How useful is the recommendations row?

by Sean_Franchise

I've been very interested in setting up Android TV as my main entertainment solution ever since Xbox started deprecating their best entertainment features (pinned TV shows/movies, universal search, etc.), and am considering taking the plunge thanks to an upcoming move.

I've seen the recommendations row as a consistent feature in every Android TV video I've watched, but the mast detailed information I've been able to find about it has been only been about customizing which apps can recommend content there, but have not found any passable explanation of how well the row works as a method to jump back into content you watch often, and as a way to discover new related content.

For instance, if I'm watching a lot of Comedians in Cars Getting coffee on Netflix, will the recommendations row recommend the enxt episode for me the next time I go to the home screen? If so, does it work for all apps or only certain ones? Or is it msotly just an avenue for apps to sponsor content to the front page?

I did see that the 'Up Next' feature in Oreo is supposed to support exactly this feature, but between the negligible adoption of 8.0 on actual devices, and the few stories I've read of the feature not working in the versions people have installed on their Nexus players, I'm not holding my breath.

So, what can you all tell me about your experiences with the recommendations row on your devices?

Thanks for your help!

raptor75mlt

Plex uses it well, but Youtube is a disaster, totally irrelevant. Doesn't even match the recommendations on my youtube webpage, which is mostly relevant

9thWd

Its not really useful to me, I just like the way it looks

Magnetic_dud

It's totally useless for me

Youtube just spams trash

LiquidPoint

Hmmm, the row is controlled by the individual apps. I don't know how Netflix use it, but in general it seems to be mostly a "discover new stuff" row.

VLC will show you random stuff in your video library, myTuner seems to suggest random stuff from your favourites, history or related genres.

I don't know of any apps that let you control the recommendations apart from HopWatch. So you can basically just turn each apps recommendations on or off.

officialdoughboy

It all comes down on how the app developer chooses to implement recommendations. You can hide sources so you are going to have to look at what the app is showing you and decide whether you want to see it or not.

Apps like Youtube, NBC and Dailymotion try to recommend what they want you to see.

Apps that supply no content (VLC, Arc Browser) will show you what you recently watched or played.

And then you have the mixed bag with Vue and Live Channels. Vue will show you the most recently played from the most recently used account (might not be your own profile.) I have multiple boxes in house and see content I don't watch. Live Channels just randomly picks things it seems. But since I can customize what channels are available in the app (Live Channels) I have some control.

And some apps have no integration with recommendations, like Netflix.

The way I use the row is as a glance to see what I might be missing. I ended up hiding apps that are consistently not giving me content I want to see. When you get it fine tuned to your tastes it works well the few times you'll look at it. Since most of your time will be spent in the apps versus the home screen.

gigem9000

not useful to me. shows random tv shows from my antenna (via live channels) that I have no interest in watching. Also, shows previews for shows for Playstation Vue which I no longer subscribe to, so I'll just have to delete the app.

danielcar

Netflix doesn't make use of the recommendation row, but hopefully in a future version it will.