18 ms·

The cost of cheap TVs

121 points by clcaev 4y ago

dtgriscom 4y ago
Anecdata: I bought a Toshiba 55M550KU a month or so ago. I've never plugged it into my wired network, and didn't give it my WiFi password. Yes, the main menu is focused around all the things I could do with Internet access, but all I have to do is choose "inputs" and I can configure it as I like with no "CONNECTION REQUIRED" barriers. This means I've never updated the firmware, but I'm guessing those updates would mostly benefit the complex (and changing) apps that I don't use.
mongol 4y ago
Has anyone blocked their TV's MAC address in the home router? Seems simple to do. Also, are there any service menu hacks to dumb them down?
peter_d_sherman 4y ago
>"Unlike in the smartphone market, which is dominated by a handful of big companies, low display prices allow more TV makers to enter the market: They just need to buy the display, build a case, and offer software for streaming." From a purely manufacturing perspective -- that does sound a whole lot easier than spec'ing out complete smartphone hardware -- sourcing and assembling those parts -- and coding a company's own in-house OS for it...
entropicgravity 4y ago
The TV market is segmenting into smart people with dumb TV's and dumb people with smart TV's.
omar_alt 4y ago
My Sony Bravia never connected to the internet and has never been used to login to netflix or youtube. Though I use it regularly as a screen for a media center it isn’t smart enough to stay on for more than three hours at a time without me prodding the remote control which is only used to switch it on. As annoying as that sounds I imagine the only metrics it could be recording is how long it was on for as well as having nowhere to send the data to.
SentientAtom 4y ago
DO NOT USE EMBEDDED SMART-TV FEATURES.
ararar 4y ago
Just get a "display". See https://youtu.be/-epPf7D8oMk https://youtu.be/-epPf7D8oMk where Jeff Geerling talks about how great a TV his non-TV is. He has an NEC UHD Professional Display M551. He gets to control the software on the embedded Raspberry Pi. It's about $1700 but I think it's worth it. Product link https://www.sharpnecdisplays.us/products/displays/m551 https://www.sharpnecdisplays.us/products/displays/m551
gigel82 4y ago
I wish a reputable manufacturer would just make "dumb TVs" (aka monitors). I don't even need a TV tuner, just a display panel with the latest HDMI, ARC and CEC support such that I can control all features from my media player's remote (including turning on/off the TV, sound, etc.) There are things like AW5520QF, but they tend to cost 3x - 4x as much as a TV with the same exact panel because of all the "gamery" features.
- massysett 4y ago
  > There are things like AW5520QF, but they tend to cost 3x - 4x as much as a TV with the same exact panel because of all the "gamery" features. You just made the article's point. What you say you want does exist, but you're not willing to pay for it.
  - zuminator 4y ago
    The article says that regular "smart" TVs are being sold at or near cost. That means conceivably sone manufacturer could sell a dumb TV at just 50% markup and still make a nice profit. I think that's what the grandparent post is wishing for. It's true there are those expensive reference monitors and so forth, but those are overpriced because they're geared for the corporate market. There's nothing comparable geared for the ordinary consumer. Honestly despite the frequent calls for their production, there probably isn't enough demand to sustain a dumb TV consumer market. It's like how small-screened smartphones never sell as much as you'd expect given the Internet's seeming love for them. Anyway, I know nothing about the project but there is a WebOS root/jailbreak that works on some LG models. GP might want to look into it. https://github.com/RootMyTV/RootMyTV.github.io https://github.com/RootMyTV/RootMyTV.github.io
  - rasz 4y ago
    Because I am being charged 3x more for less hardware.
- akeck 4y ago
  Maybe look at "commercial monitors"? https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1557462-REG/sharp_4t_b60cj1u_60_4k_ultra_hd_commercial.html https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1557462-REG/sharp_4t_...
danielodievich 4y ago
I have a smart LG connected to a blu-ray player and a computer for gaming/streaming. It has never been joined to the wifi. It is hooked to the network for firmware updates via cat5 wire, but that wire is physically unplugged all the time. If I want something streamed, I stream it off the computer. I've not seen any degradation from the TV, it just works. Problem solved?
- 29083011397778 4y ago
  Until storage gets cheap enough that the TV can simply cache it's information about you indefinitely, and upload as part of a firmware update. Hell, that could be today, just rotating logs and discarding the oldest.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    If a TV is being used only as a display for external devices such as Apple TV or gaming consoles, it is a reasonable assumption to assume the TV will never need a firmware update. At least in my 15 years of using flat panel TVs, I have never seen a need for a firmware update.
    - adolph 4y ago
      HDMI version updates may cause machines with older decoders to not work without an update. Its no biggie until you attach a streaming service dongle and it can't send its encrypted HDMI.
      - 29083011397778 4y ago
        Which brings us back to Mr. Gabe Newell and his "Piracy is a service problem" quote, but we've already had that discussion on HN this week.
      - tnel77 4y ago
        While I try to hold onto my electronics for awhile, I personally would have a new TV by the time that happened.
bradreaves2 4y ago
I have been reading tech folks lament the disappearance of dumb screens for years. I finally bought my first new TV in 2020, a Sony with Android TV. I have never connected it to the Internet. Instead, it displays an AppleTV or a gaming machine. It has been an amazing reliable display at a reasonable price, every bit as good as the imagined ideal dumb TV. So why all the pearl clutching? Do other brands require Internet to turn on and display HDMI?
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  > So why all the pearl clutching? Because we are going back to feudalism in terms of personal rights and freedoms. In 15 years will own no major possessionns - your electronics, car and appliances can be shut down remotely at any time because you make a tweet elon musk didn't like. And Asset Inflation will ensure noone owns a house. Na dyour door lock will be smart, so if you are behind on rent they will lock you out same day. And people on here will be chanting 'they are a private conoany they can do what they want'
  - durnygbur 4y ago
    Also privacy-preserving practices and behaviors already nowadays flag or shadow ban the user assuming one is a bot or profile them as bad actors. Sometimes more content and services are exposed once the user reveals more personal data (e.g. browsing web through mobile phone vs. through PC with ads blocked). We are aiming into a very evil reality and there doesn't seem to exist anything stopping it.
- shaklee3 4y ago
  Android TV makes it a smart TV, so that was all for naught
- xen2xen1 4y ago
  There are stories of TVs just using open wifi, for one. Two, cheap 5g will probably let the TV manufacturers have a cheap way to get ads without wifi and send back screenshots of what you're watching like they do now over wifi. So the workarounds you mention are probably short term.
whalesalad 4y ago
I have an LG C2 OLED that I have never connected to the internet. It's not cheap, but it's got a killer UI and works incredibly well. I dig that the remote is kinda like a wii controller in that you can physically move it around to use it like a pointer device. I stayed at an Airbnb this last week which had a similar LG model that was connected to the internet and while it was great to have all the streaming services online and available, it was kinda irritating to see all kinds of alerts and popups once in a while. Modern TV's are good as long as you keep them in the dark, at least I can say that for LG.
- tylerflick 4y ago
  I have the same experience with my LG C2. One thing that I can recommend is buying a decent router that can segment LAN traffic. This way you can connect the TV to your local network to utilize the Homekit functionality, but block all outbound internet traffic.
- spike021 4y ago
  I bought this same tv a month ago. I ended up connecting it to my wifi, actually. I hadn't planned to since I have an older 4k Apple TV but decided to try the native apps. With ads and tracking turned off, I haven't seen any ads other than a single one on the homescreen, which I rarely use as it is, for a $25 off thing for LG's website.
sombragris 4y ago
"The Cost of Less Expensive TVs", perhaps? I paid good money for mine and still tries to spy on me. Cheap they are not.
- pixl97 4y ago
  The premium manufactures realized they would make far more money by selling spyware then an actual premium product. "Pay" for Windows and it still spys on you these days.
semiquaver 4y ago
Is there any concrete research on the behavior of smart TVs when you've disabled telemetry? I leave mine disconnected but I'm curious to what extent different brands actually honor the opt out settings that are available.
SnowHill9902 4y ago
People have TVs?
MBCook 4y ago
The worst part is every TV has this problem, no matter how much you spend. You have to buy commercial displays or large monitors if you want to avoid it. There is no choice left in the market.
- dminor 4y ago
  Sceptre is a brand that makes dumb TVs.
  - rnd0 4y ago
    They tend to last all of about two months, in my personal experience.
    - karaterobot 4y ago
      Counter-anecdote: I've had a Sceptre one for about three years, zero issues. It was the 65" 4K, it cost about $500 at the time.
  - MerelyMortal 4y ago
    They make dumb 4K TVs up to 75". (I really wished they made an 85" when I was in the market a couple of years ago, instead I bought a TV from Costco and opened it up and disconnected the WiFi module before powering it up for the first time.)
tqi 4y ago
> This all means that, whatever you’re watching on your smart TV, algorithms are tracking your habits. This influences the ads you see on your TV, yes, but if you connect your Google or Facebook account to your TV, it will also affect the ads you see while browsing the web on your computer or phone. Definitely sucks that consumers don't really have alternative brands to choose from but personally, I don't have an issue with ad targeting and am happy to take the discount. What does bother me is that "smart" devices invariable take longer to start up than their "dumb" predecessors.
tristor 4y ago
CostCo sells several brands, but in particular Sony, that they have arranged to ensure that these TVs are fully functional when you decline the T&Cs and never connect it to the Internet. It is the only reason I currently own a "smart" TV, is because I could be reasonable certain that this was controllable. Otherwise, I'd probably only use projectors right now because these are still commonly purchaseable at consumer pricing without "smart" features that are unskippable.
- kmbfjr 4y ago
  They’re not fully functional in the case of Sony. Without internet there is no guide data for off-air TV even though it is not only part of the ATSC stream, Sony is decoding it. I know this because the pop up menu for the channel line has the name and time of the program being watched. That had to come off air if the internet is disabled. Declining everything and setting up the TV as “basic” still has the underlying Google TV OS reaching out to the Play store, Android update, plus something in the Google IP block in China. Yes, China. And three net blocks from Microsoft. Carefully selecting and permitting only the AWS Cloudfront net block will restore guide data, but it will cause the Google TV OS to howl loudly about no internet access. Allowing it to hit www.google.com shuts most of it up, but I will be poking at the OS to find out what needs to be shut off. Developer mode is available. Sony is not using anything to report what the user is watching, network traffic is non-existent when viewing something on HDMI inputs. This was not a cheap TV, Sony promised they would honor my requests not to be monetized, but my need for their guide data suggests otherwise (PSIP is not entirely broken, just slow). That doesn’t matter, Google is there to pick up the slack on the over the shoulder browsing. It will be relegated to HDMI use only, just like the Samsung it replaced.
  - tristor 4y ago
    I was unaware of this, as I haven't had "TV" service in more than a decade. In basic mode, connected to HDMI, it allows for all display features. Good information, and a good thing for folks to consider if they intend to actually use TV directly.
  - mikewarot 4y ago
gnicholas 4y ago
What happens if you buy a used TV and the previous owner agreed to a bunch of TOS already? Should you just assume that a used TV has all imaginable tracking enabled?
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  >What happens if you buy a used TV and the previous owner agreed to a bunch of TOS already? Then you go in the menu and hit the factory reset option.
  - gnicholas 4y ago
    If you don’t hook it up to your Wi-Fi, is there a risk that it can do anything even if you don’t reset? That is, are there auto connecting TVs yet?
null_object 4y ago
A lot of people asking why quality TVs, that don’t spy on you or force you to watch ads in their interface, aren’t available for those willing to pay more. But these TVs are available [0] - I’ve recommended them many times on this site. I have one myself and been really happy with it for a few years. The trouble is finding them for sale - they can no longer be bought anywhere directly here in Sweden, for instance. That’s due to the biggest problem of all: finding buyers willing to pay more for a TV. [0] https://www.loewe.tv/int https://www.loewe.tv/int
- jagaerglad 4y ago
  You can check (1) for a swedish conpany selling reasonably cheap TV's without all the smart stuff (they don't even have TV-antenna receiver). They are more or less just monitors with HDMI etc. Perfect for connecting an old linux laptop or something and make it a smart TV on your own terms (btw I'm not affiliated to the company by any means) (1) https://swedx.se/index.php?cPath=133_149&osCsid=895096b764aa40bceb9f7ccb81599dd7 https://swedx.se/index.php?cPath=133_149&osCsid=895096b764aa...
  - bjelkeman-again 4y ago
    I am not affiliated either. But I have them at work as dashboard monitors and an old one retired to home as streaming TV screen.
- gog 4y ago
  Loewe is expensive, I am pretty sure Sony doesn't make over 1k€ for each TV sold, also I have a Sony smart TV that is ~6 years old, it doesn't show any ads.
- nhchris 4y ago
  > That’s due to the biggest problem of all: finding buyers willing to pay more for a TV. The price is obvious before you buy it, the spyware isn't.
- neuralRiot 4y ago
  Look for hospitality or commercial TVs
nerdawson 4y ago
LG enabled tracking without my consent. I have an LG C8 OLED. I wanted the convenience of a smart TV without being tracked so I carefully went through every setting and turned it all off. I followed an article detailing what all the tracking settings were, how to disable them, etc. I deliberately disabled all tracking options years ago. Imagine my surprise a couple of weeks back when I looked in the settings. All of it was magically enabled again. Personalised ads, screen recognition, you name it, all switched on. How long for is anyones guess. My trust for smart TVs is at an all time low.
- autoexec 4y ago
  This isn't limited to smart TVs. Every internet enabled device can do the same thing. When you allow someone other than yourself to remotely access and modify the software running on your devices they stop being "your" devices and companies will happily disregard your stated preferences and make whatever changes are beneficial for them. The only way to have any control at all over your devices is to make sure that nobody else is able to modify them without your consent. Keeping our devices offline isn't always possible. Our computers and phones typically depend on internet access to stay useful, but you can at least make sure your TV is never connected to the internet.
- filoleg 4y ago
  LG C1 OLED here, and my setup is rather simple and has been going just fine with zero issues for over a year now (with no update requests or anything like that). I set it up normally at first, but software updates and such were annoying. LG TV has been connected to my router using wifi, so I simply clicked the "block internet connection for this device" in my router settings, and that was the end of my issues. As for how I deal with outdated apps and such on the smart tv, I have never used them in the first place. AppleTV has been hooked to the LG TV the entire time, and all apps are used from the AppleTV side. Haven't had a single "update your tv software" dialogue even once since then.
  - agartner 4y ago
    I personally just blocked all the lg domains in AdGuard. That way I can keep using the apps. With full internet access the tv takes significantly longer to load and navigate.
gnicholas 4y ago
How can you tell in advance if a TV needs to be connected to the internet to work? We just plug computers/iPhones to ours via HDMI, and we never connect the TV directly to the internet. The last thing we'd want is to get a TV home, get it unwrapped and plugged in, and then have to take it back because it won't turn on without an internet connection. And I wouldn't trust a Best Buy salesperson to be knowledgeable/honest about this. I realize there are some signage brands that never require this, but often there are great deals on Samsung/Vizio/etc. units at Best Buy/Costco, and I'd rather get one of those if I can use it in offline mode.
- pixl97 4y ago
  If you could get ahold of the remote at BestBuy, just reset the TV to factory and see what it does at startup. With that said, they typically don't have them out for you to do that.
  - gnicholas 4y ago
    Great idea, thanks! I happen to have Samsung and Vizio remotes at home, and might bring them with me for some due diligence…
seiferteric 4y ago
I was excited to read about the new ultra wide monitors Samsung is announcing at CES, but to my dismay I read they come with "smart" features and apps and a "game center"... in a MONITOR. I hope this stuff is optional and able to be disabled, but I don't have a lot of hope.
- acomjean 4y ago
  I bought one of these. I needed a new screen and went to the local store. Its a large 42" 4K Samsung monitor and it comes with a remote to use the built in youtube/netflics.. if I had given it internet access. Its been a few months and even with not internet its still fine and hasn't tried any tricks (that I know of..). The speakers are good, but its annoying to have to pay for a computer inside the monitor I'm not using.
maupin 4y ago
The amount of research I had to do to buy my mother a new television that would work for regular antennae television and not require internet access was just ridiculous.
- CapmCrackaWaka 4y ago
  What did you settle on?
ubermonkey 4y ago
Our TV is a 3-year-old Samsung that tried pretty hard to get us to let it on the network. We let it, for a little while, to get cool active wallpaper features, but eventually did a reset and disabled it. We've never used the built-in clients at all; we drive it from the home media receiver, so its ultimate source is the AppleTV, the BluRay player, or the cable box. I don't think it's tried to get online on its own; it still shows outdated movies for streaming on its startup menu, and I assume those would update if it had newer data. I expect this TV to last a while, but realistically I guess I'll probably have to buy one or two more. I'm 52; it's only my 5th TV in about 30 years of having one (and I guess we're mildly odd in that we only have one TV at a time). Now that I'm thinking about it, I think I'm kinda surprised at which of my TVs was the longest-lived: 1. I bought a 27" tube TV in 1991 for a few hundred bucks. Still a student. 2. When it developed financially terminal issues, I bought a MUCH NICER 27" tube tv in 1996 for about a thousand. Picture was amazing. Flat TVs didn't really exist yet. 3. I won a big drawing at work in 2000, and used the proceeds to replace #2 with a 55" rear-projection MONOLITH of a Mitsubishi (about $3300), which was great because I'd moved and the 27" was too small for the new room. 4. Only 8 years later that Mitsubishi developed the Convergence Problem of Doom. Fixing it wasn't a good move, plus hang-on-wall TVs were available. We got a 47" Vizio LCD for about $1400. 5. A really good Black Friday deal in 2019 convinced us to upgrade to the 65" Samsung I mentioned above. My understanding is that #1 was repaired and used for another year or two by a FOAF before dying the true death. #2 I gave to my old roommate, who used it until like SIX YEARS AGO, no kidding. It was a fancy enthusiast TV (RCA's upmarket line), so I guess that tracks. Even then it was still working fine at nearly 20 years old; it just didn't have the connectors, capabilities, or the dimensions to be that guy's living room TV anymore. #4 is, I think, still being used by a friend of our housekeeper, at 14 years.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
bitwize 4y ago
Sceptre dumb TVs are available through Wal-Mart's web site.
- TheHappyOddish 4y ago
  Most of the worlds population is not in the US.
BrandoElFollito 4y ago
This sounds really crappy, from France perspective (and Europe, generally). Our "smart" TVs are where the "smartness" is useless applications (mostly) but there is no requirement to be connected anywhere (that would be illegal), no ads (that would be illegal) and there are no options to get a TV that would be cheaper because it would show ads. I thought that customer protection was stronger in the US, or that at least the customer needs where taken into account (like the whole buy-try-return (which we did not have until a dozen years ago))
nfca 4y ago
Is router or DNS level ad-blocking an option for those of us who are more technically savvy? e.g. https://NextDNS.io https://NextDNS.io
- zikduruqe 4y ago
  Not if your TV is hardcoded to use 8.8.8.8 Looking at you TCL.
  - hnbear 4y ago
    You could catch and redirect all port 53 traffic to a local Pi-hole (or similar dns server) to respond with whatever you want
    - dimensi0nal 4y ago
      ...and this is why there's a push for DNS over HTTPS/DNS over TLS
      - hnbear 4y ago
        And I’m not sure which is worse here. Devices on my network I can’t control, or protocols so easily circumvented.
      - TheHappyOddish 4y ago
        Which is why I rooted my TV, install my CA on it and forced it through my squid proxy that does SSL bumping. My network, my rules.
danbr 4y ago
For those who are able, a pihole is a must when connecting a smart TV (or any other “smart” device for that matter) to the internet. It’s shockingly disturbing the amount of traffic my Samsung TV produces, even when watching OTA stations. It easily queries Samsung cloud domains more than any other device on my network. Thankfully I am able to sinkhole all those requests without totally breaking tv functionality, but after paying hundreds of dollars for a television, I don’t need to give them any more of my data for financial gain.
- bumby 4y ago
  >If you do not pay your rent, the eviction process will likely start immediately One of the points of the article is that if everybody did this, TVs would be much, much more expensive. FTA: "“post-purchase monetization,” and it means they can sell TVs almost at cost and still make money over the long term by sharing viewing data."
idatum 4y ago
At least it's encouraging we're seeing more and more articles and awareness of these data collection practices. I'm hopeful we'll reach enough outrage (always seems to need to come to that). The last "smart" tv I purchased (Costco) is working fine without an internet connection. Pihole blocks much of the telemetry being sent from the attached XBox. XBox has a Hauppauge USB tuner with OTA antenna for when I want to catch a local sports broadcast, etc.
larrik 4y ago
After switching to Roku for my TVs (so much better than FireTV, at least), I find it easier to just get the TCL Roku TVs now. They're cheap, and have the Roku built right into them. Plus it's all in one remote, and I can even turn on my TV from my phone (handy when the kids misplace my remote). Heck, I can turn _off_ the TV from the other side of the house. Overall, seems like the best tradeoff to me.
mvexel 4y ago
I wonder how much data traditional cable companies collect these days. Their services sure haven't gotten any cheaper. I was very happy to ditch Comcast a few years ago but the streaming landscape has become so confusing that I am about to give up on trying to figure out what subscriptions I need to cobble together to watch the sports I am interested in.

121 points by clcaev 4y ago

Anecdata: I bought a Toshiba 55M550KU a month or so ago. I've never plugged it into my wired network, and didn't give it my WiFi password. Yes, the main menu is focused around all the things I could do with Internet access, but all I have to do is choose "inputs" and I can configure it as I like with no "CONNECTION REQUIRED" barriers. This means I've never updated the firmware, but I'm guessing those updates would mostly benefit the complex (and changing) apps that I don't use.

mongol 4y ago

Has anyone blocked their TV's MAC address in the home router? Seems simple to do. Also, are there any service menu hacks to dumb them down?

peter_d_sherman 4y ago

>"Unlike in the smartphone market, which is dominated by a handful of big companies, low display prices allow more TV makers to enter the market: They just need to buy the display, build a case, and offer software for streaming." From a purely manufacturing perspective -- that does sound a whole lot easier than spec'ing out complete smartphone hardware -- sourcing and assembling those parts -- and coding a company's own in-house OS for it...

entropicgravity 4y ago

The TV market is segmenting into smart people with dumb TV's and dumb people with smart TV's.

omar_alt 4y ago

My Sony Bravia never connected to the internet and has never been used to login to netflix or youtube. Though I use it regularly as a screen for a media center it isn’t smart enough to stay on for more than three hours at a time without me prodding the remote control which is only used to switch it on. As annoying as that sounds I imagine the only metrics it could be recording is how long it was on for as well as having nowhere to send the data to.

SentientAtom 4y ago

DO NOT USE EMBEDDED SMART-TV FEATURES.

ararar 4y ago

Just get a "display". See https://youtu.be/-epPf7D8oMk https://youtu.be/-epPf7D8oMk where Jeff Geerling talks about how great a TV his non-TV is. He has an NEC UHD Professional Display M551. He gets to control the software on the embedded Raspberry Pi. It's about $1700 but I think it's worth it. Product link https://www.sharpnecdisplays.us/products/displays/m551 https://www.sharpnecdisplays.us/products/displays/m551

gigel82 4y ago

I wish a reputable manufacturer would just make "dumb TVs" (aka monitors). I don't even need a TV tuner, just a display panel with the latest HDMI, ARC and CEC support such that I can control all features from my media player's remote (including turning on/off the TV, sound, etc.) There are things like AW5520QF, but they tend to cost 3x - 4x as much as a TV with the same exact panel because of all the "gamery" features.

massysett 4y ago
> There are things like AW5520QF, but they tend to cost 3x - 4x as much as a TV with the same exact panel because of all the "gamery" features. You just made the article's point. What you say you want does exist, but you're not willing to pay for it.
- zuminator 4y ago
  The article says that regular "smart" TVs are being sold at or near cost. That means conceivably sone manufacturer could sell a dumb TV at just 50% markup and still make a nice profit. I think that's what the grandparent post is wishing for. It's true there are those expensive reference monitors and so forth, but those are overpriced because they're geared for the corporate market. There's nothing comparable geared for the ordinary consumer. Honestly despite the frequent calls for their production, there probably isn't enough demand to sustain a dumb TV consumer market. It's like how small-screened smartphones never sell as much as you'd expect given the Internet's seeming love for them. Anyway, I know nothing about the project but there is a WebOS root/jailbreak that works on some LG models. GP might want to look into it. https://github.com/RootMyTV/RootMyTV.github.io https://github.com/RootMyTV/RootMyTV.github.io
- rasz 4y ago
  Because I am being charged 3x more for less hardware.
akeck 4y ago
Maybe look at "commercial monitors"? https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1557462-REG/sharp_4t_b60cj1u_60_4k_ultra_hd_commercial.html https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1557462-REG/sharp_4t_...

danielodievich 4y ago

I have a smart LG connected to a blu-ray player and a computer for gaming/streaming. It has never been joined to the wifi. It is hooked to the network for firmware updates via cat5 wire, but that wire is physically unplugged all the time. If I want something streamed, I stream it off the computer. I've not seen any degradation from the TV, it just works. Problem solved?

29083011397778 4y ago
Until storage gets cheap enough that the TV can simply cache it's information about you indefinitely, and upload as part of a firmware update. Hell, that could be today, just rotating logs and discarding the oldest.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  If a TV is being used only as a display for external devices such as Apple TV or gaming consoles, it is a reasonable assumption to assume the TV will never need a firmware update. At least in my 15 years of using flat panel TVs, I have never seen a need for a firmware update.
  - adolph 4y ago
    HDMI version updates may cause machines with older decoders to not work without an update. Its no biggie until you attach a streaming service dongle and it can't send its encrypted HDMI.
    - 29083011397778 4y ago
      Which brings us back to Mr. Gabe Newell and his "Piracy is a service problem" quote, but we've already had that discussion on HN this week.
    - tnel77 4y ago
      While I try to hold onto my electronics for awhile, I personally would have a new TV by the time that happened.

bradreaves2 4y ago

I have been reading tech folks lament the disappearance of dumb screens for years. I finally bought my first new TV in 2020, a Sony with Android TV. I have never connected it to the Internet. Instead, it displays an AppleTV or a gaming machine. It has been an amazing reliable display at a reasonable price, every bit as good as the imagined ideal dumb TV. So why all the pearl clutching? Do other brands require Internet to turn on and display HDMI?

ClumsyPilot 4y ago
> So why all the pearl clutching? Because we are going back to feudalism in terms of personal rights and freedoms. In 15 years will own no major possessionns - your electronics, car and appliances can be shut down remotely at any time because you make a tweet elon musk didn't like. And Asset Inflation will ensure noone owns a house. Na dyour door lock will be smart, so if you are behind on rent they will lock you out same day. And people on here will be chanting 'they are a private conoany they can do what they want'
- durnygbur 4y ago
  Also privacy-preserving practices and behaviors already nowadays flag or shadow ban the user assuming one is a bot or profile them as bad actors. Sometimes more content and services are exposed once the user reveals more personal data (e.g. browsing web through mobile phone vs. through PC with ads blocked). We are aiming into a very evil reality and there doesn't seem to exist anything stopping it.
shaklee3 4y ago
Android TV makes it a smart TV, so that was all for naught
xen2xen1 4y ago
There are stories of TVs just using open wifi, for one. Two, cheap 5g will probably let the TV manufacturers have a cheap way to get ads without wifi and send back screenshots of what you're watching like they do now over wifi. So the workarounds you mention are probably short term.

whalesalad 4y ago

I have an LG C2 OLED that I have never connected to the internet. It's not cheap, but it's got a killer UI and works incredibly well. I dig that the remote is kinda like a wii controller in that you can physically move it around to use it like a pointer device. I stayed at an Airbnb this last week which had a similar LG model that was connected to the internet and while it was great to have all the streaming services online and available, it was kinda irritating to see all kinds of alerts and popups once in a while. Modern TV's are good as long as you keep them in the dark, at least I can say that for LG.

tylerflick 4y ago
I have the same experience with my LG C2. One thing that I can recommend is buying a decent router that can segment LAN traffic. This way you can connect the TV to your local network to utilize the Homekit functionality, but block all outbound internet traffic.
spike021 4y ago
I bought this same tv a month ago. I ended up connecting it to my wifi, actually. I hadn't planned to since I have an older 4k Apple TV but decided to try the native apps. With ads and tracking turned off, I haven't seen any ads other than a single one on the homescreen, which I rarely use as it is, for a $25 off thing for LG's website.

sombragris 4y ago

"The Cost of Less Expensive TVs", perhaps? I paid good money for mine and still tries to spy on me. Cheap they are not.

pixl97 4y ago
The premium manufactures realized they would make far more money by selling spyware then an actual premium product. "Pay" for Windows and it still spys on you these days.

semiquaver 4y ago

Is there any concrete research on the behavior of smart TVs when you've disabled telemetry? I leave mine disconnected but I'm curious to what extent different brands actually honor the opt out settings that are available.

SnowHill9902 4y ago

People have TVs?

MBCook 4y ago

The worst part is every TV has this problem, no matter how much you spend. You have to buy commercial displays or large monitors if you want to avoid it. There is no choice left in the market.

dminor 4y ago
Sceptre is a brand that makes dumb TVs.
- rnd0 4y ago
  They tend to last all of about two months, in my personal experience.
  - karaterobot 4y ago
    Counter-anecdote: I've had a Sceptre one for about three years, zero issues. It was the 65" 4K, it cost about $500 at the time.
- MerelyMortal 4y ago
  They make dumb 4K TVs up to 75". (I really wished they made an 85" when I was in the market a couple of years ago, instead I bought a TV from Costco and opened it up and disconnected the WiFi module before powering it up for the first time.)

tqi 4y ago

> This all means that, whatever you’re watching on your smart TV, algorithms are tracking your habits. This influences the ads you see on your TV, yes, but if you connect your Google or Facebook account to your TV, it will also affect the ads you see while browsing the web on your computer or phone. Definitely sucks that consumers don't really have alternative brands to choose from but personally, I don't have an issue with ad targeting and am happy to take the discount. What does bother me is that "smart" devices invariable take longer to start up than their "dumb" predecessors.

tristor 4y ago

CostCo sells several brands, but in particular Sony, that they have arranged to ensure that these TVs are fully functional when you decline the T&Cs and never connect it to the Internet. It is the only reason I currently own a "smart" TV, is because I could be reasonable certain that this was controllable. Otherwise, I'd probably only use projectors right now because these are still commonly purchaseable at consumer pricing without "smart" features that are unskippable.

kmbfjr 4y ago
They’re not fully functional in the case of Sony. Without internet there is no guide data for off-air TV even though it is not only part of the ATSC stream, Sony is decoding it. I know this because the pop up menu for the channel line has the name and time of the program being watched. That had to come off air if the internet is disabled. Declining everything and setting up the TV as “basic” still has the underlying Google TV OS reaching out to the Play store, Android update, plus something in the Google IP block in China. Yes, China. And three net blocks from Microsoft. Carefully selecting and permitting only the AWS Cloudfront net block will restore guide data, but it will cause the Google TV OS to howl loudly about no internet access. Allowing it to hit www.google.com shuts most of it up, but I will be poking at the OS to find out what needs to be shut off. Developer mode is available. Sony is not using anything to report what the user is watching, network traffic is non-existent when viewing something on HDMI inputs. This was not a cheap TV, Sony promised they would honor my requests not to be monetized, but my need for their guide data suggests otherwise (PSIP is not entirely broken, just slow). That doesn’t matter, Google is there to pick up the slack on the over the shoulder browsing. It will be relegated to HDMI use only, just like the Samsung it replaced.
- tristor 4y ago
  I was unaware of this, as I haven't had "TV" service in more than a decade. In basic mode, connected to HDMI, it allows for all display features. Good information, and a good thing for folks to consider if they intend to actually use TV directly.
- mikewarot 4y ago

gnicholas 4y ago

What happens if you buy a used TV and the previous owner agreed to a bunch of TOS already? Should you just assume that a used TV has all imaginable tracking enabled?

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
>What happens if you buy a used TV and the previous owner agreed to a bunch of TOS already? Then you go in the menu and hit the factory reset option.
- gnicholas 4y ago
  If you don’t hook it up to your Wi-Fi, is there a risk that it can do anything even if you don’t reset? That is, are there auto connecting TVs yet?

null_object 4y ago

A lot of people asking why quality TVs, that don’t spy on you or force you to watch ads in their interface, aren’t available for those willing to pay more. But these TVs are available [0] - I’ve recommended them many times on this site. I have one myself and been really happy with it for a few years. The trouble is finding them for sale - they can no longer be bought anywhere directly here in Sweden, for instance. That’s due to the biggest problem of all: finding buyers willing to pay more for a TV. [0] https://www.loewe.tv/int https://www.loewe.tv/int

jagaerglad 4y ago
You can check (1) for a swedish conpany selling reasonably cheap TV's without all the smart stuff (they don't even have TV-antenna receiver). They are more or less just monitors with HDMI etc. Perfect for connecting an old linux laptop or something and make it a smart TV on your own terms (btw I'm not affiliated to the company by any means) (1) https://swedx.se/index.php?cPath=133_149&osCsid=895096b764aa40bceb9f7ccb81599dd7 https://swedx.se/index.php?cPath=133_149&osCsid=895096b764aa...
- bjelkeman-again 4y ago
  I am not affiliated either. But I have them at work as dashboard monitors and an old one retired to home as streaming TV screen.
gog 4y ago
Loewe is expensive, I am pretty sure Sony doesn't make over 1k€ for each TV sold, also I have a Sony smart TV that is ~6 years old, it doesn't show any ads.
nhchris 4y ago
> That’s due to the biggest problem of all: finding buyers willing to pay more for a TV. The price is obvious before you buy it, the spyware isn't.
neuralRiot 4y ago
Look for hospitality or commercial TVs

nerdawson 4y ago

LG enabled tracking without my consent. I have an LG C8 OLED. I wanted the convenience of a smart TV without being tracked so I carefully went through every setting and turned it all off. I followed an article detailing what all the tracking settings were, how to disable them, etc. I deliberately disabled all tracking options years ago. Imagine my surprise a couple of weeks back when I looked in the settings. All of it was magically enabled again. Personalised ads, screen recognition, you name it, all switched on. How long for is anyones guess. My trust for smart TVs is at an all time low.

autoexec 4y ago
This isn't limited to smart TVs. Every internet enabled device can do the same thing. When you allow someone other than yourself to remotely access and modify the software running on your devices they stop being "your" devices and companies will happily disregard your stated preferences and make whatever changes are beneficial for them. The only way to have any control at all over your devices is to make sure that nobody else is able to modify them without your consent. Keeping our devices offline isn't always possible. Our computers and phones typically depend on internet access to stay useful, but you can at least make sure your TV is never connected to the internet.
filoleg 4y ago
LG C1 OLED here, and my setup is rather simple and has been going just fine with zero issues for over a year now (with no update requests or anything like that). I set it up normally at first, but software updates and such were annoying. LG TV has been connected to my router using wifi, so I simply clicked the "block internet connection for this device" in my router settings, and that was the end of my issues. As for how I deal with outdated apps and such on the smart tv, I have never used them in the first place. AppleTV has been hooked to the LG TV the entire time, and all apps are used from the AppleTV side. Haven't had a single "update your tv software" dialogue even once since then.
- agartner 4y ago
  I personally just blocked all the lg domains in AdGuard. That way I can keep using the apps. With full internet access the tv takes significantly longer to load and navigate.

gnicholas 4y ago

How can you tell in advance if a TV needs to be connected to the internet to work? We just plug computers/iPhones to ours via HDMI, and we never connect the TV directly to the internet. The last thing we'd want is to get a TV home, get it unwrapped and plugged in, and then have to take it back because it won't turn on without an internet connection. And I wouldn't trust a Best Buy salesperson to be knowledgeable/honest about this. I realize there are some signage brands that never require this, but often there are great deals on Samsung/Vizio/etc. units at Best Buy/Costco, and I'd rather get one of those if I can use it in offline mode.

pixl97 4y ago
If you could get ahold of the remote at BestBuy, just reset the TV to factory and see what it does at startup. With that said, they typically don't have them out for you to do that.
- gnicholas 4y ago
  Great idea, thanks! I happen to have Samsung and Vizio remotes at home, and might bring them with me for some due diligence…

seiferteric 4y ago

I was excited to read about the new ultra wide monitors Samsung is announcing at CES, but to my dismay I read they come with "smart" features and apps and a "game center"... in a MONITOR. I hope this stuff is optional and able to be disabled, but I don't have a lot of hope.

acomjean 4y ago
I bought one of these. I needed a new screen and went to the local store. Its a large 42" 4K Samsung monitor and it comes with a remote to use the built in youtube/netflics.. if I had given it internet access. Its been a few months and even with not internet its still fine and hasn't tried any tricks (that I know of..). The speakers are good, but its annoying to have to pay for a computer inside the monitor I'm not using.

maupin 4y ago

The amount of research I had to do to buy my mother a new television that would work for regular antennae television and not require internet access was just ridiculous.

CapmCrackaWaka 4y ago
What did you settle on?

ubermonkey 4y ago

Our TV is a 3-year-old Samsung that tried pretty hard to get us to let it on the network. We let it, for a little while, to get cool active wallpaper features, but eventually did a reset and disabled it. We've never used the built-in clients at all; we drive it from the home media receiver, so its ultimate source is the AppleTV, the BluRay player, or the cable box. I don't think it's tried to get online on its own; it still shows outdated movies for streaming on its startup menu, and I assume those would update if it had newer data. I expect this TV to last a while, but realistically I guess I'll probably have to buy one or two more. I'm 52; it's only my 5th TV in about 30 years of having one (and I guess we're mildly odd in that we only have one TV at a time). Now that I'm thinking about it, I think I'm kinda surprised at which of my TVs was the longest-lived: 1. I bought a 27" tube TV in 1991 for a few hundred bucks. Still a student. 2. When it developed financially terminal issues, I bought a MUCH NICER 27" tube tv in 1996 for about a thousand. Picture was amazing. Flat TVs didn't really exist yet. 3. I won a big drawing at work in 2000, and used the proceeds to replace #2 with a 55" rear-projection MONOLITH of a Mitsubishi (about $3300), which was great because I'd moved and the 27" was too small for the new room. 4. Only 8 years later that Mitsubishi developed the Convergence Problem of Doom. Fixing it wasn't a good move, plus hang-on-wall TVs were available. We got a 47" Vizio LCD for about $1400. 5. A really good Black Friday deal in 2019 convinced us to upgrade to the 65" Samsung I mentioned above. My understanding is that #1 was repaired and used for another year or two by a FOAF before dying the true death. #2 I gave to my old roommate, who used it until like SIX YEARS AGO, no kidding. It was a fancy enthusiast TV (RCA's upmarket line), so I guess that tracks. Even then it was still working fine at nearly 20 years old; it just didn't have the connectors, capabilities, or the dimensions to be that guy's living room TV anymore. #4 is, I think, still being used by a friend of our housekeeper, at 14 years.

deleted 4y ago
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bitwize 4y ago

Sceptre dumb TVs are available through Wal-Mart's web site.

TheHappyOddish 4y ago
Most of the worlds population is not in the US.

BrandoElFollito 4y ago

This sounds really crappy, from France perspective (and Europe, generally). Our "smart" TVs are where the "smartness" is useless applications (mostly) but there is no requirement to be connected anywhere (that would be illegal), no ads (that would be illegal) and there are no options to get a TV that would be cheaper because it would show ads. I thought that customer protection was stronger in the US, or that at least the customer needs where taken into account (like the whole buy-try-return (which we did not have until a dozen years ago))

nfca 4y ago

Is router or DNS level ad-blocking an option for those of us who are more technically savvy? e.g. https://NextDNS.io https://NextDNS.io

zikduruqe 4y ago
Not if your TV is hardcoded to use 8.8.8.8 Looking at you TCL.
- hnbear 4y ago
  You could catch and redirect all port 53 traffic to a local Pi-hole (or similar dns server) to respond with whatever you want
  - dimensi0nal 4y ago
    ...and this is why there's a push for DNS over HTTPS/DNS over TLS
    - hnbear 4y ago
      And I’m not sure which is worse here. Devices on my network I can’t control, or protocols so easily circumvented.
    - TheHappyOddish 4y ago
      Which is why I rooted my TV, install my CA on it and forced it through my squid proxy that does SSL bumping. My network, my rules.

danbr 4y ago

For those who are able, a pihole is a must when connecting a smart TV (or any other “smart” device for that matter) to the internet. It’s shockingly disturbing the amount of traffic my Samsung TV produces, even when watching OTA stations. It easily queries Samsung cloud domains more than any other device on my network. Thankfully I am able to sinkhole all those requests without totally breaking tv functionality, but after paying hundreds of dollars for a television, I don’t need to give them any more of my data for financial gain.

bumby 4y ago
>If you do not pay your rent, the eviction process will likely start immediately One of the points of the article is that if everybody did this, TVs would be much, much more expensive. FTA: "“post-purchase monetization,” and it means they can sell TVs almost at cost and still make money over the long term by sharing viewing data."

idatum 4y ago

At least it's encouraging we're seeing more and more articles and awareness of these data collection practices. I'm hopeful we'll reach enough outrage (always seems to need to come to that). The last "smart" tv I purchased (Costco) is working fine without an internet connection. Pihole blocks much of the telemetry being sent from the attached XBox. XBox has a Hauppauge USB tuner with OTA antenna for when I want to catch a local sports broadcast, etc.

larrik 4y ago

After switching to Roku for my TVs (so much better than FireTV, at least), I find it easier to just get the TCL Roku TVs now. They're cheap, and have the Roku built right into them. Plus it's all in one remote, and I can even turn on my TV from my phone (handy when the kids misplace my remote). Heck, I can turn _off_ the TV from the other side of the house. Overall, seems like the best tradeoff to me.

mvexel 4y ago

I wonder how much data traditional cable companies collect these days. Their services sure haven't gotten any cheaper. I was very happy to ditch Comcast a few years ago but the streaming landscape has become so confusing that I am about to give up on trying to figure out what subscriptions I need to cobble together to watch the sports I am interested in.