TV accessibility, Samsung, Sony, LG or something else?

Subject line says it all. But i thought you'd be a SkyGlass man? That is apparently much better now than it was a year or so ago.

Samsung is the TV, the remote is accessible but the speech is very robotic. I can turn the TV or have the screen for my window PC. Got it more than 5 years ago.

I have a 50 inch flat panel by Sceptre or maybe it's Spectre? I don't know, probably a Walmart brand. It was a housewarming gift when I first moved into my current residence.
Anyways, it has full voice guidance for its menus and such, but I primarily use it with an Amazon Fire Stick 4G Max device. While the voice guidance built into the television is very robotic, VoiceView — Amazon's proprietary screen reader for their Fire devices — has one of the clearest sounding speech synthesizer I have ever heard. I also get nearly 1000 free channels of television from both the United States, and the United Kingdom. Though admittedly, only perhaps 4% of those are audio described. 🙁

We have a smart tv and the screen reader, when you get used to tv style ui, is quite good though I often need sighted help to start it or through the phone companion app smart things?... But imo if you can just get a dumb tv or monitor and use it with a laptop or anything like apple tv / fire stick, don't ever buy any smart tv or anything really if you can.

I have a Samsung QLED 75-inch TV, and it is a great TV for accessibility. The remote is very tactile, and you can just hold down the volume rocker button to turn on the accessibility. The screen reader is a little bit robotic, but other than that, everything seems to be accessible. I've not extensively tried streaming apps since I'm not the primary owner of the TV, but it is a pretty good option. The Samsung SmartThings app is pretty clean and is pretty accessible with voiceover on my iPhone.

We have an LG O LED 55 inch tv at home. It has a voice gidence which uses the vocalizer voices. Apple tv, Disney +, and some of other apps are accessible but for some reason, Netflix is completely in accessible. I don't know where to write this. But overall experience is very nice, other then sometimes Voice gidence sound completely cuts the media sound and there is no ducking adjustment in settings unfortunately.

I have two Samsung televisions and they are very accessible. The Voice guidance is robotic as suggested but most streaming apps are completely accessible and usable with voice guidance. I cannot comment on LG and other smart TVs but I would recommend the Samsung television as it has 95% accessibility support. It is not perfect but it is completely usable by people with visual impairments.

One really does not need a smart tv. Admittedly its nice to be able to adjust internal television settings if your tv has some kind of voice guidance, but unless you absolutely need to make such changes, the streaming adapter is all you need.
There are so many adapters these days; Roku, ChromeCast, AppleTV, FireStick & FireTV, AndroidTV, Sky Stream... I am probably forgetting one or three.

I laugh whenever I get an advert in the mailbox offering Cable tv service with some random promotional offer. Sadly, I know of a few people whom actually subscribe to cable television service. 🙄

Even with all the streaming tech out there, it's still nice to know your TV is accessible as a backup. I have SkyQ at the moment and while sky has done a fantastic job in making the Sky part of that accessible, streaming apps are completely inaccessible. So there's no watching Amazon Prime on the telly, for example - not unless you're Mrs Bingo, who has signed the telly in our lounge into her own amazon Prime, her own Netflix, etc. and streams away awful programmes to her heart's content. I'm told that streaming apps are accessible through Sky Glass. Obviously, that goes for sky stream as well.

I bought a Samsung QLED a few years ago after seeing a press release with them and the RNIB going on about the great accessibility. I think at the time I was using a Fire TV Cube which was actually pretty good with voice access.

The TV screen reader, though, I just found intolerably annoying. Not only did it have the worst TTS I have ever heard - this terrible droning unclear noise, plus it seemed to just talk over the top of everything all the time. I also found the remote had about a million buttons and it was difficult finding the d-pad in amongst all of it. There is a nobble on the enter button in the middle but I still find it really tricky to locate. Anyway I ended up switching off the voice because it was just too annoying. My Cube died and I replaced it with Apple TV and a better soundbar (a Sonos) and now I can control pretty much everything through the Apple TV remote or voice.

Hopefully they have improved it in the years since then but I wasn't very impressed.

The only thing in its favour was that it was relatively easy to set up with the ladies A and G so I can control some of it with voice, but to be honest I don't tend to bother much.

The problem is that it seems quite hard to get a demo of this sort of thing. I remember asking in the shop and was told that the TVs were locked down and they couldn't change the options.

I bought a skyWorth TV 4 years ago, and it's the most accessible. It uses talkback screen reader.

I'm from America, but I'm chiming in with another recommendation for LG. I had a Toshiba fire TV and was having really annoying issues with stuttering speech and just general slowness. So last December, I bought a 42 inch LG QNED70a. It uses the Samantha voice, so I don't mind the speech. Certainly better than Roku, and it's also better than what I've heard from the Samsung TV.
I haven't found many apps to be inaccessible. Regarding the comment up above about Netflix, it does work with the screenreader, but it's an odd app. Sometimes it talks on startup, sometimes it doesn't. Just give it a few seconds, close the app if you hear nothing, and reopen it.
My TV works much faster than my old Fire TV ever did. Plus, I love that you can learn the remote right in settings. I paired the TV with an LG soundbar and that's been a great experience, as it actually speaks all the settings. No more eyes needed to adjust my sound settings. :)

Hi, It was me who commented about LG tvs and Netflix. The product is a 55 inch O Led Tv and the screen reader couldn't read anything in Netflix. My mom told me that I was switching profiles with the magic remote, however there was no speech. But I'll give it another try when I use the device.

Yeah, Netflix is funny like that. Sometimes it starts speaking right away. But if you give it like 15 seconds and it doesn't, just go home, hit the back button, and delete Netflix from the recent apps. Then reopen it again. It should work.

I'll definitely try that, Thanks.

i am wondering wich of the lg/samsun/sony etc... have earc ports and about the audio pass-through.

I've only really used this on the Fire TV Cube and not for a while but I always thought it was a weird app. On the one hand it almost seemed to have its own screen reader - if I remember the voice was different, certainly it didn't respect the speed of the main voice. But I found that if I set verbosity on the Fire TV screen reader to low then it stopped working altogether. Probably doesn't do that now but just mention it in case it's worth a try.

I remember it stopped working altogether for a bit. I ended up on a support call with Netflix and they didn't have the faintest idea what a screen reader was. I since cancelled myh subscription and haven't really missed it.

Never used a fire cube, but Netflix works fairly well on my fire stick 4K max device. Sometimes there's a little bit of lag, but overall it works pretty good. It's using the same screen reader as the rest of the device, Amazon's VoiceView. 🤷

Yes, when I had my fire TV, the speed of the voice got much slower in Netflix. I don't know what it is about that particular app, but it wasn't all that fun. On the LG, it stays at the same speed and speaks in the same voice, which is just one thing I loved when I switched platforms. No more excruciatingly slow speech in certain apps.

Can't speak to any other platforms, but my LG TV has an EARC port, and it's what I use for my soundbar.
I'm in America, so if you're somewhere else the name could be different, but I have a QNED70a.

I was hoping someone would have had an accessible Sony device. I don't care about TVs, and back when I did, I just patched the audio from a VCR, and if it ticked off a sighted person, I patched the video to an old monitor.
However, a while back, I was mildly interested in a DVD player because a couple of them did weird skipping when I played them from a computer. Sony was supposed to have an accessible one, and other accessible menus on their devices. Just wondering how well they did.

I followed the recamendation from Bryan on this thread, and purchased this TV. the self voicing apps aare something to get used to, but I don't really mind. the TV has a fireTV app, sl if I don't have my remote handing, i can use my phone. it is high-end, supporting dolbey atmos, dolbey vision, matter casting, homekit, and airplay. i bought the smallest size, and it was $300.00 canadian plus tax, so around $450.00. it is an amazing TV, looks nice on my wall,. as that's what i was told, and have an apple TV 4K third generation with tvOS 27 beta. works well. and the television is 4k, as well.

I started with a samsung tv about 9 years ago. then I tried a roku stick and firestick 8 years ago. I now have been using tcl roku tv's for the past 7 years. have a 50 inch in my front room and a 43 inch on the wall in my bedroom. I have both tv's paired with the roku wireless tv speakers. I know the screen reader on the roku's aren't as clear as the apple tv or fire sticks, but good enough to get the job done. I do notice the screen reader on my tcl roku tv's sound better than the screen reader on the roku brand of the newer roku tv's. I also have the firestick 4k gen2's plugged into the HDMI's of my tcl roku tv's, so I have the best of both worls. I'm able to access the main streaming apps on both platforms with audio ddescription. you know the usual. netflix, prime video, disney plus, hulu, paramount plus, peackock, HBO max, spectrum tv app, tubi, pluto tv, stars, roku channel, youtube etc. plus I like the simplicity of the roku remotes. plus I can control my roku tv's with the roku app on my blindshell classic3 with the buttons, if I want too. even though I'm faster with the regular roku remotes. lol. anyway, that's my 2 sense of what I'm using over here. yep.

I am referring to the service, of course. You can stream Apple TV on the Fire Stick/Fire TV. Not sure about Roku or other streaming services, but I'm sure that's possible too. 😇

I though the roku tvs were not that accessible, from what i remember that some apps do not speak at all.