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> If I paid 1000s of dollars for an "idiot box" that's supposed to reproduce faithfully the signal that I pass it Just don't connect it to the Internet. The b
by huhtenberg 6y ago
> If I paid 1000s of dollars for an "idiot box" that's supposed to reproduce faithfully the signal that I pass it
Just don't connect it to the Internet.
The bigger problem is that at some point there will not be any "idiot box" models at all. The TVs will refuse to work if they aren't seeing the Internet. Then we'll be truly fucked.
- fxtentacle 6y agoThen I'll start selling a little $50 box to emulate internet and route all update / advertisement requests to /dev/null :) Or maybe we (the tech community) just agree on one model and produce an open source firmware. If you look at MagicLantern for Canon, you'll see how amazingly far people will go to control their hardware.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- huhtenberg 6y agoThat won't last long either if at all. They will just require an SSL connectivity to their servers with a custom CA root. The end.
- adriancr 6y agoso... 1. Order TV. 2. test if it works without agreeing to anything and without internet. 3. return if that's not the case. I have yet to accept EULA on samsung on anything and it works... Right now the ACR is troubling. Telling a remote server what you're watching... Only solution I found - not connected + hdmi to Linux box I control.
- belorn 6y agoAs an older comment mention, they can easily add an delay that makes it work without an connection only for the duration in which an return is possible. It is very hard to win against hostile design.
- adriancr 6y agoI agree with you it's hard to win against hostile design but there are options for now. If it stops working after return period I call under warranty that it stopped working (2 years), they are forced to fix the issue. Explain the issue, explain you cannot connect to the internet. If it doesn't work, forward the whole info to the customer protection bureau if you're in the EU. Edit: I will test this out by setting a date far in the future when I buy new equipment (will also hopefully cause SSL failures due to expired certificates internally in the firmware)
- fxtentacle 6y agoThis would be a known defect under EU warranty law, which means once it kicks in, you can get a full refund if you want to.
- adriancr 6y agoThey can try and fix it 3 times then you get your money back.
- anticensor 6y agoThat would easily cause lawsuits as it is clear that the other party is doing that solely to cheat against law.
- fxtentacle 6y agoYou're assuming a level of technical skill on the side of TV manufacturers that it almost sounds like a joke to me. In any case, all you need is one model with a decent screen and broken certificate pinning and I'm good for the 3-5 years that the TV will last. And until then, I'd assume that Nvidia sees the market demand for big TV-like PC screens and outcompetes the TV manufacturers.
- bluGill 6y agoIt is called a monitor. Works just fine for whatever and people use it for work. The factory I work at had large one scattered around to show line information. Some of the information is safety critical and so if it is inyeruped with an ad there will be legal issues.
- toong 6y agoIn a not so-distant future dystopia you can only get monitors without ad-overlays, when you pay for the monthly subscription ... You'll get the first month for free, when you sign up for the 2-year plan for 19.99$/month right now!!
- Cthulhu_ 6y agoOh no, you'll pay the subscription AND you'll get ads. That's what Amazon Prime feels like atm, preroll ads for other shows at the start of everything you play (even next episodes).
- Freak_NL 6y agoI've wondered about this. The TV I have (a Sony Bravia) is now almost a decade old (works fine). We got it specifically because it has a slot for a DVB-T module (terrestrial broadcast). DVB-T is now gone (replaced by DVB-T2, but I doubt this will remain in the air long), so we have no broadcast TV now, only our HTPC connected to it with Netflix, local media files, and a browser. Frankly, we don't miss the TV channels. Streaming works okayish for the public channels, but we rarely bother. The TV is just a dumb screen connected to a receiver, which has the HTPC as input as well as record player. So the only thing a 'TV' offers me is its screen. Is that any different from a high end computer monitor these days? Is there a difference based on the viewing distance perhaps?
- bluGill 6y agoHistorically monitors has better pictures at the expense that you couldn't look at them off angle, while TVs you could look at from anywhere in the room. I think that is gone today but it might be something that comes up again... Though in the safety critical application I brought up off-angle viewing is a requirement.
- oarsinsync 6y ago> The bigger problem is that at some point there will not be any "idiot box" models at all. The TVs will refuse to work if they aren't seeing the Internet. Then we'll be truly fucked. We're closer to that than you think. My Philips Ambilight television (purchased this year) throws a popup every few weeks already complaining that I've not completed setup and connected it to the internet. As sold as I am on Ambilight (it is actually brilliant), I wont be buying another Philips television.
- cheschire 6y agoYou may be able to connect it to your router but then use your router's parental control features to block the net for that reserved IP.
- Hamuko 6y agoI should see what happens with my Philips TV if I block it from accessing the Internet. It's currently plugged in because it's also connected to my Hue lights but I don't really ever use any Internet features on it. Also, if you really enjoy Ambilight, there's a (kinda expensive) solution to get it on any TV now: https://www.techradar.com/news/philips-hue-now-lets-you-turn-any-tv-into-an-ambilight-tv https://www.techradar.com/news/philips-hue-now-lets-you-turn...
- oarsinsync 6y agoThis looks brilliant, thank you!
- 6y ago
- flucivja 6y agojust thinking what would happen if I block connection to Ads services in my router...
- random_visitor 6y agoThat's pretty much what a pi-hole is. According to my friends who use a pi-hole to filter their connection, it makes almost everything ad-free
- lucasverra 6y agoAlso https://nextdns.io/ https://nextdns.io/ on the cloud. I run my ios devices with no ads thanks to this honest service. Can i modify the DNS resolver on a samsung tv (i do not intend to have one ever)
- mercora 6y agoyou can but if it cant resolve it will fallback to googles resolver automatically. At least this is what happened on my model.
- lostlogin 6y agoYes, this happens. But then you make a firewall rule to route outbound port 53 traffic that doesn’t come from the Pihole to go back to the Pihole. It gets rather elaborate.
- aronpye 6y ago> you can but if it cant resolve it will fallback to googles resolver automatically. At least this is what happened on my model. I built my own router with a raspberry pi. I installed pi-hole and use that as a dns resolver. I then use an iptables rule to NAT / forward all dns traffic on port 53 to the pi-hole resolver, similar to how ISPs often intercept dns requests. This prevents IOT devices from bypassing the dns server configured via my DHCP. Letting pi-hole block the requests helps prevent errors from dns request timeouts.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- dessant 6y agoThe NVIDIA Shield TV, which runs Android TV, can no longer be initialized without signing in with a Google account, the setup screen will refuse to get past that step, even if you don't have an internet connection. The forced login is likely illegal, because there is no mention of a requirement for a Google account in their marketing materials or on their sales pages. The device stays perfectly functional if the the network connection is cut off within seconds after signing in, and the account can be removed after the setup is complete. The only drawback is that you can't update apps from Google Play, unless you add a Google account again.
- cornedor 6y agoIn Europe it definitely is illegal under the GDPR
- WrtCdEvrydy 6y agoiOS 14 now requires an account to enable the phone. It literally just bricked my test iPhone SE.
- gruez 6y agoAre you sure it's not the icloud lock?
- WrtCdEvrydy 6y agoNo, it's a requirement after updating to have an icloud account in order to get past the out of the box screen.
- simonh 6y agoThat doesn't sound right. You do need an iCloud account to enable some functionality, for example to enable seamlessly switching AirPods between different Apple devices.
- WrtCdEvrydy 6y agoI started the phone, put the pin in and triggered the upgrade. After the upgrade completed there is an only an option to put in a email/password for icloud and there is no "skip" or "do later" button I could find. I'm pretty derpy but I can tell you it is true.
- m463 6y agoI think that will just create a market opportunity. There was a company that made just a good tv, no smarts, but I can't find it right offhand. It think it was a european company
- nicolas_t 6y agoJVC does this for their video projector (which are also pretty damn good). I've seen people complain about that though so not sure how long that'll last.
- entropicdrifter 6y agoAlmost all projectors in "high end TV" price range and up have 0 "smart" features. I've been running a BenQ w1070 since 2013 and couldn't be happier
- vinceguidry 6y agoMarket opportunities are for companies to make more money, not less. If everyone is doing it, it’s because the market, us, told them they could get away with it, and therefore will, because two revenue streams will always be better than one.
- nitrogen 6y agoThis power of the market to vote with dollars is highly overstated. "We" have no say in a hypothetical nine figure, back room wine and dine deal between ad execs and TV execs, when the ad money can afford to be in every back room.
- RandomBacon 6y agoSceptre TVs. They sell dumb 4K TVs.
- bbojan 6y agoI have one. Best buy I ever made.
- rrobukef 6y agoMy TV needed a firmware upgrade to get HDMI working. You need to accept EULA's before connecting and updating.
- mrweasel 6y agoCan't you just yank the internet connection afterwards? I did a firmware upgrade and just disconnected from the internet right after. I also don't use the built in apps, because let's be honest, compared to an AppleTV, all SmartTV apps are basically garbage. I understand that the AppleTV is somewhat expensive, but it's my baseline for the quality I'd expect from a SmartTV. Netflix on the AppleTV, starts instantly, and you're browsing the content endlessly after 20 sec. Start Netflix on the TV it self, that will take a few minutes.
- rrobukef 6y agoYeah, I did. and at least it is an Ad-free TV.
- adriancr 6y agoreturn it?
- rrobukef 6y agoChanced are, they would have "fixed" it for me. By accepting ALL EULA's. iirc, I could accept half before updating. Edit: also, it was a gift.
- 7786655 6y agoOn mine I was able to do an offline firmware update by loading the new firmware onto USB flash drive. Was hoping the new firmware would fix a bug in the built-in video player, but it didn't.
- cced 6y agoThis is not the solution. Adding a PiHole to your network is not the solution. Disabling features in other places of your network is not the solution. What if Samsung decides that it will try to connect to open networks for updates or what not? What then? Ask your neighbour to install PiHole on his network? No. This is an example of a game of cat and mouse that shouldn't exist - you pay money for a TV and that's not enough? You giving them your money is not enough and so they decide to shove ads down your throat because profits. Simple solution would be just not to buy Samsung.
- vinceguidry 6y agoUntil they all start doing it. Real solution is regulation. But that can only happen if the outcry is large enough. Having two revenue streams is always going to be better than one.
- ClumsyPilot 6y agoAll starts with us accepting the idea that the device you paid for still isn't your property, and if tomorrow samsung decides to show porn on all samsung TV's, there is nothing you can do.
- huhtenberg 6y ago... or, you know, when you can't install a software you want on a smartphone that you own and paid $1000 for.
- Nbox9 6y agoI’m concerned that in the future devices I do not want to be connected to the internet (let my TV) will come with 5g or some other technology and be able to connect itself. I think with IoT and a desire for ease of setup this might be possible if the price of mobile internet drops enough.
- mywittyname 6y agoAutomobiles already do this without your input.
- throw0101a 6y ago> Just don't connect it to the Internet. One also has to be cognizant of HDMI Ethernet in case of "unintended" connectivity: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI#HDMI_Ethernet_and_Audio_Return_Channel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI#HDMI_Ethernet_and_Audio_R...
- LargoLasskhyfv 6y agoMaybe in about 10 years, or even sooner, when 5G is everywhere, and the IoT-chips are so cheap that it doesn't matter anymore, they are built into every appliance like in new cars now. Always connected by whatever means. What then? Faraday cage?
- hawski 6y agoI bought a used projector some time ago. Couldn't be happier. I usually watch something after it's dark and I also have very good blinds. It probably warms up in similar, or better, time that many TVs boot up nowadays. I just have a Chromecast connected to a soundbar connected to the projector. VLC handles Chromecast, although somewhat buggy, so I can watch things from my computer in another room. Also Netflix experience with Chromecast is mostly superior to smart TVs, because it will not play anything while you just try to find something worth watching. Connecting Chromecast to the soundbar also gives ability to listen to music from Youtube, without running display. It wastes bandwith however. EDIT: I wrote "beamer" instead of "projector" at first
- aembleton 6y agoWhat's a beamer? I thought you were talking about a BMW at first.
- hawski 6y agoAnother word for a projector.
- gst 6y agoThe word "Beamer" is a German word that isn't really used (in that context) in any other language. Same as with "Handy" for smartphones.
- hawski 6y agoOh, must have been my time spent in Germany. As Wikipedia disambiguation page says: > Beamer > Video projector, a pseudo-Anglicism in a number of languages including German, Dutch, Latvian and Swiss French
- Anther 6y agoI run mine on it’s own network so at least it can’t spy on my NAS and network infrastructure. If it tried this ad nonsense I’d filter it through a pihole or something similar. I will not go down without a fight with these snooping gadgets.
- mciancia 6y ago> Just don't connect it to the Internet. Haha, just wait until 4g/5g will become so cheap that TVs will have them built in for doing software updates and sending telemetry when offline :)
- canucker2016 6y agonot an option for some recent samsung TVs - if you don't connect the TV to a WiFi AP, the TV "grows up" and will try and connect to any open WiFi APs itself. see https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/bpr6xs/if_you_choose_to_not_connect_your_samsung_smart/ https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/bpr6xs/if_you_choo...
- pelliphant 6y agoI just bought a gigantic computer monitor and connected it to my apple-tv, problem solved. sure, the monitor was atleast 25% more expensive than a similar screen with a smart-tv function in it, but I think it's worth it.
- ploxiln 6y agoI actually ran into one of these recently. I stayed at an AirBnB which had a super-cheapy small-ish TCL+Roku TV in the living room, with a super-cheapy thin antenna thing. The internet was "acting up" (95% of packets dropped, unusable) so we tried to watch some broadcast TV. You had to either sign in with a Roku account, or as "Guest", but "Guest" had to accept a couple long EULA, and it needed internet for that to work, but the internet was fubar ... I had to use my phone as a hot-spot for the TV to get it to display broadcasts! That left the TV's wifi config such that it definitely won't work for the next person, lol ...
- JTbane 6y ago>Just don't connect it to the Internet. Wait until they start including a cellular modem that can't be turned off.