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This thread feels very...Hacker News Bubble? Why is everyone so confused that smart TVs are popular? Being able to just turn on your TV and open Netflix witho
by arduinomancer 5y ago
This thread feels very...Hacker News Bubble?
Why is everyone so confused that smart TVs are popular?
Being able to just turn on your TV and open Netflix without messing around with inputs/other devices is a huge benefit for non-technological people.
And it probably costs <$50 for the manufacturer to include whatever chip is running linux in the TV, its a no-brainer.
- hakube 5y agoIt's running Android for the most part. Samsung is running Tizen I think
- Allower 5y ago>No-brainer As in only a moron would buy one. Yup agreed, the real pandemic destroying humanity is stupidity.
- elihu 5y ago> And it probably costs <$50 for the manufacturer to include whatever chip is running linux in the TV, its a no-brainer. I would assume it costs negative dollars to include that chip in the TV, because the cost is likely more than offset by whatever the app vendors pay to have their app included, and whatever marketers pay for ad placement and telemetry.
- hoov 5y agoThere is also spyware running on them. They literally spy on what you're watching and send the info home, and the data gets sold to market to you. No thanks. Edit. They also connect to unprotected wifi networks to send data without your permission.
- beermonster 5y agoAnd in the case of Toshiba at least, use their own hardcoded DNS which doesn't honour the one handed up by local DHCP or even the one configured in the advanced settings where you can manually configure the DNS! Just stick it in a VLAN to isolate and control.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago"Why is everyone confused that smart TVs are popular?" TBH, Im more confused by the parent comment. (Although this is a very typical type of HN comment, passive-aggressive denigration of anything "not popular".) These type of comments make me wonder why would anyone, other than the companies benefitting, care if some HN commenters do not love so-called smart TVs. This is not a mainstream audience. Moreover, I see no comments indicating "confusion" why surveillance TVs are popular. I see comments that indicate either (a) distaste for them, (b) desire for alternatives or (c) passive-aggressive denigration, like the parent; for example, something like "the market has spoken". WTF. Why would anyone read HN if all they want to read is a restatement of "popular" culture. Only speaking for myself but I want to read about alternatives to popular choices that feed surveillance marketing as "business strategy".
- wombatmobile 5y ago> "Why is everyone confused that smart TVs are popular?" In his Appendix, Orwell explains the syntactical arrangement and the etymology of the Newspeak. A living language, such as English, one that has the capability of diverse expression, has the tendency to gain words and therefore broaden the awareness and knowledge of its speakers. Newspeak, on the other hand, loses words, by removing words that represent opposing concepts. Therefore, for example, because the word "good" presumes the opposite of "bad," the word "bad" is unnecessary. Similarly, all degrees of "goodness" can be expressed simply by adding standard prefixes and suffixes to this one root word: ungood (bad) and plusgood (very good) and doubleplusgood (wonderful). In so doing, Newspeak not only eliminates "unnecessary" words, but it also promotes a narrowing of thought and, therefore, awareness. The idea behind Newspeak is that, as language must become less expressive, the mind is more easily controlled. Through his creation and explanation of Newspeak, Orwell warns the reader that a government that creates the language and mandates how it is used can control the minds of its citizens. https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/n/1984/critical-essays/the-purpose-of-newspeak https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/n/1984/critical-essay...
- hilbert42 5y agoRight, true. Hovever, the matter of goodness/ethics, etc. is probably best summed up by G.E. Moore in his 1903 work Principia Ethica: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principia_Ethica https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principia_Ethica
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- p1necone 5y agoI'd love to use a smart TV as designed (assuming half decent UX), but because I can't trust manufacturers to not push an update that starts showing me ads I instead never give them internet access and use a chromecast or my PS4 for smart functionality instead. I do also prefer the incremental upgradeability you get by keeping display tech and software separate. I can avoid spending 4/5 digit $s on my big dumb screen for way longer when I can just upgrade a $50 dongle periodically (although it turns out google is way better at supporting old chromecasts than most smart TV manufacturers are at supporting software on old TVs).
- jsjdjdjj 5y agoThey do eventually erode internals after a few years, and become increasingly unreliable even after a deep clean, however each $29 upgrade also boots faster and starts playing faster too..
- kumarvvr 5y agoI own a smart TV. I am very well aware of the data and privacy issues. However, my wife and kid love it. The main reason, as pointed above, is extreme convenience and user experience. Sit on the sofa, grab the remote, shout out a programme name and it starts up.
- pkulak 5y ago> And it probably costs <$50 for the manufacturer to include whatever chip is running linux in the TV, its a no-brainer. I'm pretty sure manufacturers make money through analytics and ads on smart TVs. What consumers like is the at-or-below-cost price of the hardware.
- nailer 5y agosmart TV is a brand (silly because it’s a generic term). But eg roku Xbox and fire tv are not smart TVs.
- pessimizer 5y ago> Why is everyone so confused that smart TVs are popular? Also the real reason that they're popular: there are no non-smart TVs available.
- vincentmarle 5y agoI can recommend Sceptre if you want a decent dumb TV.
- bigbaguette 5y agoThinking next time I need a big panel I'll shop in the digital signage area, and take care of inputs and sound externally. Philips got the BDL line, NEC also a big supplier.
- squarefoot 5y agoThe choice is shrinking, but there are still some available. Example: https://www.sceptre.com/TV/4K-UHD-TV/U750CV-UMRD-75-4K-UHD-TV-product1131category1category73.html https://www.sceptre.com/TV/4K-UHD-TV/U750CV-UMRD-75-4K-UHD-T... Sadly unobtanium in the EU.
- howenterprisey 5y agoI just got this one myself (the 50-inch model, really), and am completely satisfied with the purchase.
- squarefoot 5y agoIf you have time, please could you check somewhere if there are traces of any manufacturer other than Sceptre? Although possible, I don't think they're made exclusively by or for Sceptre as the cost should be much higher due to the smaller market, so I believe there are chances they could exist somewhere else under a different brand, which hopefully would distribute in the EU. Thanks!
- patrickk 5y ago
- ccheney 5y agoCan you even purchase a dumb but modern TV set? e.g. a dumb 4K OLED?
- dawnerd 5y agoYou can but they're really expensive and not designed for regular home users.
- echlebek 5y agoGigabyte have a 48" 'monitor' now (an LG panel with Displayport 1.4 and no smart features)
- kelnos 5y agoDoes it come with a remote control? I expect most panels sold as "monitors" don't.
- fulafel 5y agoDon't most things you'd want to use this with come with remote control mechanisms? Chromecast, Apple TV, whatever you run on your raspberry pi, etc.
- pmontra 5y agoYes, but TVs and monitors have different purposes and it shows. A quick summary at https://thewiredshopper.com/tv-vs-monitor/ https://thewiredshopper.com/tv-vs-monitor/
- Beldin 5y agoTL;DR: - If you want a certain display tech (qled, oled, ...), you don't need this guide. - otherwise: there is no difference. pick whatever screen has the size and ports you care about. I expected something like distance (several m for tv, .5m for monitor), but that goes unmentioned. I guess size+resolution already cover this.
- tyingq 5y agoMy non-tech extended family members all use separate Roku and/or FireTV devices instead of the built-in TV functionality, because I've seen the devices. I don't know why, but they do.
- Johnny555 5y agoI was pretty happy with my old LG TV's smart apps, but it seemed to get more and more sluggish with each update, until finally it got annoying enough that I bought a Roku.
- mholm 5y agoLots of people bought Rokus/FireTVs before they had a smart TV, and now simply prefer the interface.
- francisofascii 5y agoMaybe because the Roku interface actually works properly, whereas the apps on the smart TV are slow and buggy.
- jcranberry 5y agoI bought a "premium" Roku box brand new for I believe $90 so I could have one with an ethernet cable. That was 3 years ago and it's currently supremely buggy. It goes green, black, crashes mid episode, if I skip a few times within a few seconds the audio might desync. It was already bad but I got a new speaker system and hooked it up to an AV receiver and it instantly got several times worse. I don't know if my experience is typical but 3 years is a disappointing lifetime for something like this IMO.
- Arrath 5y agoVery much this. I use the Netflix app on my smart TV as it mostly works without issue. Hulu stops with a black screen every few minutes. I haven't bothered to look to see if it has Disney+ or HBOmax apps, I just use my phone and chromecast to do anything other than Netflix.
- javajosh 5y agoIt's Samsung hate, not smart tv hate (although there's that too). (I have a smart tv but honestly I don't want it anymore. I'm creeped out by the whole idea of it, and I don't like how it's always updating, or complains with blinking lights when it's not on the internet. No ads though. For now. It's kinda hard to find a dumb TV but I may just go with either a large-ish computer monitor or a projector.)
- kook_throwaway 5y agoFor a dumb TV to computer a projector is the way to go. I haven't darkened everything much so it doesn't work great in the daytime, but I tell myself that's a feature not a bug.
- nsxwolf 5y agoThe software in the newer LG OLEDs is so good I haven't bothered hooking up any of my boxes to my new TVs. I'm sure in a few years the UI will start to feel sluggish and it will be time to plug something in, but for now its a great experience, far better than any smart TV I've used before.
- somethoughts 5y agoInteresting side note - the LG SmartTV OS has a lineage from PalmOS (Apologies in advance if this is common knowledge). webOS, also known as LG webOS and previously known as Open webOS, HP webOS and Palm webOS, is a Linux kernel-based multitasking operating system for smart devices such as smart TVs that has also been used as a mobile operating system. Initially developed by Palm, Inc. (which was acquired by Hewlett-Packard), HP made the platform open source, at which point it became Open webOS. The operating system was later sold to LG Electronics, and was made primarily a smart TV operating system for LG televisions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebOS#2013–present:_Acquired_by_LG;_open-source_edition_launched https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebOS#2013–present:_Acquired_b...
- RandomThrow321 5y agoCompletely agree. I hated the idea of a clunky "smart" TV and only purchased LG because of the ratings on picture quality. I have a Nvidia shield, Amazon fire tv cube, and a media PC. I recently realized I use none of them, because the LG software is good enough (and there's a Plex app).
- arenaninja 5y agoI have a non-OLED LG. Great picture, have not plugged anything in but casting from iPhone is buggy (it was added remotely via an update years after I bought the TV). It's amazing, and with very little bloatware
- yesimahuman 5y agoAgreed, I was shocked that I stopped using my Apple TV and that a Smart TV app experience would be even remotely close to an Apple one.
- PragmaticPulp 5y ago> This thread feels very...Hacker News Bubble? Smart TVs is one of those recurring HN topics where it’s clear that people made up their minds years ago, likely from a single bad experience. Now they can’t imagine that any progress has been made since then. There’s not much reason to buy a new TV these days if your old one still works (with an external TV box) You can still find terrible smart TVs out there, of course, but the newer models from top tier vendors like LG are actually quite good. I think it’s going to take many years before the angry HN smart TV comments catch up to modern reality.
- olyjohn 5y agoI don't think so. I think regardless of how good they are... a lot of people don't want to sell their viewing habits in exchange for using an app that you have to pay for to watch shows.
- jychang 5y agoI mean, most people just use Netflix and Hulu and Plex from their smart TV anyways. The former 2 are already collecting your viewing habits, and the latter is uncollectable since it's just streaming from your own server.
- olyjohn 5y agoSure, but Netflix is collecting my viewing habits about what I watch on Netflix. That makes sense to me. But Netflix isn't collecting my Hulu and Plex habits. The TV is aggregating all of those, which they have no business doing, and selling that. Though now that I think about it, all 3 probably sell your viewing habit data.
- Forbo 5y ago> the latter is uncollectable since it's just streaming from your own server. Except smart TVs take screenshots of what you are watching and send it back for content analysis and correlation. So even if all you're doing is using it as a dumb monitor they are still collecting data about you. Edit: Before someone calls me a tinfoil hat, it's called automatic content recognition, look it up.
- mattnewton 5y agoThere are almost no tv manufacturers offering consumer TVs without the ability to connect to the internet to collect metrics, display ads, and run “apps” like Netflix. I don’t doubt it’s because the upsell is profitable and regular consumers would choose the TV with smart features over a similarly priced TV without, but it’s also possible no one has decided to compete on the “our TV is $40 cheaper, comes with a rebate for a roku you were going to buy anyways, and also we can’t push ads to you through it”
- kelnos 5y agoI would expect the smart TV is "cheaper" for the manufacturer to make; likely they get money from Netflix (etc.) for including their apps by default on the TV, and I'm sure they get recurring revenue from selling the data they get from the spyware on the TV. I'm sure that extra money more than makes up for the cost of the extra hardware in there to make it all work.
- fsckboy 5y agoisn't it going to be "our TV costs $40 more, but..."?
- mattnewton 5y agoYou’re probably right, the ad space and metrics might be worth the component cost, r&d and then some. Slap some apps on it to justify it to the consumer and sell it cheaper.
- AussieWog93 5y agoI can tell you for sure that pre-pandemic you could get AllWinner SOCs capable of 1080P 60Hz for around $2.50/pc. The 4K ones seem to be around $7/pc, still peanuts. From memory, Netflix pays around $10 to have a dedicated button on the remote, so even if the manufacturer didn't play any ads they'd still be in the black.
- RKearney 5y ago> Why is everyone so confused that smart TVs are popular? Because almost all of them use internet connectivity to show you ads on home screens.
- throw03172019 5y agoI disconnect from WiFi. It makes my “smart” tv a normal one that doesn’t serve my shitty ads, lag or turn on some random SamsungTV channel.
- savant_penguin 5y agoJust because you disconnected it from wifi does not mean they cannot connect it through lte without your knowledge
- nmstoker 5y agoMaybe your comment was tongue in cheek but if the product did not reveal it contained a radio transmitter, this would undoubtedly be illegal in the US, EU & UK.
- jen20 5y agoAnd what will you do when there are no TVs to buy that do not contain LTE transmitters to force more spying upon you?
- zucker42 5y agoFew people feel strongly that a chip running Linux makes a TV worse. What they object to is when the manufacturer controls the TV rather than the owner of the TV. Modern smart TVs override the users' desired by, for example, showing ads. It's even possible these chips will eventually be responsible for copyright verification. This would be fixed if it was possible to modify the chip's software and easy to install alternate OS bulbs.
- MereInterest 5y agoExactly. Were smart TVs to come with OSMC pre-installed, where I have full root privileges on the computer, then it would be a fantastic thing. But since they are instead designed to spy on the alleged owner, to report usage, to download unskippable advertisements, then smart TVs have instead become an abomination.
- lp0_on_fire 5y ago"Please drink verification can" https://i.imgur.com/dgGvgKF.png https://i.imgur.com/dgGvgKF.png
- the_biot 5y agoThere's a very real opportunity here for an open source project that takes on the task of doing an alternate kernel/distribution/applications for smart TVs. Big job, and likely to take a while before getting caught up with newer SoCs etc. But it's totally doable -- it worked for e.g. OpenWRT on SOHO routers, sat receivers, etc. (what is an OS bulb?)
- matheusmoreira 5y agoWe're not confused by their popularity. We understand perfectly why the average person would want technology that is perfectly converged and easy to use. We're frustrated because our screens went from dumb panels that displayed signals to proprietary computing platforms with DRM, ads and a full surveillance capitalism suite complete with microphones and maybe even cameras, all of which do nothing but serve the business interests of corporate giants. All that nice stuff that the average person wants? We want it as well. But we want it on our terms. I want to do things that will no doubt cost the manufacturer thousands of dollars: kill their ads, deny them any and all data, etc. The TV should obey.