Panasonic launches world's first Smart TVs based on Mozilla's Firefox OS

18 May 2015

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Panasonic has launched the world's first Smart TVs based on Mozilla's Firefox OS in Europe. First unveiled at the CES these would be available worldwide in the coming months.

The lineup of Panasonic 2015, Smart TV models based on Firefox includes CR850, CR730, CX800, CX750, CX700 and CX680. The Panasonic VIERA CX700 is available on Currys, and the CX680 model is listed on Amazon UK with price tags of £999 and £656.87 respectively.

According to a Mozilla blog the Smart TVs, which were optimised for HTML5 to provide strong performance of web apps, integrate a new intuitive and customisable user interface which allows quick access to favorite channels, apps, websites and content on other devices.

According to Masahiro Shinada, director of the TV Business Division at Panasonic Corporation, the first-ever Firefox OS-based Smart TV would  allow the company to provide consumers with a more user friendly and customizable TV UI, and also bring a differentiator in the Smart TV market.

According to Andreas Gal, Mozilla CTO, Firefox OS-based devices allowed for a more connected web experience than locking down the consumers into one propriety ecosystem or brand.

With the open mobile platform built entirely on web technologies, developers would be able to create customised and innovative apps and experiences across connected devices.

Mozilla and Panasonic started work on the TVs over a year ago. Panasonic finally started showing them in January. Shinada said in a statement, "We have been able to create a more user friendly and customizable TV UI."

According to commentators, it was also an important step for Mozilla into the smart TV space, which, an increasing number of companies were trying to take over. Apple had the Apple TV, Google had Android TV, Samsung has Tizen, and Roku was now coming built into TVs, too. While it was only a small entrance, Mozilla was at least giving consumers a choice, according to commentators.

And what was perhaps more important was the fact that choice was for an open platform based on HTML 5 unlike the locked-down ecosystems that everyone else was selling.

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