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Sadly it's a logical and inevitable consequence of giving up control over our technology. I think the answer has to be, simply never buy a TV that you wouldn't
by zmmmmm 5y ago
Sadly it's a logical and inevitable consequence of giving up control over our technology.
I think the answer has to be, simply never buy a TV that you wouldn't be completely satisfied with as a dumb HDMI display. Cos even if it's not abuse like this, eventually the built in functionality will break, or become too insecure to keep active on your network.
In fact it goes for just about any appliance these days: whether it's your fridge, microwave, dryer, doorbell or anything else, if it doesn't have a "dumb" offline mode where you are still completely happy with what it does, don't buy it.
- junon 5y agoThe problem is is that the "dumb" TVs in any amount of quality or high resolution are absurdly rare, expensive or both.
- gruez 5y ago1. buy smart TV 2. don't connect it to the internet 3. enjoy your "dumb" TV
- OneLeggedCat 5y agoThis will work great up until oh about the mid 2010's when vehicles started getting cellular connections "for free." This will be the next thing that happens with TV's, and you won't be able to turn it off.
- kibwen 5y agoStep 4: encase your entire house in a Faraday cage.
- johnywalks 5y agoStep1: Don't buy their products
- BenjiWiebe 5y agoYour WiFi won't have to deal with the neighbors interference then either, so that'll be nice.
- chii 5y agoi bet they will just put a sim card inside the tv, and ota update it.
- candiddevmike 5y agoThat's the real promise of 5G.
- cornstalks 5y agoThat's what I do. It works, but there are a couple downsides worth mentioning: - Firmware updates are more annoying to do. LG has added some new features via firmware updates, like Dolby Vision at 120 Hz, but since I've never updated my firmware I'm behind. I believe I could update via USB but like I said, the downside is it's more annoying to do. - The TV still wants to be smart. Every time I turn on my LG CX I get a bar of apps that pop up along the bottom of the screen. Half the time this auto-dismisses in a few seconds, but the other half of the time it persists and I have to manually dismiss it. It's a minor inconvenience, but it's one of those annoying reminders that my "dumb" TV isn't dumb enough. But overall, I'd highly recommend others doing something similar. Though I've heard of some TVs auto-connecting to networks like Amazon Sidewalk, so perhaps this approach won't always work.
- esperent 5y agoI did update the firmware on my lg then immediately deleted the wifi password. Have not seen any negative effects. Also I bought a service remote for something like $4. With that you can change some hidden settings and make it start faster (I never see the app bar when connecting to my PC, for example).
- PeterisP 5y agoModern smart TVs will aggressively connect to the internet themselves without you needing to do it for them. If your neighbor has an open wifi hotspot, or of a local cable monopoly has all the routers acting as hotspots under their control, that's enough. Also, simply including a mobile connection is a possibility - cars do it, TVs can as well if the manufacturer considers the price is worth it.
- crackercrews 5y agoHow can you tell if this is happening? If it's not showing ads, should I even care? It can't tell who I am if I've not logged into it or logged it into my wifi. It's surely bad for TVs to do this. But I'm not quite sure what the issue is if it has no idea who I am.
- heavyset_go 5y agoWireshark
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- andrei_says_ 5y agoConnect the tV to a guest network with no access to the internet?
- esperent 5y agoI've heard people say this quite a bit but at least with my LG C1 (which I use as a monitor) that doesn't seem to be the case. I connected it to the wifi once to download a firmware update, then deleted the password. It's never complained or attempted to connect, or shown me any kind of advertising. I also have a TCL tv (didn't buy this one, it was provided by my landlord). It is connected to wifi - it was already connected when I moved in. I use it once a week or so to play Netflix through my laptop. I've never seen adverts on it so I haven't disconnected it. I have seen people mention that it might depend on the region. But I'm in Vietnam where I don't think there's any amazing level of consumer protection around advertising.
- junon 5y agoWhy should I pay for features I'm not going to use?
- czx4f4bd 5y agoThis is what infuriates me the most. I keep thinking about replacing my cheap-ass no-name TV that I've been using for the last 8 years, but the only quality options are all smart TVs and I hate it. I just loathe the idea of having a TV that (1) is going to have a smartphone-class SoC built-in that I won't even use for anything and (2) is going to be yet another computing device I don't control. I begrudgingly tolerate the fact that my PS4 and my phone are computers I don't control, because at least they offer functionality that's useful to me, but I draw the line at smart TVs because they aren't even useful in the first place. I'm just going to use my PS4 for everything on it anyway, but then I'll have have another device where I have to worry about software updates and shitty anti-consumer practices. /rant
- saxonww 5y agoI was looking at monitors the other day and wondering who buys the large format gaming monitors. Gigabyte has a 48" OLED right now that looks pretty good for about $1100. Philips has a 55" VA panel for $1600. Both are 4k/120Hz and support an HDR standard, and afaict these are just monitors, no smarts. I'm not sure what you give up with these other than the OS.
- JoshTriplett 5y ago> Gigabyte has a 48" OLED right now that looks pretty good for about $1100. I'd recommend against that one. While it's the same panel as the LG OLED, the software is much worse, with an aggressive backlight limiter that can't be turned off and progressively dims the screen, and a panel refresh cycle that demands turning the monitor off every few hours (and doesn't happen automatically when the panel is turned off by the computer going to sleep). I'd love to find a high-quality 4k+ OLED (or ideally QD-OLED) panel with no associated "smarts".
- _fat_santa 5y agoMy suggestion here is to use either a game console or set top box (Roku, Shield, AppleTV) as the primary interface. My TV likes to show ads and all, but I never see them because as soon as I boot the TV i immediately go to my Xbox and do everything else from there. Pretty soon though I feel like even this "loophole" will be closed and TV manufacturers will start placing ads even on HDMI outputs.
- andrei_says_ 5y agoWhat happens if you don’t connect them to Wi-Fi?
- julianlam 5y agoI hear this parroted on HN every single time a topic re: smart TVs comes up. They're not exceedingly rare. A tad more expensive, yes, but not hard to find. The brand is called Sceptre, they sell them at Wal Mart. Am I missing something? Maybe that brand doesn't exist in the US?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- saxonww 5y agoIt does exist in the US, and they do sell them at Wal-Mart, although not the full line and (at least in my area) not in-store. The Sceptre website shows everything 'ReStock Soon', so maybe the latter is temporary. There aren't many reviews of the sets - Consumer Reports doesn't even track a single one right now - and what you can find is mostly mediocre to negative.
- bo1024 5y agoSceptre are 4K but I don’t think they’re high quality.
- MertsA 5y agoFor a datapoint on Sceptre quality, I've got two 24" Sceptre monitors in front of me that are incredibly annoying because Sceptre cheaped out and doesn't bother to program the monitor serial number into the EDID and instead just use a static placeholder value. This means every time I reconnect my work machine there's a 50/50 chance the display layout will be backwards because MacOS can't seem to use the interface path to differentiate monitors like Linux does.
- julianlam 5y agoThanks for sharing this, I haven't really heard anything negative about Sceptre, but that is mostly due to relative obscurity.
- 5y ago
- ed25519FUUU 5y agoDumb HDMI is exactly how I use my TV. NO internet access at all. Everything through my Apple TV which has much stronger privacy stance.
- nemo44x 5y agoIt’s more a function of pricing. A manufacturer can complete more competitively by doing this.
- OneLeggedCat 5y agoAnd when a market is limited to only a few players, that means that the only relief will be whatever is provided by government rule making.
- rektide 5y ago> Sadly it's a logical and inevitable consequence of giving up control over our technology. Personally i dont think it's 100% certain that all consumerized technical products start abusing their customers. Personally it feels really early in on this one. The free hand in this product segment is just exploring what it can do what it can get away with. Markets are conversations. I expect this one is not, like you podit, at an end, but rather just beginning. Perhaps this move survives but seems like it'll be hard to keep going, to defend.