14 DAY TRIAL // HDTVs are quite widespread nowadays, and they aren't half bad either, which means that the extra web connectivity and the widgets of a Smart TV aren't enough of a reason to upgrade for many people.
Equiso is the latest startup company to offer a means to give normal HDTVs the abilities of Smart TVs.
The company got Kickstarter to host its Equiso Smart TV project, an USB stick with on-board HDMI 1.4 and USB support.
It's really more of an USB PC, with an ARM Cortex CPU (1 GHz), 512 MB memory, 8 GB of storage and Mali 400 graphics.
In addition to this hardware, Equiso tossed in 802.11n wireless and the Android Ice Cream Sandwich operating system. Power comes through the TV's USB port.
Equiso hopes to get $99 (€80.56) and $69 (€56.18) pledges until it has raised at least $100,000 / €81,380. Should it be successful, product bundles will ship with physical keyboards, interactive remotes, accelerometers and gyro sensors (for light games).