Interactive TV — The Screen Talks Back

First — the honest part

READYWARE isn't an interactive-TV app. It's a control-everything app — remotes, room macros, live-camera wallpapers, your whole house on any screen you own. Interactive TV isn't a feature we set out to build. It's what falls out of a control layer that can already lay a real, tappable button over anything on screen.

We didn't sit down and say "let's build an interactive-TV platform." We built a remote that renders real controls over any content — a stream, a page, a commercial. The moment that content could ask for one of those controls, the screen could talk back. It came along, because the buttons were already real.

Why Interactive TV Is Different

The screen has been trying to reach back for twenty years — red buttons, QR codes, second-screen apps, walled-garden "shoppable TV" SDKs. Each one made the same mistake: it built its own little UI, in its own silo, that couldn't touch anything real in your room. Interactive TV doesn't ship a widget. It hands a cue to a control layer that can pop a real button — and even fire your real devices.

Two Clean Layers — One Cue

Interactive TV keeps the message and the action completely separate, exactly like the .irc standard. The content only ever sends a small, open cue. What that cue turns into on screen is READYWARE's job — the same canvas and rendering you already build remotes with.

Event-Driven. Zero Speed Cost.

Because cues ride existing transports, they can fire in sync with the moment on screen — the poll opens the instant the host asks the question, the buy button appears exactly when the product is shown.

What Creators Can Do

The Cue Object

Every cue is one small, versioned, human-readable JSON envelope. A page or a stream sends it; READYWARE reads it. That's the whole wire format.

"cue": {
  "oic":  1,                 // format version
  "do":   "vote",             // verb: toast | open | vote | show | fire | launch | buy
  "arg":  { "a": "Keep it", "b": "Cut it" },  // payload for the verb
  "ttl":  8000,              // ms this cue stays live on screen
  "id":   "poll-42",          // dedupe / update key
  "sig":  "…"                // optional signature — required for gated verbs
}

Versioned On Purpose

The oic field is the version. New verbs and fields can be added over time and older apps simply ignore what they don't understand — the same forward-compatible rule that keeps the .irc format alive. A cue that a viewer's app can't act on safely does nothing at all.

Cue Verbs

Everyday content interactions are open — showing a button, a poll, or a link just works. Anything that could reach your own saved device macros, launch another app, or touch payment is gated and never silent.

* buy only ever opens a checkout page — it can never complete a purchase or spend your money on its own. You always finish the purchase yourself.

How Cues Travel

Cues ride the pipes that already exist — nothing proprietary to install on the pipe. READYWARE just listens on whichever one the creator already uses.

You're Always in Control

Interactive TV vs. The Alternatives

License — CC0 Public Domain

The Interactive TV cue format is published under CC0 1.0 Universal (Public Domain) — the same open footing as the .irc standard.

No attribution required. No restrictions. No company can revoke it. No license to comply with. Any site, stream, or app can send or receive cues, free forever — broadcasters, streamers, creators, and viewers alike.

For Broadcasters, Streamers & Site Creators

Interactive TV is an open, published format — a few lines to add, nothing proprietary, no lock-in. Build against the cue format and your cues land in every READYWARE canvas — on phone, tablet, and TV. Want the drop-in script and reference examples, or a hand wiring your first cues? We'll get you going.

Building on Interactive TV?

Tell us what your stream or page wants to send — a poll, a shoppable hotspot, a play-along — and we'll wire it up with you. See the Help guide and FAQ for how controls render on each screen.