Samsung is making Tizen available to third-party TV makers

What you need to know

• Samsung will make Tizen, its TV and wearable OS, available to other television manufacturers.
• Tizen currently runs on 100 million Samsung smart TVs.
• Samsung will also allow consumers to opt-out of Tizen ad-tracking

At its Samsung Developers Conference (SDC 2019) in San Jose, Samsung today announced that its Tizen operating system will be available for third-party TV makers for the first time. Tizen is a robust operating system used on millions of Samsung smart TVs, as well as Samsung wearable devices. The OS is supported by most popular streaming apps and services, including Netflix, Hulu, HBO, etc. Samsung did not announce specific manufacturer partners at this time.

Samsung also announced some developer-specific tools, as well as new capabilities to let consumers turn off ad-tracking in Tizen apps. Today's SDC 2019 announcements were very TV-specific, as no improvements were announced for the wearable version of the OS used on devices like Samsung's Galaxy Watch Active 2 (opens in new tab).

Tizen began life as a Linux variation, then merged with Samsung's Bada project to become an OS capable of supporting multiple platforms, including cameras, smartphones, TVs, and wearables. While Tizen is based on open-source technology, many of the key tools are proprietary Samsung code, so Samsung effectively owns and controls the fate of the OS.