Walmart continues to be shockingly good at Android TV and Google TV updates

Ben Schoon | Aug 1 2024 - 12:40 pm PT

TV sets, boxes, and dongles are very often forgotten when it comes to updates, including when Android is under the hood. Walmart, to its credit, continues to be incredibly, unexpectedly good at updating its Android TV and Google TV devices.

Walmart launched its first Android TV dongle back in 2021, with a duo of Onn streamers that delivered really good Android TV experience for pennies on the dollar compared to Google’s Chromecast, which was the gold standard of the time. Then, in 2023, Walmart updated both with new specs and Google TV instead of Android TV. Earlier this year, a set-top box, the Onn “Pro” was added to the lineup as the most expensive, but also most capable yet.

Despite the super-cheap pricing starting at merely $15, though, Walmart has been quite good at software updates.

As we’ve documented, Walmart releases software updates for all of its devices on a fairly regular basis. This might include bug fixes or security patches, and doesn’t usually bring new features or new versions of Android itself. That’s continued recently, with Walmart bringing a new patch to its 2023 Onn 4K device (the one with Google TV) a few weeks ago and a new update is rolling out to the 2021 version. That’s the more impressive level of support, really, as no one expected the super-cheap device to get updates at all, even less so three years later. The new “Pro” model has also had a couple of updates land since its launch just a few months ago.

Walmart’s software updates aren’t perfect. The update for the 2023 model is still on the May 2024 security patch, and the one for the 2021 model is stuck on April’s patch level and some users have noted that it seems to break external storage.

What’s crazy is just that these updates keep on coming. Despite some issues on that older box, Walmart’s track record would suggest that, eventually, a fix will come.