A company would give you an OLED TV for free, in exchange you only have to watch commercials

The TV has two screens, the second, smaller screen shows advertisements and other information. It is also true that there is no such thing as a free lunch: if a product or service advertises itself as free, then the consumer is the product.

Created by Pluto TV co-founder Ilya Pozin, Telly offers a TV that compensates for being free by playing commercials on a second, smaller screen. The company calls this thin strip of screen a “Smart Display,” which is separated from the TV itself by a soundbar. In addition to displaying advertisements, many other information can be published on it, such as sports results, extraordinary news, weather reports or even stock exchange rates. Ads can appear on the right side of the Smart Display or on the left side of the screen. “As the co-founder of Pluto TV, I created a completely new business model that offers viewers amazing TV content for free,” Pozin writes in the announcement. “Now with Telly, we also provide this tool for free”.

Although ads may not interrupt content viewed on the main display, when the TV is not in use, ads may use both displays. “We think of literally hundreds of things to create the most engaging ad experience ever.” – said Dallas Lawrence, head of strategy at Telly. These include, for example, the company rewarding users with gift cards to services like Netflix or Starbucks for participating in things like on-screen polls.

The main display is a 55-inch 4K HDR panel that connects to the secondary display via the company’s TellyOS operating system. Telly comes with a free 4K Android TV device to watch any streaming service. The device is also compatible with other streaming devices, including Roku, Amazon Fire Stick and Apple TV. It has three HDMI inputs, 2 USB inputs and a tuner. However, the TV does not only consist of the two displays: a camera was also placed in the middle of the soundbar. This allows for video communication, such as Zoom, and “free, advanced motion tracking fitness programs.” For data protection reasons, a cover plate was placed on it, i.e. it can be opened and closed as desired.

Of course, all of this is still pushing boundaries, since Telly wants to place a device equipped with a camera and microphone, paid for by brands that display advertisements, in homes. The privacy implications go far beyond the tracking used by Vizio, Roku, LG, Samsung and other TV makers. Telly is about viewing and activity data in its regulations which also states that it may “collect information about the audio and video content you watch, the channels you watch, and the duration of your viewing sessions,” as well as “how you interact” with the TV. This includes logging searches, recording button presses and “monitoring the physical presence of you and other people using the TV at a given time.”

However, Telly does not oblige anyone to participate in the program, but those who do not wish to participate in the data collection must either return the TV or pay for the two-screen TV and soundbar themselves. Everything points to the fact that Pozin has set huge goals for himself. and his previous project, Pluto TV, is one of the most successful free, ad-supported streaming TV services. Obviously, no one will replace the device already in their home with this one, but Telly dared to dream big: a freetelly.com website, you can reserve one of the 500,000 free TVs that will start shipping “this summer”.