The reason I skipped last week’s newsletter was that I was busy covering CES, the annual tech industry trade show that usually yields some interesting cord-cutting developments. Here’s a rundown of everything that happened at the show:

Apple has formed some uncharacteristic partnerships with TV vendors to bring its software to their sets. Samsung TVs (both 2018 and 2019) will get an iTunes app and AirPlay 2 support, so users can send video and music to the TV from iPhones and iPads. This year’s Sony, LG, and Vizio TVs will also get AirPlay 2 along with HomeKit support, allowing users to incorporate the TVs into their smart home routines. (Vizio is adding AirPlay 2 and HomeKit to older SmartCast TVs as well.)

Speaking of smart TVs, Vizio CTO Bill Baxter conducted an eye-opening interview last week with The Verge, in which he acknowledged that Vizio can monitor everything users are watching, then anonymize that data and sell it to marketers or use it to show targeted ads. Those methods, along with the occasional movie rental or TV show purchase, help Vizio make money long after selling the television itself. A dumb TV without internet features, Baxter said, would probably cost more than a comparable smart TV due to the hardware’s slim profit margins and inability to pull in extra revenue down the road. A slew of “Vizio is spying on you!” stories and tweets followed, but the issue of smart TV snooping is more nuanced than it might seem. I wrote a column about that for TechHive.

Nuvyyo is updating the quad-tuner version of its Tablo DVR, which can play or record up to four broadcast TV channels at once and send the video to the Tablo app on your streaming devices. The Tablo Quad also has an internal hard drive bay if you’d rather avoid the clutter of an external USB drive. Best of all, the Tablo Quad and previous Tablo models will be getting an ad-skipping feature that automatically detects and fast forwards through commercial breaks. Both the Tablo Quad and ad-skipping will launch later this quarter. Read the full story on TechHive.

SiliconDust is working on simpler over-the-air DVR hardware to take on the likes of Tablo. The HDHomeRun Scribe Duo combines a dual TV tuner, a recording engine, and 1TB of storage into one box for $199. Plug it into your wireless router with an ethernet cable, and it’ll stream live or recorded TV to the HDHomeRun app on Windows, Xbox One, Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, iOS, or Android devices. The HDHomeRun Servio, meanwhile, includes the recording engine and 2TB of storage, but no TV tuner. As such, it can either add recording capabilities to current HDHomeRun tuners or supplement the storage in the new Scribe Duo. The goal is to ship both devices in April. Read the full story on TechHive.

Amazon is upgrading the remote control for its $40 Fire TV Stick, giving it the same TV volume and power controls as the company’s Fire TV Stick 4K and Fire TV Cube streamers. I still think it’s worth spending an extra $10 for the Fire TV Stick 4K for its superior speed (and 4K HDR support), but the argument isn’t as strong as it used to be. Over at Fast Company, I wrote up an interview with an Amazon exec on where Fire TV is going next.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, this really seems like the year that Google will take Android TV seriously. There’s a new team in charge, the interface is getting yet another redesign, and product head Shalini Govil-Pai told me consumer streaming devices are a major focus this year. Read the full interview on TechHive.

Finally, TiVo plans to release streaming apps for Roku and Fire TV in the second quarter, followed by Android TV and Apple TV apps in the third quarter. If you have a TiVo Bolt, the app will let you watch live and recorded TV without any additional hardware. TiVo is also a neat feature called “Smart Extend,” which automatically adjusts the length of recordings for sporting events. (I’ll be posting a broader interview with TiVo on these features and other topics next week.)

I tend not to be too rattled by this kind of thing. The nice thing about streaming TV is that, when faced with a potential price hike, you can decide whether you’re getting your money’s worth and take your business elsewhere if not. Here’s a compelling argument that the price hike only proves Netflix’s strength, even in the face of growing competition.

Amazon (and others) dive into free: Amazon is getting into free, ad-supported video with a new service called IMDB Freedrive. It’s available on the web, through the IMDB app on mobile devices, and on Fire TV devices (say “go to Freedive” with the voice remote to find it). The service includes a selection of movies, TV shows, and original programming. And as Gizmodo notes, it uses IMDB rankings to promote the best stuff. Some Roku users say they’ve found Freedive content through Amazon’s Prime Video app, but I haven’t tried this yet.

Freedive joins a growing number of ad-supported streaming services including The Roku Channel, Pluto TV, TubiTV, as companies realize there’s a limit to how many subscriptions people will pay for. Broadcast giant Sinclair also just launched a free streaming service called Stirr, and NBC plans to launch a free streaming service for pay TV subscribers in 2020. Anyone still arguing that the cost of cord-cutting sure adds up is clearly overlooking how much you can now watch without paying a dime.