Vizio says it is adding support for AirPlay 2 and HomeKit to its SmartCast-enabled TVs, which can now be controlled using Siri, Alexa, or Google Assistant
more than 27 million active accounts Rose Behar / Android Police : YouTube TV app now available on all Vizio SmartCast TVs Stefan Etienne / The Verge : LG will bring AirPlay 2 support to its 2019 TVs Buster Hein / Cult of Mac : Apple's TV service just scored a huge win at CES 2019 Romain Dillet / TechCrunch : LG is adding Apple AirPlay and HomeKit support to its TVs Tweets: Nilay Patel / @reckless : Only major TV company not doing AirPlay is Sony... which doesn't own its platform. Wonder if Google lets them add it to Android TV https://www.theverge.com/... Avi Greengart / @greengart : .@LG is adding @apple Airplay Audio, Airplay Video, and HomeKit support to its 2019 TV lineup. LG makes a subtle dig at Samsung by noting that LG's sets support @dolby Vision and Atmos (which Apple content often has, but Samsung sets don't) Nilay Patel / @reckless : Vizio is supporting AirPlay 2 and HomeKit now - more Apple interoperability at CES. http://www.theverge.com/... Ingrid / @ingridlunden : Vizio announced an Apple integration for its smart TVs (after Samsung announced yesterday). Part of Apple's push into services will be having to play nice with more third parties, which seems to be a little theme at CES. tip @techmeme https://techcrunch.com/... Thanks: @ingridlunden
Context & Ripple Effects
Vizio's SmartCast platform has been built on Google's casting stack since the company launched Cast-enabled P-Series TVs back in 2016, so this CES announcement marks a real pivot: Apple's AirPlay 2 and HomeKit now sit alongside Google Cast on the same hardware, with Siri joining Alexa and Google Assistant as control surfaces.
The move lands one day after LG committed to AirPlay 2 and HomeKit on its 2019 lineup, and Sony — which runs Android TV and doesn't own its platform — followed within 24 hours. The pattern continued well past CES: Apple later put the Apple TV app directly on Vizio's SmartCast sets, completing the shift from casting protocol to full service distribution.
First-order effects
- Vizio's installed base of SmartCast owners gains native iPhone and HomeKit integration without buying new hardware, making Vizio one of the few brands whose TVs speak to all three voice ecosystems at once.
- Sony's just-announced Android TV sets now carry AirPlay 2 and HomeKit too, meaning Google's own TV partners are shipping Apple's protocol on Google's platform.
Second-order effects
- Google's Cast-first relationship with Vizio gets diluted on Vizio's own hardware, pressuring Google to keep Android TV competitive on Apple interoperability rather than treating casting as a differentiator.
- Streaming-platform rivals face the same customer expectation: Roku's subsequent rollout of AirPlay 2 and HomeKit across most of its 4K devices shows Apple support becoming table stakes rather than a premium feature.
Third-order effects
- If every major TV OS ends up hosting Apple's protocols and apps, smart-TV operating systems commoditize into interchangeable shells, and competitive leverage migrates to whoever controls the content and account layer above them.
- For Apple, licensing AirPlay and HomeKit to rival platforms converts former walled-garden exclusives into distribution for its services business — a structural reversal of the closed-ecosystem posture that defined its earlier hardware strategy.
The trend: Apple is systematically opening its media protocols and services to third-party TV platforms, turning competitors' smart-TV operating systems into distribution channels for its ecosystem.