connect (with a wire) the WD TV Live Plus…or you have to buy a whole other device like the wireless adapter you provided. While we were able to eventually figure it out (an extra 20 minutes), installing the wireless adapter software, attaching the wireless adapter, and going through the steps of connecting the WD TV Live Plus to my wifi added about 5 or 6 steps that did not need to be there if the WD TV
Live Plus had a built in connectivity to wifi. I would think that the WD TV Live Plus should have built-in wifi connectivity (so it is basically plug--play). The price point of the WD TV Live Plus might seem attractive, but once you add the cost of the HDMI cable and the wireless adapter, there might be more affordable and easy alternative. The whole install took about 45 minutes. I swear that I didn’t pre-brief my friend on my criticisms with the TV Live Plus, although by adding to the box the pieces I felt WD should have included from the get-go, I admittedly might have pointed him toward a few shortcomings. I’m glad to see that WD is still adding online access features to the device, but I suspect that it’d benefit more from the inclusion of a HDMI cable and (more importantly) from a minor redesign to augment the hardware with an integrated Wi-Fi transceiver. p.s…for other perspectives on the TV Live Plus, check out the reviews from AnandTech, CrunchGear, MacLife and Wired.
