6 ms·
RTings, a site that reviews (amongst other things) televisions, maintains a list of fully ad-free models: https://www.rtings.com/tv/tests/ads-in-smart-tv https
by LeoPanthera 5y ago
RTings, a site that reviews (amongst other things) televisions, maintains a list of fully ad-free models:
https://www.rtings.com/tv/tests/ads-in-smart-tv https://www.rtings.com/tv/tests/ads-in-smart-tv
(They are the ones with "10" in the ad-free column)
The dominant brand for ad-free models is in fact... Vizio.
- dbpatterson 5y agoAd-free doesn't necessarily mean they aren't tracking you, right? Viewership info is _still_ valuable, even if it's not being used right on the device.
- LeoPanthera 5y agoYes I suppose that's true. Tracking can at least be defeated by simply not connecting to the internet. Some TVs with ads actually have ads pre-loaded on them, so not connecting them isn't sufficient to defeat the ads.
- codezero 5y agoThis is until they start using 5G or LoRa to make a mesh to get around that.
- thantik 5y agoAmazon's Smarthome stuff offers basically a bluetooth side-channel specifically for this purpose. It's called "Amazon Sidewalk", and they are already using it for Tile trackers, Ring Doorbell stuff (the doorbell even acts as a mesh point for this in some models)
- codezero 5y agoYep, eventually this technology will be worthwhile for folks with less scale to implement. Maybe Amazon will license access to Sidewalk. I believe Apple does a similar thing with their devices.
- irq-1 5y agoUnder "Opt-out of Suggested Content" its "No" for the Vizio TVs. Either its generic Ads, or they're watching you to target the Ads.
- LegitShady 5y agocurrently ad free, you mean. I bought my mom a TV that didn't have ads and a year later it had ads and its own wifi network I couldn't disable. You 'own' the device but you can't control it. It's 'smart' and you're dumb, because you controlling it isn't the goal.
- bestouff 5y agoHow can someone on HN be unable to "disable" a TV's WiFi network ? Can't you just ban its MAC address from the router or something ?
- jackson1442 5y agoIts _own_ wifi network, likely a Chromecast network like “Vizio $MODEL.c”
- sa1 5y agoMaybe he means it came with a sim card.
- LegitShady 5y agoIt has its own wifi network it broadcasts - an internal wifi router that makes its own network. There's no option to disable it. You can stop it from connecting to your devices, but you can't stop it from broadcasting. You don't know what information it's collecting as your devices constantly query what wifi networks are around them. Even if the tv has no internet connection it still broadcasts a wifi network. I imagine the same way google improved their location services by driving around and literally collecting wifi network information, vizio can see where any TV not connected to the internet physically is if they send someone to drive around and look for their own TVs wifi networks.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- bestouff 5y agoAha I get it. If it's not connected to any network, there's not much harm in it collecting some data. But I see it'll be a problem for the common people.
- akvadrako 5y agoInteresting table. I'm looking for an ad-free OLED TV and I see there are none from the past 3 years.
- wyager 5y agoEvery TV is ad-free if you don't give it internet access.
- unnouinceput 5y agoor use Pi-hole smartly!
- jay3ss 5y agoThis is my solution, although it sometimes feels like playing a game of Whack-A-Mole
- dogma1138 5y agoA Pi-Hole can also break your TV interface, like it does with Samsung TVs after the recent updates they expect the ads to load when they don’t things get messy. It’s pretty much a TV + a set top box these days if you want to avoid ads in day to day use with most brands now. I think out of the major brands only Sony hasn’t been pushing ads so far at least as far as their premium models go.
- thaumasiotes 5y agoDon't they automatically search for any nearby wifi? I remember complaints about that.
- jobe_br 5y agoNot sure if that was a Vizio thing, but I think Samsung did/does this.
- jobe_br 5y agoThis. I factory reset my Vizio a couple months ago because it was crashing a lot and I didn’t bother giving it any Internet access this time around. There are also no other WiFi networks nearby.
- throwntoday 5y agoI have a 4k Vizio dumb tv. It was the only one I could find that didn't have some laggy android/web OS and it's been solid for 4+ years. Never once connected it to the internet though.
- acjohnson55 5y agoI bought a 4k Vizio P65 dumb TV 4 years ago, and to my surprise, it was upgraded over the air to a smart TV.
- madengr 5y agoHuh, how was it “upgraded over the air”? Does it have a hidden cellular modem?
- daxelrod 5y agoCan you please give more detail about what model this was and how the upgrade worked? Did you give it an internet connection? Did it find open wifi on its own? Did it use a cellular antenna? I'm curious as an owner of a Vizio TV that I think is a dumb TV...
- acjohnson55 5y agoI have the P65-C1. I had it connected to the internet, because of the built-in Chromecast client. So I was imprecise in saying "OTA", because it was just an ordinary update. Interestingly, the TV came with no remote, because it included a simple Android tablet, instead, which was supposed to be used as a streaming source and to run the remote control app. So in a sense, it was kind of like a smart TV, but with the brains externalized to the tablet. But when they decided to upgrade it to a proper smart TV, they also mailed me a regular remote. But yeah, I was kind of irritated, given that I specifically bought it to be more of a dumb TV. I also took care to disable the screen scraping data collection.
- wmf 5y agoHalf of the Vizio home screen is a carousel promoting third-rate streaming services like Tubi and Crackle. At least it's not ads for prescription arthritis medicine, but it still looks pretty advertisingy.
- whynotmaybe 5y agoI think you just have to wait for them to have enough data on their users so that they sell ads to companies with a clear profile of what their users want. For the same movie, netflix is not showing the same poster for me or my kid. For "the dead don't die", it's Adam Driver for me, Selena Gomez for my kid.
- jancsika 5y agoThis is a separate issue-- article is about tv surveillance and these tvs you link only that happen not to show ads "on the TV's smart platform." I'm going to rankly speculate that every smart tv does surveillance on the user on part of either the manufacturer or some third party that pays the manufacturer for the data. Otherwise why bother putting a damned wifi chip and browser in the thing at all? I'll take my tinfoil hat off if anyone can link me to an extant business model that includes all that smart business yet somehow doesn't leverage it to make money in our modern economy. But even then it had better be no data leakage by design (which, if it's connecting to the internet for whatever purpose I can't possibly see how that would work in practice)-- otherwise one update and you're back to square one. Additionally, your link doesn't include the few tvs that happen to be good ole' non-smart tvs. Check out feature #9 on my Walmart special: > USB – USB connects to USB flash drives for playing music and picture. The USB port is also used for updating the display’s firmware. So good luck with your Smart TV Behavioral Modification Systems that may or may not shoot ads at your head, HN. Meanwhile, I'll be sitting in the privacy of my own home, sipping tea wile deciding which jpeg I'm going to play next.
- spoonjim 5y agoWhat’s Rtings’ business model?
- LeoPanthera 5y agoNew reviews are restricted to paying members and only become freely viewable to everyone, later.