The modern Samsung TVs run the Tizen operating system. You can develop for these just as you might develop for the Tizen based watches. The Tizen TVs are locked down more than the watch is.  To deploy to a Tizen TV you’ll need to both enable developer mode and will have to let the TV know from what address it will be receiving code. If it receives request from other addresses it won’t respond to them.

On the consumer displays there is no obvious way to enable developer mode. The option is hidden. If you open the apps browser (for seeing what other apps there are to install) you can open the developer mode menu by entering “12345” on the remote. A popup window will show from which you can select to turn developer mode “On.” If you are using one of the commercial displays (SSSP, or Samsung Smart Signage Platform) the method to enable developer mode is more obvious. If you open the TV’s menu there is an option called URL Launcher Settings. The developer mode option is within these settings.

On the consumer devices you’ll also be asked to enter the IP address of the machine from which the development will occur. This prevents other rouge devices on your network from doing anything to the TV.  Here you should enter the IP address of your development machine.

After these options are set the TV needs to be rebooted before the changes are fully applied. you can do this by holding the power button on the consumer TVs for two seconds, holding the power off button on a SSSP display for 2 seconds, or removing the power source from the TV and reapplying it.

After the TV boots developer mode is now enabled. However the mode being enabled doesn’t mean that all of the conditions for deploying code have been met. You will need to generate a distributor certificate also. Samsung has this page with instructions for generating a certificate. In following these directions you will need the the Device Unique ID (DUID). To get this you first need to connect to the TV. I prefer to use the sdb utility that comes with the Tizen SDK. It is located in tizen-studio/tools (adjust this path according to the location at which you installed Tizen Studio). The syntax for connecting is:

sdb connect

Sometimes I have to type the command twice before it takes effect. After the connection is successful open the Tizen Device Manager. You should see the TV connection within the UI. If you right-click on the connection you will have the option of selecting the TV’s DUID. Select this option and copy the DUID to the system clipboard. Keep the DUID on the system clipboard and when it is needed during the certificate generation it will automatically be pasted where it is needed.

If you at some point find that you need the TV extensions, don’t have them installed, and don’t see them in the the package manager you can install them using these instructions. https://developer.samsung.com/tv/develop/tools/tv-extension/download/

Creating a certificate based on the Device Uniuque ID (DUID) is slightly different for the two classes of displays. For the consumer displays a Samsung certificate should be created. For the commercial displays a Tizen certificate should be created. It can be a little confusing with Tizen being a Samsung creation. But you may be able to make better sense of it from another perspective. The Samsung certificate is associated with the Samsung App store. The consumer displays access the app store and the certificate rules for that are different than for apps that have no access to the App Store.