Even though our smart TVs solve the problem of accessing content, they induce a new one, which is having to settle on what to watch.
But Indian TV brand Lumio has a potential answer to this. They're calling it Neo, and it's an AI chat-based search assistant baked into their TLDR app.
The pitch is simple: message Neo on WhatsApp or Instagram in plain English, Hindi, or Hinglish, and your picks appear on the TV as a scrollable wall of posters.
I tested it on the Vision 9 QD-Mini LED TV, which I recently reviewed.
Jacking in
Setup is painlessly simple. You open the TLDR app's Neo tab on the TV, send the on-screen code to the WhatsApp bot, and you're plugged into the Matrix faster than the claimed 30 seconds.
There's one catch, though, and that is the TV must stay on the Neo tab in the TLDR app specifically, something I learned only after results silently refused to appear when I wandered into other tabs.
Results also take a few seconds to land. All this while the WhatsApp or Instagram chat shows a "finding matches" style status, although the TV itself gives no such indication. A simple on-screen loading message would spare new users the confusion.
(Needless to say, it's based on AI, which is prone to incorrect results, but the stuff Neo produces is mostly passable.)
It knows Kung Fu — mostly
The core search experience is quite useful. Queries in simple language work well, and it comfortably digs up Hindi movies and shows on request.
However, when pushed with something more complex, like "Hindi TV shows from the 2000s with sardonic comedy," it slightly struggles to keep all results fitting the search. Even then, roughly seven out of 10 results fit the brief, with a couple of strays that miss the decade, the tone, or occasionally the language.
It dodges the bullets, mostly
It doesn't work all that well with vague commands like "I'm bored," so you need some cues to get it going.
Instagram Reel and poster recognition is reliable for the basics, too. If the title appears in the clip, image, or caption, Neo will spot it instantly. But clipped videos with no visible title trip it up.
My wishlist for the assistant is for Neo to add support for YouTube Shorts via the WhatsApp bot, since YouTube hosts far more of those random movie-clip videos than Instagram does.
Sports highlights and general YouTube content, such as music or podcasts, work as advertised.
Free your mind from endless scrolling
What makes Neo stick is curation. Instead of drowning me in hundreds of tiles, it narrows the field to a manageable, vibe-matched few. This is noticeably more refined than Google TV's broad-brush search.
To be clear, the spoon still exists: the remote isn't retired, since Neo only puts the right content on screen, and I prefer tactile controls anyway.
Glitches in the Matrix
There are a few real gaps, though, and the biggest of them all is zero memory between messages. Referencing an earlier request means copy-pasting it wholesale.
Next, voice input is unavailable (even though voice typing on your phone is a workaround), and responses take 5–10 seconds, sometimes longer.
Neo also only works while you're inside the TLDR app; if you're watching something in another app, there's nowhere for the results to land. There's also no concept of multiple user profiles yet, which would help households match everyone's tastes.
Verdict: Follow the white rabbit
Neo is a genuinely good way to discover content, but it needs more polishing before it's The One.
The public beta opens today, and it's worth taking this red pill early.
The instructions for the beta are available here. Note that it currently only works on Lumio TVs and projectors, and not other Google or Android TV devices.