Sberbank : Sber presents Salute TV, its proprietary OS for TV manufacturers

Designed by the SberDevices team, the all-new OS for Salute TVs has been presented at SmartDev, Sber's first tech conference, today. Soon, new UHD 43' and 75' TVs with pre-installed Salute TV OS run by the Salute virtual assistants will be marketed by Hyundai, BBK, and other brands. Full HD 24' and 43' TVs will follow suit shortly after that. Satellite and antenna TV channels, video inputs, and the file manager will be operational without an Internet connection.

Smart TVs are a whole industry now, and the app market in this segment is growing and expanding constantly. Salute TV comes with an intellectual system of recommendations for video and audio content and easy access to the Sber ecosystem services, while the Salute family of virtual assistants allows users to control devices and applications directly from the TV and, of course, has the usual TV channels that can be watched even without Wi-Fi. Also, the assistants are able to adapt to the user's preferences on all surfaces.

An assistant inside your TV set

Sber, Athena, and Joy - the virtual assistants integrated into Salute TV - will come to the rescue when you need them. For instance, they can order groceries or answer your questions. They can even book a salon appointment or make one at an outpatient clinic. This functionality is available via the concierge service Duet[1]. Also, they can control smart devices of the Sber smart home.

The operating system is fully adapted for voice control and the virtual assistants Salute. Instead of the conventional applications, Salute TV offers multimodal smart apps letting you control devices in different ways: by voice, using the remote control or its virtual clone.

Games, movies, music and more

The list of apps can be found on SmartMarket, Sber's smart app marketplace. These include games (puzzles, arcades, sports simulators), streaming services (Okko for movies, SberSound for music, etc.), an app letting you order groceries with the Samokat [2] service integrated into it, and many more.

When watching movies with a video shopping function on, you can order the items you see on movie stars via partner online stores and buy S7 Airlines tickets (you will even be told the location of the scene in a movie and see information on the upcoming flights).

With the cloud gaming service SberPlay, Salute TV users will have access to the titles of the most celebrated game developers - modern GPU intensive games will be launched on remote servers, with SberPlay streaming HD video to your TV set. A virtual gamepad available inside the SberSalute app can be used as a controller.

Salute TV also has a browser you can use with both a Bluetooth remote that comes with the set and a virtual remote.

Salute TV for kids

Salute TV is friendly and safe even for the smallest users, coming with a Kids Mode that can be activated through the SberSalute app and blocking all adult content and payments. There's a bunch of content children will find interesting and useful on Salute TVs - interactive games and apps, educational videos and audio files, fairy tales, poems, lullabies, and cartoons, while the assistants will give detailed answers to kids' questions or can send them through to sought-after science popularizer Ilya Kolmanovsky.

Availability

TV sets with the Salute TV OS are scheduled to go on sale across partner stores and marketplaces in June.

The mission of our products is to help people solve their day-to-day matters in a more efficient and convenient way. We have gotten used to virtual assistants being capable of keeping up a conversation and looking up information a long time ago, but they often lack a visual component, which is the most vital one. Meanwhile, the popularity of our SberBox smart streamer has proven that using virtual assistants is more convenient on a screen. We at SberDevices have decided to go further and embed the Salute family into new TVs manufactured by different companies and turn those into universal smart screens.

Konstantin Kruglov

Senior Vice President for new digital services; CEO, SberDevices

SberDevices is a Sber ecosystem company and a center of expertise on AI-based solutions in fields such as speech technology, natural-language interpretation, and face and voice biometrics. The company also focuses on creating smart devices for end users and corporate clients. SberDevices was founded in May 2019 as a department in Sberbank's Technology unit.

The Salute assistants are the first family of virtual assistants in the world, each member imbued with their own character, habits, and manner of communication. Users can pick the character they feel suits them better. In addition to holding a conversation and answering questions, the assistants can also order food, make a doctor's appointment, book a salon appointment, transfer money, or top up your mobile phone. They are available on iOS and Android in the SberBank Online and SberSalute mobile apps and on a number of Sber smart devices and more. The family of virtual assistants was created by the SberDevices team, which develops AI-based solutions, as well as designing smart devices.

[1] As of May 20, 2021, the Duet function is available in Moscow, Moscow Region, St. Petersburg, Leningrad Region, Tver Region, Ryazan Region, Kaluga Region, Nizhny Novgorod Region, Oryol Region, Krasnodar Territory, the Republic of Adygea, Pskov Region, Belgorod Region, Tula Region, Vladimir Region, Ivanovo Region, Voronezh Region, Penza Region, Kaliningrad Region, Tambov Region, Kursk Region, Bryansk Region, Lipetsk Region, Smolensk Region, Novgorod Region, Yaroslavl Region, Kostroma Region, Vologda Region, Arkhangelsk Region, Saratov Region, the Republic of Tatarstan, Volgograd Region, the Republic of Karelia, Ulyanovsk Region, Rostov Region, Samara Region, and the Republic of Kalmykia. SberDevices will inform you about the further expansion of the service's geographical footprint.

[2] As part of the integration into the quick grocery delivery service Samokat in the area of its operations. To activate the skill, just say 'Salute, order groceries.'