TVs are tending to get much bigger, with wide screen displays of 55-inches, 65-inches and even bigger firmly in vogue. But what if that takes up too much space in your living room? Not everyone has the space to squeeze such a big and bulky display in amongst the rest of their clutter, so can a compromise be found?
Probably not, if we’re going to follow the example of a startup called TinyCircuits, which has taken things to the extreme at the other end of the scale. The company is touting its new TinyTV 2 and TinyTV Mini displays, which are small enough to fit comfortably in the palm of a hand.
The TinyTV 2 is a 1-inch IPS portable TV that boasts a 216 x 135 OLED display, an impressive 8GB of storage (the same as many full-size TVs!), a front-facing speaker, power button, volume control, channel controls and a built-in IR receiver that’s compatible with IR remotes, plus a USB port for charging and uploading content. Everything on board is powered by a tiny Raspberry Pi chipset.
If that’s still too much for you to handle, perhaps you’ll be interested in the TinyTV Mini model, which offers a bite-sized 0.6-inch OLED display running at 64 x 64? It’s basically just a smaller version of the TinyTV 2, but interestingly it is available at the same price tag, of just $49.
The TinyTV Mini (below) does have to sacrifice a bit on the power side. It’s fitted with a smaller battery that clocks in at around one hour of juice, whereas the TinyTV 2 reportedly keeps going for two hours on a single charge.
If you’re curious as to how it works, you might be a tad disappointed to find out the TinyTVs won’t be able to show you the latest Netflix streaming flicks. Although there’s a channel selector, they don’t display genuine channels. Rather, the TinyTV shows uploaded videos, and is capable of remembering the timestamp (the point you were at) to immediately pick up where it left off as you flick through the channels. So users need to upload content to each channel to get started.
The TinyTVs are undoubtedly some funky, eye-catching gadgets that should provoke quite a few conversations. To get one in your mitts, you’ll have to pay now and wait until the production run begins in March 2023 before it arrives. That’s because the TinyTV’s designer is aiming to raise funds to pay for the production via Kickstarter.
Some readers may have noted that fact that this product is called the TinyTV 2 points to the existence of a predecessor - and they’d be right. The new products are a follow up to TinyCircuit’s original TinyTV DIY Kit, which also launched on Kickstarter a couple of years back.
The good news is that this incredibly cute TV is already funded to the tune of $210,000, comfortably ahead of its target of $15,000, so there’s no danger of it not getting funded.
