Why Smart TV App Accessibility Is So Hard — And How to Get It Right

The Accessibility Gap on the Biggest Screen in the Home

Web accessibility has matured over decades, supported by solid standards and regulatory frameworks. Smart TVs, however — now how over 50% of UK viewers watch TV via apps (TiVo 2025 UK Video Trends Report) — remain a dramatically inconsistent landscape.

And that’s a real issue.

Accessible streaming isn’t just ethical; it’s increasingly a legal requirement, a business enabler, and a way of future-proofing platforms. Users expect Smart TV apps to support screen readers, magnification, readable text sizes, clear contrast, predictable focus management, and reliable text-to-speech (TTS). But while expectations exist, universal standards do not.

Regulation is accelerating:

• The European Accessibility Act came into force in mid-2025.
• The UK Media Act 2024 mandates 40% subtitling and 5% audio description for Tier 1 VoD services by mid-2026.

Despite this, TV platforms still operate without a shared accessibility model. And store approval processes are becoming more strict — checking remote behaviour, UI conformity, screen reader compatibility, and overall performance. Content owners are expected to deliver accessible experiences in an ecosystem that offers little consistency.

Why Accessibility on Smart TVs Is So Difficult

No Standardised Guidelines

Smart TVs run on browser engines that vary wildly and are often outdated or heavily customised. Samsung’s Tizen behaves differently from LG’s webOS, which behaves differently from tvOS, Android TV, or Roku. Add unpredictable hardware differences — screen sizes, CPUs, remotes — and you end up with a deeply fragmented development environment.

Developers often have to invent their own accessibility standards, particularly around focus management. Unlike mobile or desktop, everything on a TV revolves around the remote. UI components must be larger, higher contrast, and arranged in predictable grids or rows so users can always see where focus is and where it can go next.

Creating that consistency across platforms is complex — and largely falls on developers.

Screen Readers: Inconsistent, Conflicting, and Essential

Screen readers should help visually impaired users navigate apps, but their behaviour differs widely across TVs. Some devices have robust screen readers; others barely support them.

And even when screen readers exist, they often conflict with app-level logic. Android’s TalkBack and Apple’s VoiceOver:

• read different items,
• navigate focus differently,
• override app-level behaviour, and
• sometimes double-announce or skip content entirely.

Meanwhile, Samsung and LG rely on the Web Speech Synthesis API, meaning a single app may need to support three different TTS systems.

This fragmentation makes accessibility unpredictable for users — and challenging for teams.

When Accessibility Hurts Performance

Adding accessibility features isn’t always straightforward. On Smart TVs, particularly Android TV, even small changes can create performance issues: scroll lag, delayed focus transitions, and even infinite loops. Oddly, these issues often appear when TTS is disabled.

At Econify, we’ve seen accessible metadata cause noticeable performance drops, requiring component restructuring and simplified focus logic to keep the UI smooth.

A simple example: In React Native, setting accessible={true} makes an element focusable. On Android, this can interfere with custom spatial navigation, causing elements to steal focus unexpectedly.

These issues often only appear on real devices — making thorough device testing essential.

The Trade-Offs Developers Must Navigate

Screen readers rely on semantic clarity, but TV apps are often built from nested components where visible text isn’t available in one place. Making a screen accessible can require meaningful restructuring.

Small changes have big effects:

• A new label may reorder an entire screen’s reading flow.
• Adjusting one button’s focus behaviour can affect a whole row.

Accessibility must be tested continuously throughout development — not patched in at the end.

Voice Control: Everyone Wants It, But TV Platforms Don’t Truly Support It

Voice control is normal on phones, but Smart TVs don’t offer the same freedom. Most manufacturers expose only playback commands — play, pause, rewind, fast-forward. Custom commands like “scroll left” or “open settings” simply aren’t supported.

The best way to handle this is to set realistic expectations early. If the API doesn’t exist, it can’t be worked around.

Apple TV adds extra constraints, such as no system-level TTS access for developers. Furthermore, VoiceOver can’t be tested on simulators, so real-device testing is mandatory.

Why Smart TV Accessibility Is Becoming Non-Optional

Regulation (WCAG, ADA, EAA) is evolving to include all digital interfaces — Smart TVs included. Major platforms like Samsung, LG, and Roku now enforce stricter accessibility reviews, and apps can be rejected or delisted for missing labels, broken focus paths, or degraded performance.

The message is clear: Accessible Smart TV apps are no longer optional.

Teams who treat accessibility as a bolt-on will struggle; those who embed it from day one will be ready for the next wave of requirements.

A Call for an Industry Standard

The TV ecosystem urgently needs a unified accessibility standard. Right now, every platform has its own approach to TTS, focus order, screen reader behaviour, and navigation. Developers must relearn accessibility rules for every OS, making the experience inconsistent for users.

A common standard would benefit everyone — from developers to manufacturers to end users.

Based on our work across Tizen, webOS, Roku, Apple TV, Android TV, and Fire TV, we believe Smart TV accessibility needs:

• A developer-first accessibility framework
• A unified TTS model across platforms
• Clear rules around focus behaviour and reading order
• Better real-device testing tools

Until the industry agrees on shared guidelines, we help clients navigate platform quirks and build reliable, cross-platform accessibility foundations.

Building Accessible, Future-Proof Smart TV Apps

The Smart TV accessibility gap is very real — not because teams don’t care, but because the ecosystem makes accessibility harder than it should be. Regulations are growing stronger, platform audits are tightening, and the cost of getting accessibility wrong is rising.

The good news? These challenges are solvable.

At Econify, we’ve spent years building accessible Smart TV apps across every major platform. We’ve tackled conflicting screen readers, unpredictable performance, and fragmented APIs — and helped clients deliver inclusive, future-ready experiences to millions.

We’ve taken the hits, so you don’t have to.

Accessible Smart TV apps aren’t just the future — they’re already the expectation. And with the right approach, they can deliver better experiences for everyone.