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Try it. I did. I couldn't find a non-smart TV. They are everywhere. If you want the 4k, then you have a smart TV. The best alternatives were super large moni
by buro9 9y ago
Try it.
I did.
I couldn't find a non-smart TV. They are everywhere. If you want the 4k, then you have a smart TV.
The best alternatives were super large monitors (way over the price of a TV, and with no decent sound built in), or corporate display panels (for advertising, signage, etc) whose prices are also way above a TV and include no sound system at all.
- tehwebguy 9y agoIs it dangerous to open a modern TV? Might be worth finding the network chips and disconnecting or breaking them off.
- TheCoreh 9y agoOr just don't connect them to the network?
- noir_lord 9y agoThats what I did, it popped up after first power up asking for wifi password, to quote Snowden "lol no.".
- zeep 9y agoAny of them automatically connect to open wifi networks or maybe cellular networks?
- pjc50 9y agoIt's usually a single-board highly integrated solution; CPU, RAM, Flash. You might be able to disable the wifi (if present).
- Scoundreller 9y agoFunny how they do this with TVs, but even on a Macbook Air, the flash and wifi cards are still separate components.
- userbinator 9y agoTo a rough approximation, a "smart TV" consists of a computer, laptop-style, connected to the display and speakers. From various places online, you can buy "scaler" boards that take HDMI/VGA/etc. to whatever interface the panel uses (LVDS is common), i.e. they comprise essentially all the electronics inside a standard non-smart monitor. They are intended for laptop display conversions but can drive much bigger displays too, as long as the interface is the same. That might be an alternative to buying a much more expensive "dumb TV", i.e. buy a smart TV and "dumb it down" yourself! For example, this particular one is configured for an iPad's display but the sellers usually have other configurations available: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4K-eDP-HDMI-LVDS-Controller-Board-LCD-Display-Driver-Sets-Support-2048x1536-51-Pins-for-iPad/32795530294.html https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4K-eDP-HDMI-LVDS-Controller-...
- gh02t 9y agoIt's not as dangerous as a CRT, but there are some dangers; however it doesn't really matter. They're tightly integrated, you can't just pull out the smart bits and leave behind a tuner. Generally most modern TVs are gonna have a power supply, a main logic board, a display driver board and maybe another control board for stuff like backlights or sound. The logic board is basically gonna be an embedded mini computer running a full embedded OS that orchestrates the UI/smart features, decoding the inputs and generating the control signals for the panel driver. This will all be highly integrated on a single board, probably with almost all of the functionality in one or two main chips. Point being, you can't just yank out the smart stuff and still have a functioning TV. It'd be a bit like trying to remove a feature from a computer motherboard. The ideal way to go about it would be to write your own firmware for the chips, but that's a practical impossibility because almost always there's no data publicly available on the chips or the other parts like the panel. You might also be able to get something working if the actual panel uses a standard interface, but it'll be a ton of work. There aren't that many teardowns of televisions online that I can find, but this article has some to give you an idea. https://www.techrepublic.com/pictures/cracking-open-the-55-samsung-led-tv-un55d6300sf/ https://www.techrepublic.com/pictures/cracking-open-the-55-s...
- beached_whale 9y agoThe non-smart 4k tv's exist and can be found for relatively inexpensive prices. I just got one, an off brand Technicolor TC5580-UHD.
- Johnny555 9y agoAnd, which make/model is it?
- beached_whale 9y agoIt's a technicolor tc5580-uhd. Not expensive at all. It's the same company as curtis and rca.
- kentlyons 9y agoHaving worked at Technicolor a while, they just licenses the brands to 3rd party OEMs. So the hardware is not from the same company.
- beached_whale 9y agoI know, but it did what I wanted and didn't cost a lot($399CDN minus store points). Picture is acceptable too.
- teh_klev 9y agoWhere did you find one?
- beached_whale 9y agoOn sale at Shoppers Drug mart in Canada. But Costco sells models like it too
- dawnerd 9y agoI’ve only been able to find industrial ones designed for applications such as theme parks where they’re basically in kiosk mode. Also not cheap.
- barrkel 9y agoOr a projector. Consumer projectors have built-in sound but you'll still want to hook up surround sound. And if you care about hi-res that much, you'll want it on a nice big screen where you can see the difference. I project onto a 100" screen.
- userbinator 9y agoThe best alternatives were super large monitors (way over the price of a TV, and with no decent sound built in), or corporate display panels (for advertising, signage, etc) whose prices are also way above a TV and include no sound system at all. I wonder how big the market is for "dumb" TVs priced lower than smart ones --- given that the development costs, if any, for one would be much lower since you're basically just asking an OEM to combine existing parts (panels and electrics), perhaps it could be a startup opportunity to sell "the TV you watch" --- essentially big monitors with speakers and tuners and nothing else. Some things they could advertise: - absolutely no data collection - zero boot-up time - near-instant control response - no software requiring constant upgrades or maintenance
- freedomben 9y agoWhat you say makes sense, but I wonder if the amount of money they make re-selling our data would allow them to actually undercut the cost required to produce a "dumb" TV. So it's possible it would cost more for a dumb TV because it isn't subsidized by data reselling (I'm purely speculating here. I would guess dumb TVs would drive down the cost of smart TVs as they eat into their profit margins to maintain market share, which is important to the value of their data). Nevertheless, a dumb TV marketing to me like that evokes an immediate "take my money!" response.
- kalleboo 9y agoNot only selling data, but selling pre-installed app slots as advertising. Sure they won't be able to convince Netflix or YouTube to pay to have their apps pre-installed on the home-screen, but other wannabe streaming platforms would probably be happy to cough up
- ricardobeat 9y agoI doubt that would be any cheaper. Something like that would already have an ARM processor inside for all the digital housekeeping, the cost to bump specs a bit and make it run an embedded OS and GUI are likely extremely low. The boot time is something that has irked me forever, and it seems the culprit is the HDMI protocol itself, so that wouldn't be improved either.
- pjmlp 9y agoNot really. There a plenty of dumb 4K Blaupunkt TVs sold in Germany pretty much everywhere.
- acjohnson55 9y agoI bought a Vizio P65-C1, excited to have found a modern TV without smart features. Then, a couple months later, an OTA update made it smart. I had to read the fine print to realize that this came with some bullshit "feature" where Vizio auto recognizes whatever I'm watching. I disabled it deep within some totally nonintuitive menu.
- pwg 9y ago> I disabled it deep within some totally nonintuitive menu. Have you monitored it's network activity? If not, how can you be certain the "disable menu" was not actually a placebo?
- acjohnson55 9y agoIt very well may be.
- Chirael 9y agoI did this by following the instructions I found at https://www.consumerreports.org/privacy/how-to-turn-off-smart-tv-snooping-features/ https://www.consumerreports.org/privacy/how-to-turn-off-smar...
- pwg 9y ago> I couldn't find a non-smart TV. They are everywhere. If you want the 4k, then you have a smart TV. Or, hmmm... How about simply not buying that 4k if it is "smart". The only feedback channel you have to the makers about your displeasure over the TV offerings is to simply not buy one. They listen to nothing else. If the unit sells, they don't care about any other expressed dislikes (it sold, after-all). If the unit does not sell, and none of the units sell, only then do they listen. But as I said at the outset, too few folks care enough to make a dent in their sales figures. So those of us who do care are left with simply not buying a new TV.
- dreamcompiler 9y agoMy intention -- the next time I buy a TV -- is simply to never tell it my wifi password. Do these things refuse to work without internet access?
- propogandist 9y agothey do work without internet access. You can also tell your TV to try to access the internet via Ethernet (w/o having it plugged in) and that will usually shut down all the intrusive BS (at-least on Samsung "smart TVs")
- petepete 9y agoI use a DNS blacklist to prevent my Samsung TV from displaying ads in the UI https://gist.github.com/peteryates/b44b70d19ccd52f62d66cdd4bcef1e52 https://gist.github.com/peteryates/b44b70d19ccd52f62d66cdd4b...
- dragonwriter 9y agoYou can find non-smart panels or monitors in most common TV sizes, but they aren't TVs because they lack TV tuners. Of course, unless you are doing OTA or no-box cable (is that even a thing anymore?) you aren't going to use a builtin TV tuner anyway. Prices, though, are usually higher than TVs.
- rsync 9y ago" ... or corporate display panels ..." Exactly. A commercial display / signage display is indeed what you need to buy if you want a "dumb" TV. Not only are they as dumb as dumb gets but they are highly reliable and usually fairly rugged. Many of them have an expansion card slot which allows you to change the inputs - you could remove your 2x HDMI card and insert an SCART card instead, for instance. Finally, if you get a video wall model, you'll get near-zero bezel. They're not that expensive - how could they be if they are being purchased twelve at a time for display walls ? Yes, they are more than $399 + mail-in rebate from Frys. It's worth it.