Three TV Platforms Publish an Update Promise. Three Do Not

Three of the six big TV platforms publish a number of years, and three do not. Samsung says up to seven years of Tizen OS upgrades, LG five years of webOS updates and upgrades, and Amazon at least four years of Fire TV security updates with a dated table by model. Google, Roku and Apple name no period on the pages that carry their update information.

The three numbers are not the same promise. Samsung’s seven years and LG’s five are version upgrades; Amazon’s four years are security updates. A platform can keep patching a TV for years without ever giving it a new home screen, and a maker that promises upgrades is not thereby promising patches.

What each maker publishes

Platform	What the maker publishes	The wording it uses
Samsung Tizen	Up to 7 years of OS upgrades	“seven years of Tizen OS upgrades” · “Based on model year”
LG webOS	5 years of updates and version upgrades	“for 5 years.*” — the asterisk is unexplained on the page
Fire TV	At least 4 years of security updates, plus a date per model	“until at least four years from when you bought it new”
Roku	No period	Release notes list the models each Roku OS reaches
Google TV	No period	End of support is announced after it happens
Apple TV	No period	Each release lists the Apple TVs it is “Available for”

Samsung: seven years, counted from the model year

Samsung’s CES 2026 presentation on 4 January put it plainly: “Users can now enjoy seven years of Tizen OS upgrades, ensuring that TVs continue to evolve long after they have entered the home.”

Its own product release is more careful. The 2026 OLED announcement of 2 April says “up to 7 years of OS updates”, and the footnote behind that line reads: “Based on model year; requires Internet connection.” Two things follow from Samsung’s own wording. The clock is attached to the model year rather than to the day the set leaves the shop, so a discounted previous-year model starts part-way through it. And a TV kept off the network gets none of it.

LG: five years, with an asterisk LG does not explain

LG’s current webOS page says the Re:New programme “automatically equips you with new software updates and version upgrades for 5 years.*” The page carries four other asterisked footnotes — about supported menus, keyword recommendations, AI Concierge languages and simulated screen images — and none of them is about the five years. What the five years is measured from is not stated there.

The programme itself was announced on 4 January 2024, and the announcement is narrower than the marketing line. It brought the latest webOS to “every model in LG’s 2022 OLED TV lineup, LG OLED Flex, LG OLED Objet Collection Posé, as well as LG’s 2022 QNED Mini LED 8K (QNED99/95 series), promising users the joy of a new TV experience for the next five years,” and said the upgrade would be extended to more LG TVs later.

Amazon: the only maker that prints a date

Amazon’s Fire TV page is the one a reader can actually act on. It states the rule — “We’ll support your device with software security updates until at least four years from when you bought it new, from Amazon as the seller, on Amazon.com (or until the date stated below if later)” — and then prints the dates.

Almost every current model is listed through 31 December 2030: every Fire TV stick from the Stick Lite up, the Fire TV Cube (3rd Generation), the Fire TV and Ember smart TVs, and the Fire TV soundbars. The Fire TV Stick 4K (1st Generation) is 31 December 2029. Amazon adds that after those dates it “may continue to provide software security updates for as long as we can”, and that “the update period is not a guarantee as to how long your device will last”.

Read the unit of measurement, though. These are security updates. Amazon publishes the current software version for each Fire TV device on a separate page, and makes no promise there about future FireOS versions.

Roku: no promise, and the longest record in the table

Roku publishes neither a number of years nor an end date. What it publishes instead is which devices each release actually reached, and that list is long. Roku OS 15.3 went to “All Roku TV models (2014-2026)”, excluding three model numbers. Players and Streambars in eight series are named alongside them.

Roku’s security page logs sixteen dated releases and the CVEs each one addressed, the most recent on 6 August 2026. It describes the update mechanism and it names no support period, which makes the twelve model years in the release notes a record rather than a commitment. A 2014 Roku TV is on the current OS today; nothing on Roku’s pages says it will be next year.

Apple: no period, and a device list that moved this month

Apple’s security releases page is a table of every release, the devices it is “Available for”, and its date. For tvOS 26.6, released 27 July 2026: “Apple TV HD and Apple TV 4K (all models)”. For tvOS 27, released 14 September 2026: “Apple TV 4K 2nd generation and later”.

So the Apple TV HD was inside the supported set through the summer and is outside the new major version. Apple states no support period for Apple TV anywhere on that page, and there is no equivalent of the model-year promise Samsung and LG print. What Apple publishes is the list, updated each time it changes.

Google: nothing in advance, a notice afterwards

Google’s firmware page for Chromecast and the Google TV Streamer, last updated 23 June 2026, opens with an ending rather than a commitment: “Support for Chromecast (1st gen) has ended. It no longer receives software or security updates, and Google doesn’t provide technical support.” One of its firmware entries reads “Security patch updates to April 2026”.

The Google Store spec page for the Google TV Streamer (4K) lists the operating system, memory, storage, every port, the video and audio formats and the recycled-plastic content of the case. It has no row for software support. We found no Google page giving a period for a Google TV device, and none at all for the Google TV sets other makers build.

What a streaming player changes

A player puts a current platform on an old panel, and it is cheap relative to a TV. Roku’s own store listed the Roku Streaming Stick at $39.99 when we read it on 20 September 2026, marked down to $29.99 on a limited-time offer; the Google TV Streamer (4K) is $149.99 on the Google Store. Against that, a Fire TV stick bought new from Amazon carries the four-year minimum and a table entry of 31 December 2030 whatever year the TV was made.

It does not change three things.

The panel. Brightness, local dimming and the native refresh rate are fixed in the glass, and no platform update moves them. Those are the specifications that separate a $400 TV from a $1,200 one, and they are the reason a picture ages differently from a home screen.

The TV’s own viewing-data collection. LG says its automatic content recognition can work on HDMI-connected devices, and Roku says its version covers devices connected to the TV. Plugging in a player does not put your viewing outside the set’s reach — the switch has a different name at every brand, and it is on the TV, not on the stick.

The TV’s own software. The set keeps whatever platform it shipped with, on whatever schedule its maker keeps, whether you ever open it again or not.

So should you just buy a stick?

If what has aged is the software — apps that will not install, a home screen that crawls — a player replaces that layer for less than a tenth of the price of a new set, and Amazon’s is the only one of the six with a date you can look up before you buy. If what has aged is the picture, a player changes none of it, and the money belongs in the set itself.

One thing the table does not support is paying more for a longer software life. None of the six commitments is scaled to price: Amazon gives the same 31 December 2030 date to a Fire TV Stick Lite and to an 85-inch Ember Mini-LED, and Samsung states its seven years for its TVs generally rather than for a tier. That is consistent with what we found looking at price against review scores across our own corpus.