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Samsung warns customers that Smart TVs are always listening (2015)
- basicplus2 10y agoThe only answer is to disassemble every new TV, and disconnect the microphones and cameras. Perhaps I can make a business out of this service.
- msh 10y agoWhy not just spend your money on a TV without mic and camera? My lg smart tv have neither.
- basicplus2 10y agoI presume sometime in the not too distant future, all TV's will have cameras and mics.
- nf05papsjfVbc 10y agoI noticed that TVs nowadays come with an HDMI connector for their video (and audio) input. Could a computer monitor with speakers serve in place of the TV? I suppose that leaves the problem of not having a remote control for the 'TV'. However, if the inputs are from a cable-tv box or a media-box, they should have their own remote controls anyway. Is there some simple reason to avoid doing this, which I overlook because of my ignorance?
- petters 10y ago> Is there some simple reason to avoid doing this 50"+ computer monitors are rare (at least where I live).
- kaybe 10y agoGo for a projector then, that works pretty well for us. Old games filling the whole wall is pretty jarring at first, but surprisingly you also get used to that.
- patrickk 10y agoProjectors have gotten much cheaper in the past few years (I used to look in awe at some of the incredible creations on the now-defunct lumenlabs forum at the DIY creations people would build because of the high projector cost back about 10 years ago). You can buy a very capable 1080p projector for €450-500 or so. You can build a high quality DIY screen if you're so inclined too. It's a bitch to setup, and you have to hide the power and HDMI cables somehow, but the experience is unbeatable.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- flukus 10y agoI wonder if dumb TV's will disappear before long?
- petepete 10y agoThey already have. I couldn't find a high end dumb TV last year. I've used no features of my smart TV because ARC is awful and everything's (Kodi box, Sky and Chromecast) plugged into my home theatre system, so the TV's speakers are disabled. Smart TV, however smart, won't be as good as a £30 Chromecast in a couple of years.
- flukus 10y agoI got one from Aldi around Christmas, maybe they were just clearing stock?
- flushandforget 10y agoIt's just insidious though isn't it? There's a scare that we might have internet connected energy meters. You end up with dozens of devices that have connectivity and you don't actually know what they do. I have a satellite box, that I manually connect to the internet every once in a while for on demand services. But I have no idea what information it sends back. Could send back my entire viewing history for all I know. Or rather it might be collecting and storing data to later send. I noticed my satellite box trying to pull a web page from my computer. Malware is another problem.
- BrandonMarc 10y agoThe word "telescreen" comes to mind. Then again, cell phones are more ubiquitous and close at hand, and are also always listening ...
- warrenmiller 10y agoThis is from 2015
- phyushin 10y agoWhy would you need voice search in a TV though... I can't understand ... I don't understand which everyone is going nuts for IOT either!? Why do I want a web browser on my fridge really
- mattnumbe 10y agoTo be honest, I really can't wait until my fridge tells me that I'm out of eggs. I hate going to the supermarket and forgetting what's in there.
- uppercasenut 10y agoYou'll probably turn it off after a few days. Stop reminding me about tomatoes, I don't want to buy them.
- cm2187 10y agoWhat you can do now is do your shopping from your kitchen and get it delivered. So convenient.
- flushandforget 10y agoIt's an odd problem. My partner insists on keeping a shopping list. But mostly I remember what we have in the fridge and store cupboard, as I frequently cook. I don't actually forget that many items when shopping. Toothpaste I don't keep in the fridge. Being able to have a quick glance remotely could help, but I'd probably then abandon trying to remember, and it would probably take me longer. My partner recently tried a little stretch of buying online and collecting from the store. But for me, it took all the fun out of shopping. I actually enjoy strutting the supermarket - and some domestic tasks. My partner likes certainty. I like mixing things up a little.
- catdog 10y agoIt probably will just order some overpriced eggs from (and only from) the manufacturers partner store.
- lupin_sansei 10y ago
- mattnumbe 10y agoLooks like Vizio got fined for doing something similar recently. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/02/06/these-smart-tvs-were-apparently-spying-on-their-owners/?utm_term=.240cc62be8b2 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/02/06...
- wassago 10y agoThis is really old news, and actually, the text in the link was pretty much inspired by the one from Huffington Post from 2015 - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/09/your-samsung-tv-is-spying-on-you_n_6647762.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/09/your-samsung-tv-is-...
- wuschel 10y agoI agree that it is old news. Orwell's "1984" with its scary concepts of mass control and indoctrination is even older. Whenever I read about those TVs I have to think about how dehumanizing the outcome of the dystopian story was, and how we slowly - but decisively - move into the accepting such privacy and rights intrusions.
- skocznymroczny 10y agoThat's why I bought myself a dumb TV, and added smart features using a Raspberry Pi connected to it by HDMI. The TV has no internet connection available.
- jafingi 10y agoYou could just buy a smart tv and don't connect it to the internet. And have a Raspberry Pi on it. That way you can control everything yourself.
- kakarot 10y agoI wouldn't trust that security model. Ultrasonic communication and other covert channels still provide a way to exfiltrate data. Best to remove the microphones personally.
- theprotocol 10y agoIf we're to think of this from an economist's perspective, then you would want to get an equivalent television without the voice command feature, and it would be cheaper.
- Daviey 10y agoWhen many smart tv's display adverts and commercial apps, you could argue that the smart feature is subsidising the TV.
- theprotocol 10y agoGood point. The point I was trying to make was that from a market efficiency perspective, this kind of thing should not be a problem. So it might be more expensive to remove the feature altogether, including the advertising revenue it would generate. Such is the cost of privacy, apparently.
- flukus 10y agoSo TV's nagging to have a connection setup is something we can look forward to then?
- GTP 10y agoBut Samsung said that it only happens when you issue a vocal command, not that the TV is always listening. I have a Samsung smart TV and you have to press a button to use a voice command so it may not always listen to you as is stated in the article. And they share the information to a third part not to sell it but for the voice recognition task.
- Markoff 10y agoi don't mind cameras, you can just stick tape over them (until they will be build behind the display which will take few more years), microphones are worse, is there some easy way how to disable or mute them without disassembling TV and voiding warranty?
- bamboozled 10y agoDon't own a TV, especially a Samsung, fixed...
- bonjurkes 10y agoLooks like there is a small difference as voice search and voice activation. I own smart tv (Sony) that has microphone on the remote which you can only use at Youtube search bar (then light lit on the remote when microphone is active), and I believe it's quite nifty as typing via remote is PITA. On the other hand I don't know voice activation features on smart TVs. Do you tell your TV to "turn on" or "change channel", which is not practical IMHO. It makes sense that personal assistants (amazon echo, apple siri, google whatever) listen all the time as you use trigger words to activate them but it's so useless for TVs.
- gcb0 10y ago> up votes > has an apple tv it is the same thing.