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The downfall of smart TVs: From promises of seamless viewing to ad tool
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y agoI like it. They keep making it easier to read more books! "I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book." - Groucho Marx
- blueflow 4y agoThe URL is borked Edit: fixed!
- afiori 4y agoProbably correct URL: https://adguard.com/en/blog/smart-tv-ad-blocking.html https://adguard.com/en/blog/smart-tv-ad-blocking.html
- buro9 4y agoNot mentioned: Samba(dot)TV... who are probably THE single most aggressive surveillance company operating in the Smart TV space. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/05/business/media/tv-viewer-tracking.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/05/business/media/tv-viewer-... And the Pi-Hole list you want is here: https://github.com/Perflyst/PiHoleBlocklist https://github.com/Perflyst/PiHoleBlocklist
- Traubenfuchs 4y agohttps://archive.ph/Lhr81 https://archive.ph/Lhr81
- snarfy 4y agoarchive.ph sends tracking to https://top-fwz1.mail.ru https://top-fwz1.mail.ru no thanks
- Traubenfuchs 4y agoIf it would remove all paywalls and nag popups I would personally send my browsing history to everyone who wants to see once per month.
- whimsicalism 4y agoMy guess is that American companies won't provide analytics to a website like archive.ph
- smileybarry 4y agoAFAIK it's at least still opt-in (different checkbox on-setup and all), and you can outright disable the APK on Android/Google TV.
- vonseel 4y agoI interviewed with them years ago. The technological challenges seemed cool but ethically I wouldn't want to work on tracking what people are watching.
- brightball 4y agoThis type of expectation is why I've always gravitated towards Roku sticks. They're cheap, really well designed, centrally controlled on your account and you avoid any need to over-invest in specific TV vendors to have the same experience across the board. And it can't do anything that the HDMI port can't do.
- Snitch-Thursday 4y agoyeah. I've made the 'not going to do nothing but also not going to dedicate my life to self-hosting everything' choice: I bought a dumb spectre generic tv, then hooked up a roku stick, and am letting the pihole catch whatever it can, and hoping for the best from there. So far, the banner ads in roku stay away, so it probably works well enough?
- Shady69 4y agoI get what your saying but the article specifically mentions Roku partnering with Walmart to not only show ads but even facilitate the purchase... My solution has been a Raspberry Pi running Kodi.
- brightball 4y agoThere's a part of me that wonders if this wasn't by necessity. I went into Best Buy just before Christmas and they had Google TVs and Amazon TVs everywhere, prominently displayed and fully stocked. They only had 2-3 little Roku TV's hidden in the back corner that I had to ask somebody to even find. If I go into Sam's Club or Walmart, I can find Roku everywhere with great options. It made me wonder if the other vendors were trying to push Roku out and because of that they were forced into a deal with Walmart to remain viable.
- ValentineC 4y ago> This type of expectation is why I've always gravitated towards Roku sticks. I like Roku's interface and price, but it's a shame that they're nigh-useless outside the US.
- 4y ago
- DethNinja 4y agoThere is a much better option for HN crowd: Buy a large/modern computer monitor and connect it to your homelab’s media server. Literally there is no need for a smart TV so long as you are capable of setting up a small homelab.
- dwighttk 4y agoEh, I’d rather get that ad subsidy and never connect the tv to the internet
- dudul 4y agoSure, until we reach the point of "always connected" TVs that will work.
- teddyh 4y agoTVs will soon, if not already, come with cell phones; the ad revenue is larger than what they are charged for the cell phone IP traffic. TVs also reportedly use any open WiFi they can see, and use DoH to make DNS-based ad blocking impossible.
- littlecranky67 4y agoThe "they use any open wifi they can see" myth has been brought up on HN multiple times, and never did anybody provide any credible proof of this rumour (that started as a single reddit comment).
- teddyh 4y agoI would be surprised if modern TVs didn’t connect to open WiFis; there is literally no reason for TVs not to do this, and every incentive to do it. Even if we discount the ads as a motivator, it’s still a simple solution to get people’s stuff configured automatically.
- littlecranky67 4y ago
- candiddevmike 4y agoDownfall implies a failure or ending, it seems like they're still selling like hotcakes. This is why we need regulation to save us from surveillance, most consumers want cheap and don't understand/care that they're selling their privacy instead.
- ClumsyPilot 4y agosome manufacturers are outright scamming people - philips has added advertisement to TVs after they were sold!
- happymellon 4y agoI thought that was Samsung. Of course it wouldn't surprise me if it was both.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y agoSame with my Nvidia Shield TV which is aggravating.
- wccrawford 4y agoAt least with the Shield, nVidia wasn't the one that added those ads. It was Google. nVidia was put in a bad situation there, and I'm hoping they'll correct it soon.
- kesslern 4y agoSony did too. I tried to bypass it by getting a relatively expensive nVidia Shield. It got home screen ads about a year later.
- helloooooooo 4y agoThey’re selling like hotcakes because you cannot find non-smart TVs anymore
- api 4y ago
- tomkaos 4y agoBoth my smart tv are not connected to internet, I just use chromecast and my phone for everything since 8 years. I just hope google never break this.
- coldcode 4y agoI need a 4K TV since mine is only 2K but the only non smart TV I've found are at Walmart, the Sceptre brand. Does anyone know of any other?
- haunter 4y agohttps://www.sharpnecdisplays.us/products/displays/me501 https://www.sharpnecdisplays.us/products/displays/me501 With commercial displays usually the problem is to find a dealer who is not doing B2B only https://www.ebay.com/itm/234299003266 https://www.ebay.com/itm/234299003266 https://www.beachaudio.com/nec-multisync-me501-me501/ https://www.beachaudio.com/nec-multisync-me501-me501/
- swayvil 4y agoRaspberry PI + OpenElec + dumb tv + Pirate everything Not one single filthy obnoxious advertisement. Ever. Access to the WHOLE media library. Do it today.
- cube00 4y agoThe new Google TV launcher complete with ads on an expensive TV or a Shield is getting a hammering in the ratings, shows how little they care about customer feedback. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.tvlauncher https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and... Bonus points for making the preview images in the store not show the ads you'll see. If any other app tried to mislead users like that they'd be banned from the store. Although it's not like we have a choice, they've also disabled the option to change the launcher on the newest Android TV version as well to coincide with adding the ads on the home screen. I get we need to have ads to pay for services but come on, the TVs they're doing this to are not your cheap Aldi ones, they're high end Sony Bravias. Most of the ads are even for other paid services like Disney+ and Netflix.
- scarface74 4y agoDon’t buy hardware from an ad company - problem solved. Why do you think Google got into the TV streaming business?
- cube00 4y agoSony and nVidia are not ad companies.
- scarface74 4y agoIn fact that are. They are selling TVs cheaply subsidized by ads.
- cube00 4y agoWhen I first purchased my TV there were no ads on it. The ads came later when Google updated their Android launcher. So, where's my discount?
- scarface74 4y agoWhy do you think Google - an ad company - was trying to get into the TV market?
- uptown 4y agoAt home, I've never connected my TV to my network. The few firmware updates I've needed to do were applied using a thumb drive, and I use an AppleTV as my interface. When I travel, I bring along an AppleTV and plug the HDMI port into their set. This lets me keep the services I subscribe-to and use them with their display. This has worked great until my most-recent rental, which had a RokuTV -- presumably setup on Wifi. When content was streaming from my AppleTV, Roku would overlay a panel along the bottom-part of the screen proposing that I can watch what I'm currently watching from a variety of other providers. This must mean that the TV set is analyzing the video or audio signal to fingerprint what the content contained, then matching it against a library of content to feed into its profile of my use. This is the first time I've seen something like this. I'd always assumed that if you used the TV's UI and if it was connected to the internet, then you'd probably be subject to their ads and data analysis, but it never crossed my mind that they'd perform the same data-analysis over any signal passing through its silicon. Is this commonplace or is Roku the first of what's likely to be many doing the same?
- guidedlight 4y agoThe latest Sony TV's that offer Google TV can leverage "Basic Mode" which disables the 'smart' functionality leaving you with a dumb TV with best-in-class picture quality. It's perfect to pair to the device of your choice (Roku, Apple TV, Media Server, Xbox, etc). https://support.google.com/googletv/answer/10408998?hl=en https://support.google.com/googletv/answer/10408998?hl=en
- rendall 4y agoDoes Sony have a history of remotely disabling or otherwise changing their hardware features? Because if they do, this Basic Mode is at their pleasure.
- rendall 4y ago> Some may argue that there's no need to be dramatic and that there's nothing wrong in seeing an occasional ad every now and then. Oh, no, I am very dramatic about this. I will go to any lengths not to see advertising. I will entirely forgo any platform that shows me even one ad, especially when I pay them. Amazon Prime video is already pushing it with their preroll previews. The second it's something else I'm canceling and going back to P2P. Fuck 'em.
- blibble 4y agoI cancelled prime due to those prerolls I've already bought the service... why show me ads for it?
- weberer 4y agoThey already started showing ads to people with Twitch Prime a few years ago. It seems like its only a matter of time.
- mrweasel 4y agoIf you're paying for Twitch Prime, but still getting ads, then what are you paying for exactly? Less ads? Sadly I think it's what happens when companies are pushed to generate more and more profit each year. So you you start just a few ads to the paying users, because: "They won't mind one short ad" and then suddenly it's all ads all the time. It does make you wonder exactly how ads are so profitable and which products are paying the whole thing. It almost can't be electronics, because ads apparently help finance TVs and phones as well.
- antx 4y agoAnother case in point: my TCL series 5 has made 11K (!!!) DNS requests for scribe.logs.roku.com, just last month. As a matter of fact, it's now the top-blocked domain in my pi-hole. It's a shame Roku won't allow you to at least opt-out of telemetry.
- PenguinCoder 4y ago11k blocked requests for that domain in a month? Seems low... My pi-hole is blocking that domain about 50k times A DAY. All from one TCL TV.
- aheckler 4y agoI also have a TCL Roku TV and NextDNS. In the last 30 days, just over 16k connections to scribe.logs.roku.com have been blocked. Maybe your TV is a little overactive for some reason? 50k in a day almost makes it seem like something is broken somehow.
- sergiotapia 4y agoIf you have children you have a moral imperative to pirate content and prevent this from infecting their lives. Search for a plexshare. $20 for everything, zero ads. Screw these greedy bastards.
- scarface74 4y agoYou’re right, it’s a moral imperative to show children that if you can’t legally get what you want just do it illegally…
- AlexandrB 4y agoI thought this was the motto of startups. "Move fast and break things." etc.
- Markoff 4y agodownloading video content copy for personal consumption without owning original is legal in many European countries, uploading/distributing would be very different matter, let alone software
- scarface74 4y agoMost pirating is done via torrent. If you’re downloading content, you are also uploading it. But no it isn’t legal to download content that wasn’t authorized to be uploaded.
- tpreetham 4y agoIncorrect. You can turn seeding off. (Although that is not a very neighbourly thing to do) Also torrents are just one source.
- scarface74 4y agoEven when you’re not “seeding” completed downloads, the segments you have are available to other downloads. Many clients also have the ability to downgrade an downloaders ability to get segments if you are not reciprocating.
- whichdan 4y agoI have an LG C1, which is an amazing TV, but even after disabling every single ad-related option, I'll still occasionally get a pop-up ad when the TV turns on.
- casenjo 4y agoInteresting! I have the same TV and never see ads (I'm on the latest WebOS update). My Pi-Hole actually blocks everything and the only times when I see ads are when I disable the blocking to be able to access the app store. Edit: To clarify, ads served on the WebOS interface. YouTube ads are still there.
- LoyCgg 4y agoI am planning to migrate from smart tv to just panel + some android tv box. Any suggestions for the box? Needs to be android for some local tv apps to work.
- s1k3s 4y agoI feel like these anti-consumer practices by BigCorp can open the door for new companies to emerge on the market: build an ad-free tv, ad-free smartphones etc. Or is it just the effect of me living in a bubble while 99.9% of the customers don't care about this?
- scarface74 4y agoYes because consumers have history of paying more for quality in aggregate… There is a reason that two of the five most valuable companies in the US are adTech - Google and Facebook. How many consumers are going to choose to pay $300 more for an ad free privacy first TV? How many consumers right now are willing to pay for an AppleTV over a $30 Roku stick?
- prasadjoglekar 4y agoYou need a surprisingly small number of HN crowd like folks to ruin the market. Most ad targeting - regardless of actual product - goes after people with high discretionary income. If a chunk of those folks self selected out of the video ad market, it ruins the overall economics. This is an idea I've toyed with - corner the >200K income TV market with privacy features. Make it as easy as Roku to block all this.
- scarface74 4y agoHardware needs scale and distribution to be successful. The HN crowd can’t keep geek ventures like the Firefox phone and various Linux phones afloat.
- justaman 4y agoNon-tech people I talk to hate ads too. Boomers have been talking about how facebook is all ads now too.
- atty 4y agoI think there are two reasons. First, most people might be mildly annoyed by the ads at most, and certainly wouldn’t make a buying decision based on them. Second, it’s almost impossible for new companies to compete on both quality and price at the same time, unless they’re subsidizing the product somehow (ads, perhaps? :) or as an unsustainable VC funded business I guess). How often is it that we see a new company that can make a smartphone that has the fit and finish, camera quality, and specs of an equivalently priced iPhone/Samsung/Pixel phone?
- xoa 4y agoFWIW, it is still possible to get TVs without this stuff, albeit at a premium. TVs are still made for business usage in areas like conference rooms, wall displays etc. They're often found under labeling like "commercial digital signage" or "business display" or the like, they seem to often try to avoid using "TV" (if being cynical maybe to make them harder for normal people to discover and confuse them if they do). But they're often nice panels aimed at serious running hours, without this sort of junk (which would give enterprise IT conniptions) and can have very useful feature support like 802.1x authentication which so many devices still lack. Players like NEC will even advertise their use of an RPi compute and wink at lack of spyware [0] for some of their products, but lots of major "smart TV" providers also have a commercial lineup. I think they're well worth considering, particularly for the HN crowd, granted I suppose for people who truly want built-in netflix or the like without connecting something like a Roku or Apple TV maybe it's less optimal. But even they might change their tunes back to the concept of separate boxes and normal panels if they dislike all the ads and data tracking. ---- 0: https://www.sharpnecdisplays.us/products/displays/me501 https://www.sharpnecdisplays.us/products/displays/me501
- jokowueu 4y agoOr just get any smart tv and add a android tv dongle . They don't cost much
- blibble 4y agoif you want to remove ads... buy a product (seemingly sold at cost) from google? seems odd
- workingon 4y agoLuckily, Google has options to turn that stuff off. They could be lying about it, but it's better than generic TV brand which gives you no options, is a security nightmare, and is definitely selling every piece of data they gather to anyone who asks.
- anonymousab 4y ago
- vonwoodson 4y agotl;dr; disable Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) It also doesn’t help that my privacy is always (*ALWAYS*) wrapped in some platform specific jargon.
- Overtonwindow 4y agoI bought my first TV as an adult last year. I’m 44. I barely use it… The problem I had with Smart TVs (Samsung then return to get the LG) are their absolutely abysmal system performance. Jerking, stuttering movement, menus that lag, a counterintuitive controllers, and streaming services usurping the experience; I do not want a permanent Disney+ button!
- jaclaz 4y agoBeing very bad at any commercial initiatives, most probably I am way off, but I think there could be a market for some "enhanced" versions of those "universal" TV/LVDS boards to replace the internals of new TV's. Something loosely along the lines of: https://diy.viktak.com/2014/02/giving-new-life-to-lcd-screens-from-old-laptops-tvs-monitors-etc.html https://diy.viktak.com/2014/02/giving-new-life-to-lcd-screen... I.e. in a perfect world you could be able to buy a (subsidized by ads) "smart TV" and (voiding the warranty) be able to replace the innards with a "dumb" card.
- ilitirit 4y agoYouTube's advertising strategy is pushing me to get rid of my SmartTV, or at least find a 3rd Party solution to completely block the ads. I was completely fine with one or two 6 second ads randomly playing before a video, or during a lengthy video. Then they added 14 second ads, which was very annoying, but bearable since it's about the same length as the two short ads. But now they're advertising even if I simply open the app. Furthermore, they're "hiding" 14 second ads behind the shorter 6 seconds. I've even seen 41 minute advertising content. I'm guess they're banking on users leaving the app on "autoplay" to dupe advertisers into thinking that people actually consume this trash. These days I just cancel every ad out of principle until the video plays. This takes on average 6-7 attempts. But now more often than not I just quit the app completely. So they are depriving their own content creators of views. And then they have the gall to present surveys asking what my advertising experience has been like...
- mrweasel 4y agoYouTube do have a paid option, which doesn't have ads (unless the content creator has some sponsorship deal). It is the subscription service I get the most value from. Based on a few videos from content creators, it also seems like it's a good deal for them. I think Linus Tech Tips phrased something like: It matters much more than you think. Other have shown data suggestion that Premium customers contribute as much as 20 to 30% of the revenue. Having used a device, not my own, to view videos while not on YouTube Premium, I do have to say: You can't really watch YouTube without the subscription anymore, the experience is just awful.
- sligor 4y agoThe paid option is very expensive. I would pay for an ad-free only Youtube, but this option is not available in my country. I already pay for Spotify and Netflix. So I don't care about other services of youtube premium except ads-free
- mrweasel 4y agoIf you don't need/want YouTube Music, then yes, it's way to expensive. If I where to buy today, I would get the version without YouTube Music, and replace it with a service where more money goes to the artists.
- dabeeeenster 4y agoMy solution is https://nextdns.io/ https://nextdns.io/ with a special TV profile that has basically all adblock lists added to it, and then some.
- benhurmarcel 4y agoI use this but it works intermittently. It seems the Samsung TV randomly decides not to use the DNS IP I put in its settings.
- sphars 4y agoI also use NextDNS for my home network. They specifically have a section for native tracking protection (Privacy tab -> Native Tracking Protection) for some of the major consumer electronics brands, including Samsung and Roku. With that option I've never seen an ad on my Roku TV, works great.
- api 4y agoOne thing I fundamentally don't get: all this endless shoehorning of ads into everything is dependent on there being a seemingly unlimited amount of ad revenue on the table. Why? Do ads actually work this well if everyone hates them? What about ads shoehorned into marginal spaces and presented in ways that are barely relevant to the material? The only ads I EVER click on are relevant ads that come up from a search in which I am looking for something potentially to buy. In media and platforms (software, OSes) I usually associate the presence of ads with low-end crap. Am I weird? Are there tons of mindless ad clickers out there who actually buy based on irrelevant ad spam? Why are companies so stingy with wages and willing to outsource their core competencies in exchange for small gains but at the same time are willing to piss endless amounts of money away on ads?
- AlexandrB 4y ago> Why are companies so stingy with wages and willing to outsource their core competencies in exchange for small gains but at the same time are willing to piss endless amounts of money away on ads? Because there's a whole analytics industry that tries to demonstrate ROI for each ad purchased. And as long at that ROI is positive it seems like a no-brainer to throw more money at advertising. I wonder how much of said analytics industry is bullshit. Especially since these analytics are often provided by the same companies that are selling you the ad space.
- api 4y agoI wonder if a good chunk of the whole industry isn't a giant grift against advertisers. Problem is they have to invade our privacy and ruin our products and media to keep the grift going since the ads have to actually be shown somewhere, even if they're ineffective spam.
- vonseel 4y agoI don't remember ever clicking through an ad on Youtube or similar, so I also have to wonder if ads really work so well. I guess I'm not the average ad-viewer since I doubt I've ever purchased anything that I didn't already need or want because I saw an ad.
- rubyfan 4y agoI have a Samsung smart TV but have never agreed to the EULA or connected it to the internet. Not sure if this is good enough but I never see ads or really anything unexpected, just good old fashioned TV. I do worry though that some other EULA I’ve agreed to might give them the ability to connect the TV through SmartThings or something similar without my permission. Doesn’t this seem crazy to even have to consider?
- julianlam 4y agoMy current main television is a Sony Bravia I got right before the explosion of smart TVs. For all that it is "limited", it does all of those things very well. I get much more functionality by plugging in a computer than I do by using any smart TV.
- torh 4y agoAn update to my tv changed it from having a clean startup screen to give me ads for shows on network I don't have, and I hate it with passion. Ironically they have a button that says I can customize the screen, which means I can add more crap, not take anything away.
- steviedotboston 4y agoBestBuy has plenty of non-smart TVs in their insignia brand https://www.bestbuy.com/site/searchpage.jsp?_dyncharset=UTF-8&browsedCategory=pcmcat1539183860210&id=pcat17071&iht=n&ks=960&list=y&qp=televisiontype_facet%3DTelevision+Type%7ENon+Smart&sc=Global&st=pcmcat1539183860210_categoryid%24abcat0101001&type=page&usc=All+Categories https://www.bestbuy.com/site/searchpage.jsp?_dyncharset=UTF-...
- grumple 4y agoThis is a hyperbolic article that doesn't reflect reality for most people. I use my smart tvs for two purposes: 1) to use the native apps for streaming services (and I never get ads except the internal advertising of the apps themselves), and 2) to connect my personal devices (computers, game systems). The native apps are much more convenient than using an external device for my non-techy partner. I stream to another TV from my devices via HDMI and a switch. For most "cord-cutters" that use only streaming services, I expect them to have similar ad-free experiences.
- jeffbee 4y agoSeconded. I use Hulu, Disney+, Apple TV, Prime, and YouTube on my smart TV at various points in time and I never see ads. And I have my Switch, Chromecast, and Blu-Ray player hooked up. In fact the only place I see unexpected ads is on the stupid Blu-Rays.
- dmos62 4y agoThe downfall of smartness: from promise of power to subjugation via data extraction.
- mark_l_watson 4y agoLast year I gave our smart TV to a friend as a gift and bought a “dumb” TV for $190 from Walmart. It has two inputs: one for an old fashioned antenna lead, and the other is HDMI. I plugged an Apple iTV black box into it, and except for a slightly funky remote, it is a fantastic viewing, navigating, and discovery experience. I did give up image quality but I am much happier.
- squarefoot 4y agoSignage displays are the solution, that is, those big screens used in malls, airports, stations etc. they're sturdy built and guaranteed to work 18/7 or 24/7, so don't expect to pay them like a shiny but crappy consumer Smart TV. However pay attention before buying since manufacturers started to add Android based crap and "smart" features to them as well. Usually the lack of any networking, both Ethernet and WiFi, on their technical sheet is the indicator they're dumb enough to be worth of trust. This arrangement of course requires an external receiver since they're essentially beefy monitors. They also make almost-dumb TVs for the above markets. As for the brands, I'm aware of Swedx.com in the EU and Sceptre.com in the US. Samsung also makes some interesting products employing the Tizen OS (any jailbreaking available?). I don't have any direct experience with any of those however.
- gargs 4y agoUnless you use your television solely to experience encryption-free OTA programming, any cable provider or streaming app has the capability to sell your viewership data to third parties.
- ilrwbwrkhv 4y agoThat's why Sony TVs have always been ahead of the competition and the only ones I ever buy.
- asiachick 4y agoI hate this too. I got a top end Sony TV and it was covered in ads. I left it in Basic mode but it's still covered in an ugly ad to please sign up for Google TV Then I finally got a PS5 two days ago. It's also covered in ads with no way to turn them off. I might sell it as I don't want to support such crap and there is nothing I absolutely need to play. The thing I find most infruiating is that someone else gets to decide what I see every time I use either of them (well the tv works in basic mode tho it's an eye sore) Often what's being shown to me is something I find offensive or hate. I hate sports for example. Or it's a TV show I can't stand or a movie with an actor that rubs reminds me of a bad relationship . I get there are lots of situations in life where other choose what I see but for some reason my TV's default when turning it on is one too many
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- wizofaus 4y ago
- cerol 4y agoIs there an end to the Data Age ®? Sometimes I have this interesting thought, that someday, when even the oldest people alive will not know or will not remebered how things worked back then. Then someone, or a group of people, will suddenly rediscover, or reinvent (as we always do throughout history) things that today still exist. Maybe someone will come up with "shops where you are served by real people", or paying for content you watch. Or a "shopping mall, but without cameras" ("but who will be watching me?"). Or a vehicle you can drive yourself. I know it's a silly philosophical thought. But what it points to, for me, is that data harvesting works because it trades privacy for convenience, and even if it's too little, there are ways to opt-out (the trivial case being opting out of convenience). But it's a much too thin line to thread. People are aware of the massive commercial surveillance. They just don't care. Human society is built upon trust or its lack thereof. When trust can't be established, surveillance arises. It only becomes a moral problem when it is done asymmetrically, and in an unprecedented scale. When is too much too much? When your TV starts showing ads, even when unplugged from electricity? When you have to watch an ad to start your EV car (unless you purchase the Quick Start+ package for 9.99/mo)? You can take a break from ads today. That, in a way, ensures that you can consume ads for longer. But industry seems to be moving in the direction of eventually leaving you with no way to opt out. Then, the convenience might not be worth it anymore. That means either a market demand for ad-free products, and a subsequent return to pay-for-content business model, or some sort of social turmoil. Or maybe that's their plan to get us to consume less: just stick everything with insane amounts of obnoxious ads, so we won't buy anything anyway.
- AlwaysRock 4y agoI run an hdmi cable from my laptop and have a bluetooth keyboard with a scroll pad on it. My wife doesnt like it. But its so much faster than a "smart tv". My issue isnt even the ads. Its that half of these tvs feel like they are running on low memory because of how slow they are. Add in the streaming apps that crash just often enough to be really annoying... I wish it didnt have to be that way.
- spywaregorilla 4y agoYeah these threads pop up on HN all the time and everyone starts talking about apple tv and roku whatever and I think they're all... pretty dumb. HDMI + Computer is just the best answer. Works in hotels just fine. I'm not aware of any smart TVs that push ads over your connected devices feed even if you do let them update for no good reason. Keyboard and mouse is better than remotes. Web search is the best search. You can use streaming sites. It's basically free. You can... use it as a living room computer. Hit up spotify and now it's also your sound controller. Have browser tabs. Play videogames.
- wilsonnb3 4y agoPC's are intentionally gimped to prevent trivial copyright infringement. Netflix forces you to use Edge on Windows or Safari on Firefox to stream in 4k because they integrate with the OS's DRM. HBO Max doesn't allow 4k at all on PC's but I think will at least do 1080p if you use an approved browser. I don't think Hulu will stream anything higher than 720p regardless of which browser you use. Disney+ is the same. Good luck getting anything over 720p running Linux and Firefox.
- spywaregorilla 4y agoI think a pleasant user experience in 1080p is a great deal personally.
- asdff 4y agoI also think 4k is oversold. From the couch 10 feet away, a 4k tv and 1080p tv will look the same.
- vz8 4y agoCall me crazy, but I think it's only a matter of time before windows in our living spaces will be monitors with overlaid ads. The in-app purchase will be "allowing us" to remove the ads so we can look at the view in peace. In the meantime, all my TVs never see the light of WiFi and have ROKU sticks.
- npteljes 4y agoI can see the progression like this: 1. Bright monitor that looks like a windows, to brighten up spaces that can't have windows. As it gets more popular, production ramps up, its price decreases. 2. Buildings are now built with these instead of actual windows, because now it makes sense economically. Maybe as more affordable housing. 3. Windows monitors get internet connected in the meantime, and now that there's a guaranteed number of eyeballs on them, become attractive for marketers. 4. Windows now sometimes show ads - Landlords get the option to get a cut if they install them, or it could be factored in the base price like how it's done with smart TVs now.
- MarcScott 4y agoI don't own a smart TV. If I were to buy one, am I forced to connect it to my WiFi before I use it? Can't you just use one without an internet connection? My dumb TVs have Chromecasts attached. I know I'm handing my data to Google, but I don't (yet) have to put up with injected commercials.
- jerrysievert 4y ago"smart" tv's remind me too much of 3d tv's. those were a fad for a while and the only non-3d tv's you could buy were high end retail displays. they are thankfully gone now. I wanted a higher quality display than what a retail display could offer me, so I chose a "smart" tv that has oled with an appletv connected. as long as I never hook it up to ethernet or wifi, it acts as a "dumb" display and I can use only the appletv remote. I really look forward to good displays being panel and sound only again.
- CivBase 4y agoIs there anything holding back an OpenWrt-style project for TVs? I can imagine something like that becoming popular among hacking communities if TV manufacturers ever resort to installing SIM cards. For now I just don't connect my TV to the internet and it works just fine. My laptop, an HDMI cord, and a Logitech K400+ makes for a much better experience than any smart TV interface.
- acd 4y agoPlease lets stop calling devices which spy on people "smart". Dumb devices are smart for privacy. Smart devices are dumb for privacy.
- npteljes 4y agoThat ship has sailed, it has been widely used since smartphones. And it actually become a useful identifier (for me, for stuff to avoid).
- madduci 4y agoDon't connect a smart TV to a network, ever. Instead, use a Google TV, Apple TV or a RPi running Kodi (and maybe PiHole?) for a Smart experience without all the bloat. It's cheaper to replace the external device than replacing a TV.
- aintthatthedeal 4y ago
- samgranieri 4y agoI’ll never allow a tv in my house to connect to the internet. I just stream everything via my apple TV set top box. Nice separation of concerns.
- elf25 4y ago
- theshrike79 4y agoStep 1: Get an LG WebOS Tv Step 2: Don't connect it to the internet Step 3: Use a separate device for any smart features, Apple TV, Google TV, nVidia Shield Step 4: No profit for ad sellers.
- entropicgravity 4y agoI also am not fond of TV's that snoop on everything in my living room and spew out unwanted ads. But recently I had to buy a new TV. Here's my setup. The TV is an LG 55" model OLED55C1 (could be a Costco specific model number), very good color and sound. I expect to keep it for ten years or more as I did with my previous LG plasma. Next I got an Asus PN51 Ryzen 3, very cute, small and quiet mini computer (had to add an SSD and memory). I loaded the latest Linux Mint onto it and used an HDMI cable to connect it to the TV. The TV was not happy about not being connected to wifi (that's what the PN51 is for) but eventually it succumbed. The final piece is a Logitech MX Ergo wireless blue tooth mouse. The result is fabulous all around as a TV and a computer. So all in it's about $2k USD which is a lot up front but given the hours of use by our household over ten years it's probably the best value I've bought since my last TV.
- SergeAx 4y agoI bought a smart LG TV about a month ago. This is my first smart TV, and I was very cautious about it because of "too smart TV" stories. It is OLED and the picture worth every euro I paid for it (and it was quite a few euro, to be honest). I am downloading HDR 4k movies and playing them from USB stick. I also watching YouTube occasionally, casting it from the phone (TV plays it by itself, not receiving a stream from phone, which is great for quality). I didn't see any ads yet (including YouTube, because of Premium). What am I doing wrong?
- qubitcoder 4y agoYou're not doing anything wrong. I have a 65" LG C9. And nearly everyone at my company has an LG TV. I've never seen or heard anyone mention ads. My parents have used the same TV for several years. When used with inputs such as cable box, Apple TV, or native apps like Netflix, Amazon, etc., everything works as expected. I'm genuinely confused as to what people are referring to. The last ads I saw were in the Peacock app to watch Parks and Recreation (and they were surprisingly non-obtrusive mainly Apple and EV ads). But I didn't have a subscription--the ads weren't coming from the TV. I purchased a high-end Samsung TV in 2011. That was my last Samsung purchase ever. I also had a Sony X900F, and suffice it to say, I'll never purchase another Android-based TV (the UI was slow unresponsive garbage, unintuitive, and user-hostile). The actual TV itself was of decent quality but hamstrung by its operating system. In general, unless something has changed, stick with LG.
- wizofaus 4y agoSo my genuine question - asking if this post (an advertisement for AdGuard) is within HN rules - got flagged. I've since checked the guidelines and while it doesn't explicitly say product placement posts are verboten, they do seem against the spirit of the site ("Please don't use HN primarily for promotion"). But what guideline makes my comment flaggable?
- dang 4y agoUsers flagged it as well as https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32554218 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32554218. We can only guess why users flag things, but in this case I think they probably just thought the comment was off topic, and not in an interesting way. The key for whether an article is good for HN is not its "adiness" (if I can put it that way) but its interestingness - i.e. does it gratify intellectual curiosity. In this case plenty of users clearly thought it did. It may be true that an article was written as part of a startup's effort to promote its product, but that's not necessarily a bad thing, as long as the content itself is interesting. (Of course, it tends not to be, because content marketing tends to be boring, but that's a different issue.) The rule in https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html about not using HN primarily for promotion is about how people post to HN. In the case of https://news.ycombinator.com/posts?id=PretzelFisch https://news.ycombinator.com/posts?id=PretzelFisch it seems clear that the user isn't posting to HN primarily to promote anything, and certainly not this particular product. Still, I'm glad you noticed that rule! It's a relatively recent one and I think it added a lot.
- monksy 4y agoIt should be noted that Vizos used to not show ads. But now in a firmware update my tv is now forcing you to go to their smartcast input option that shows ads. You can't disable that in the settings.
- egberts1 4y agoNever had a smart TV. I have gone the computer monitor route for all my TV needs. No need for more vulnerable IoTs in my home. By denying them Smart TV manufacturers a piece of my mind (viewing habits), I now have a peace of my mind.
- useruser1234 4y ago