Loewe and Bang & Olufsen: what they ship with and what comes off

They cost between three thousand and twenty-six thousand euros, and they are the only two European high-end brands this site had not covered. Start with the fact that decides everything else: neither of them runs Android.

Not one entry in the directory#

This site’s directory holds 2,228 televisions from 439 brands across 222 platforms, plus 209 players and set-top boxes, and it comes from the official list of Google Play compatible devices. Searching loewe, bang, olufsen, beovision and beoplay across all four columns of the file returns zero matches.

That is not a gap, it is the finding. A television only appears on that list if Google has certified it, and only sets running Android get certified. So the question becomes what they run instead.

Loewe sells the same television with two systems, and neither is Android#

On loewe.tv, the shop filter has a field called «Loewe Betriebssystem» with four values: Tizen OS, VIDAA OS, os7 and os9. There is the answer, written by the manufacturer.

There is a plainer note still, tucked into every product page: «Loewe OS (bspw. OS9) basiert auf dem Betriebssystem Vidaa». Loewe’s own system is VIDAA wearing a different skin. The vega 43 page repeats it without ornament: «Loewe os9 auf Basis von Vidaa U9».

The best case is the stellar, their flagship. Loewe sells it in two versions that differ only in software, and publishes a page comparing them:

• stellar ti: Tizen OS, Loewe SL950 chassis, Novatek chipset, all four HDMI ports at 2.1 with 4K and 144 Hz, HDR10+ Adaptive and picture in picture. No Dolby Vision, and they say so: «Dolby Vision IQ wird von Tizen OS nicht unterstützt».
• stellar vi: VIDAA, Loewe SL892 chassis, MediaTek chipset, Tandem OLED panel, Dolby Vision IQ PD and Matter. Only two of the four HDMI ports reach 144 Hz, and there is no picture in picture.

Loewe describes Tizen as the system «that for decades was used only in Samsung televisions», and VIDAA as the one that «is based on a proven Linux kernel for TV and is used by Hisense too». Translated: the 4,000-euro set built in Kronach carries the same software as a mid-range Hisense.

A Bang & Olufsen is an LG screen with furniture around it#

Here the answer is even more direct. The pages for all three of the brand’s televisions (Beovision Contour, Beovision Harmony and Beovision Theatre) carry a field called «Smart TV», and all three say the same thing: webOS.

And it is not licensed webOS: it is an entire LG set. The Beovision Theatre page puts it in writing in three separate places. Under weight: «Table Stand incl. LG G3 TV: 49 kg». Under connections: «4 x 1Gbit Ethernet (One port assigned for LG OLED TV connection)». Under remotes: «Integrated system control, including LG OLED TV». The Contour page speaks of «the new generation LG 48" OLED screen».

What you buy for 26,100 euros of Beovision Harmony is design, 450 watts of sound, a motorised stand and one remote that drives the lot. The picture and the system come from LG.

The years each one declares#

For Loewe there is a complete regulated form. In EPREL, the European Commission’s energy label database, LOEWE has 62 registrations and all 62 were downloaded. The API’s pagination does not work (offsets of 25 and 50 return the same block of 25, with the same registration numbers), so they were completed family by family until 62 unique records matched.

All 62 are in the name of Loewe Technology GmbH, in the MANUFACTURER role, with a contact address in Kronach. There is no licensing company behind them: not Vestel, which answers for Toshiba and Telefunken, and not Established, which runs RCA, Blaupunkt, Thomson and Schneider. The legal notice confirms it: Loewe Technology GmbH, Industriestraße 11, 96317 Kronach, registered in Frankfurt am Main under HRB 117013.

And all 62 declare exactly the same thing, without a single exception:

• 8 years of software update availability
• 7 years of support and 7 years of spare parts
• 2 years of warranty

Not one blank. Worth flagging, because on Nokia and Thomson that field came back empty, and on Toshiba it was empty in 24 of 56 registrations. Loewe fills it in all 62.

The small print that changes what those 8 years mean#

The eight years are not eight years of new updates, and it is Loewe itself that spells this out, on its compliance page:

«We will maintain security updates for at least 2 years from the launch date of specific device models. In addition, we will provide the latest available version of firmware and the latest available security update to that firmware free of charge for a period of 8 years after the last copy of a particular product model is placed on the market».

Read it slowly. The promise to publish new security patches runs for at least two years from launch. The eight years are about keeping the last version that was published available for download, counted from the sale of the final unit of that model. Two different promises, and only one of them keeps a television modern.

The same as a four-hundred-euro set#

That was the question. The answer, with the regulated form in hand and one page of 25 registrations per brand: Samsung declares 8 years of software, TCL 8, Philips 8, LG 8, and ok., MediaMarkt’s own-label brand, 8. Loewe declares 8 across its 62.

The 4,000-euro television and the 400-euro one declare the same number. Where Loewe does stand out is in never leaving the field blank: in the Thomson sample, 13 of 25 registrations have nothing in it.

For Bang & Olufsen there is nothing to read at all: under electronic displays it has zero registrations. Tried with BANG, OLUFSEN, BEOVISION, B&O and BEO, and the search matches substrings (OEWE returns the same 62 Loewe records). This is not a quirk of the search box.

The brand writes the reason into its own warranty terms: «Your limited warranty on the sound system, stand, and brackets is 3 years. Any warranty claim related to your LG screen shall be handled under the LG warranty».

Three years on the sound, the stand and the brackets. LG answers for the screen. And those screens, the LG OLED G series, are in EPREL: 8 years of software, 8 of support and 8 of spare parts, in the name of LG Electronics Deutschland GmbH.

Bang & Olufsen’s modules are real, and there is a table#

The reputation for upgradable hardware holds up. Their support site publishes a table headed «Compatible LG OLED screens» listing, year by year, which screen each model takes:

• Beovision Harmony, from 2019: C9/Z9, then GX/CX/ZX, G1/C1/Z1, G2/C2/Z2, G3/C3/Z3, G4/C4, G5/C5 and G6/C6.
• Beovision Eclipse first generation: C2, C3, C4, C5 and C6, with the note «Requires an additional upgrade kit».
• Beovision Contour 48": from C1 to C6.

A Harmony bought in 2019 takes a 2026 screen, and the operating system is renewed with it, because it lives inside the screen. It is the most honest answer anyone gives to how long a set bought for fifteen years stays modern: as long as you like, if you pay for another screen.

And the time Bang & Olufsen switched off its own system#

Before leaning on LG the brand had a platform of its own, and its end is published with a date: «Back in 2012, we launched our Net TV service (also known as "Smart TV") […] we have decided to discontinue the Net TV service as from 31st October 2024».

It hit the Beoplay V1, the Beovision 11, the 2014 Avant, the Beosystem 4, the Horizon, the Beovision 14 and the 2016 Avant NG, which was eight years old when its smart half went dark. The official advice: «connecting an external device, e.g. set-top box, to your TV».

What comes off#

Very little, and it is better said plainly: neither one has ADB, packages to disable or commands to run. These are closed platforms. What you can do lives in the settings, and depends on the system:

• If your Loewe says os9 or VIDAA, the guide for Hisense with VIDAA applies: same system, different name.
• If it says Tizen, use the one for Samsung with Tizen.
• If you have a Beovision, yours is LG with webOS: the menu you will see is LG’s.

If you own one#

From a Loewe, what is needed is what the system field says and which version. From a Beovision, which LG screen is inside and from what year. And if anyone has a record of how many webOS updates their Beovision actually received, that is the figure nobody publishes today.