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HBO Max now has a dedicated app on Vizio SmartCast TVs

HBO Max now has a dedicated app on Vizio SmartCast TVs

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The HBO Max logo against a dark background with white circles around it.
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

HBO Max is now available on Vizio SmartCast TVs, meaning users will no longer have to use casting workarounds to access the streaming service.

Prior to today’s announcement, Vizio TVs lacked a native app within SmartCast, Vizio’s smart TV interface. Instead, they’d have to cast its content to their televisions using Apple AirPlay or by casting with Google. The addition of the app directly from the apps menu should make accessing HBO Max far more intuitive for SmartCast users.

To mark the launch of the app on its sets, Vizio will also introduce a custom homescreen carousel to showcase HBO Max’s new teaser freebies. HBO Max no longer offers free trials, though it recently announced a limited sampling of the pilot episodes of more than a dozen of some of its most popular series, which can be streamed in-app without paying for an HBO Max subscription. Vizio users will be able to access these rotating teasers directly from the Vizio carousel.

The addition of HBO Max on the Vizio platform comes more than a year after the streaming service’s launch. It also arrives as HBO Max has widened its distribution footprint in recent months, most recently launching on LG smart TVs as well as Dish and Spectrum TV

“The launch of HBO Max on VIZIO SmartCast TVs is a terrific addition to the vast distribution of the platform, adding to our connected TV footprint and making it easier than ever for our customers to access HBO Max where and how they want,” Jennifer Mirgorod, head of partner management and partner marketing at WarnerMedia, said in a statement.