← All work · 2009 – 2011
Google TV at Logitech
Brilliant engineering. Roughly a decade early.
At Logitech I managed the local and offshore teams on the Logitech Revue, the first Google TV box, and worked with Google to create the APIs behind its remote control. It launched in 2010. It was a commercial failure. The engineering was incredible.
- $100M+
- what Logitech’s CEO said it cost the company
- 2010
- first Google TV box on the market
The product
The Logitech Revue was the first Google TV box: a living-room computer that put the web, search and apps on your television, years before that was normal. It came with a full keyboard remote, and phones could control it too.
My part
I managed the local and offshore engineering teams, ran them as their Scrum Master, and brought in automated acceptance testing, continuous integration and test-driven design. I worked directly with Google to create the APIs for the Revue’s remote control, the layer that let a keyboard, a remote and a phone all drive the same box. It was my first management role, and I learned what it takes to ship hardware and software with a partner the size of Google on a fixed launch date.
How it went
Commercially? Badly. In November 2011, Logitech’s CEO called the Revue a “gigantic” mistake that had cost the company more than $100 million. Most of the press agreed.
In fairness to the box, it wanted you to search, browse and install apps on your TV with a remote in 2010. Today that’s every TV sold. Being early is indistinguishable from being wrong, right up until it isn’t.
The engineering was incredible, and I’d do it again. I still loved being on the team that built it.
Photos: Brian Bilek, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
.jpg){kind=link}