Lumio wants you to WhatsApp your TV: Hands-on with Project Neo

Lumio wants you to talk to your TV via WhatsApp with Project Neo. You can ask Neo for movies and show recommendations just like you would ask a person. But does this actually work? India Today Tech spent some time using Project Neo, and here is what we found.

In Short

• You can talk to your TV via WhatsApp with Project Neo 
• Project Neo also allows you to share Reels on Instagram
• It is available in beta for Lumio TVs and Lumio Arc projectors

Even as WhatsApp has come under the government scanner for its upcoming username feature, a new smart TV feature designed by a new homegrown brand, is making the waves for giving users the tools to talk to their TV using WhatsApp. The brand is Lumio and the feature in question is called Project Neo. Lumio just released the beta version of Project Neo. Lumio TV users can start using it from today to do all sorts of things, from getting smart recommendations on WhatsApp to watching their favourite Reels on the big screen, from Instagram.

To access Project Neo, you’ll need a Lumio TV or a Lumio Arc projector, since Neo is available only via Lumio’s TLDR app, which isn’t available anywhere else. When you open the TLDR app – on a Lumio TV or projector – you get a QR code that you can scan to connect to the Neo chatbot on WhatsApp. Or, you can also text a pairing code to a specific number on WhatsApp. Once done, your phone is connected to Neo, through WhatsApp.

From here on, the process is quite simple. Neo works just like chatbots like ChatGPT or Gemini, but for content. You can simply type or send a voice message, such as “car shows” and the AI will give you a bunch of recommendations that will be visible on screen. That is, instead of manually searching shows online, you can text Neo on WhatsApp, and it does the job.

And Neo can also find shows, movies or music based on any personality. For instance, by asking Neo about Ariana Grande, it was able to find me the latest music videos from YouTube.

While searching for car shows or a movie with a specific actor is not the hardest thing out there, I tried to see if Neo could find a show based on a small description. To find Top Gear, I wrote, “find me this one show where three old men drive cars and joke about for no reason.” And within a few seconds, Neo had Top Gear in the search results. This can be useful in case you are looking to find a show that you may have watched some time ago but forgot its name.

But WhatsApp is not the only platform that you can use to talk to your TV. There’s Instagram too. You can link your Instagram account to Neo, which will allow you to share Reels or photos from the app and see them on the big screen. I tried sharing some Reels to Neo on Instagram, and the bot quickly showed them on the TV. When you share a Reel or post, the AI can also give suggestions based on the content. Though since it is still in beta, I was unable to get suggestions.

Work in progress

Project Neo is now available in beta for Lumio TV users. Since it is a work in progress, you may find some quirks. Finding the way to link Instagram feels a bit tricky, since the TLDR app does not tell you how to do that – it only links WhatsApp. Instead, you need to ask for “/help” from Neo on WhatsApp, and then it tells you how to connect to Instagram.

Also, you should know that Neo only works when you keep the TLDR app open. That is, Neo cannot take over your TV screen if you have an app like Netflix or JioHotstar open. And while Neo can find you results, it cannot automatically play a show or movie for you. At the time of writing, there is no photo sharing support – sending photos to see on your TV – for Neo, something Lumio says will be added in the future, that will allow you to send photos to the chatbot and then see them on the big screen.

Currently Project Neo supports 9 languages for text and voice commands – Hindi, English, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Odiya, Nepali, Marathi, Kannada. Lumio says that it plans to add more languages in the future.

While it is still early days for Project Neo, we appreciate the concept behind it. The way Neo works is not something that we have seen other TV makers try out, potentially giving Lumio a unique addition to its products. Watch this space for more updates.

- Ends