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This is a temporary measure. Soon enough, they will have 5G or 6G modems inside, a special arrangement with carriers (a la Amazon’s whispernet), and You would h

This is a temporary measure. Soon enough, they will have 5G or 6G modems inside, a special arrangement with carriers (a la Amazon’s whispernet), and You would have to wrap it in tinfoil to stop it from reporting on your viewing habits and showing you ads.

RealStickman_ 6y ago
At that point maybe it would be lucrative for people handy with the soldering iron to remove those modems and resell the TV.
- beagle3 6y ago
  They would also need to to root the TV as well, as it will refuse to work without said modem being functional. This is a losing game, and it seems like the only recourse is regulatory.
xenadu02 6y ago
IIRC don't Samsung TVs already connect to any open access point they can find in an attempt to upload analytics, or was that Vizio? I definitely remember someone was doing that, meaning not connecting to the network only worked if there were no open APs around. I'm sure soon enough the TVs will refuse to boot unless connected to the internet.
- calmworm 6y ago
  I recently turned on my Vizio to see it had updated its firmware and I was forced to accept terms of use and privacy policies from both Vizio and Google before I could do anything else on the TV. It was essentially bricked unless I accepted. I accepted, then immediately unplugged the TV from the network, removed the WiFi information and manually entered bad DNS settings. I rebooted the TV and it reconnected to WiFi automatically! Not happy. Forget network, re-enter bad settings, check router logs... it’s no longer connected in any way that I’m aware of, through my network anyway. Very negative experience.
donor20 6y ago
Don't these guys just do deals with the wifi hotspots from comcast for backhaul? My understanding is the move for hotspots is to have a "guest" spot show up automatically that other comcast users and third parties comcast sells access to can use. Samsung pays a bit to get access to this and voila - they can skip the internet setup steps (so more consumer friendly) and block you from blocking their ads / ACR (consumer not friendly). If it hasn't already happened it will.

RealStickman_ 6y ago

At that point maybe it would be lucrative for people handy with the soldering iron to remove those modems and resell the TV.

beagle3 6y ago
They would also need to to root the TV as well, as it will refuse to work without said modem being functional. This is a losing game, and it seems like the only recourse is regulatory.

xenadu02 6y ago

IIRC don't Samsung TVs already connect to any open access point they can find in an attempt to upload analytics, or was that Vizio? I definitely remember someone was doing that, meaning not connecting to the network only worked if there were no open APs around. I'm sure soon enough the TVs will refuse to boot unless connected to the internet.

calmworm 6y ago
I recently turned on my Vizio to see it had updated its firmware and I was forced to accept terms of use and privacy policies from both Vizio and Google before I could do anything else on the TV. It was essentially bricked unless I accepted. I accepted, then immediately unplugged the TV from the network, removed the WiFi information and manually entered bad DNS settings. I rebooted the TV and it reconnected to WiFi automatically! Not happy. Forget network, re-enter bad settings, check router logs... it’s no longer connected in any way that I’m aware of, through my network anyway. Very negative experience.

donor20 6y ago

Don't these guys just do deals with the wifi hotspots from comcast for backhaul? My understanding is the move for hotspots is to have a "guest" spot show up automatically that other comcast users and third parties comcast sells access to can use. Samsung pays a bit to get access to this and voila - they can skip the internet setup steps (so more consumer friendly) and block you from blocking their ads / ACR (consumer not friendly). If it hasn't already happened it will.