7 ms·

A smart-but-disconnected TV can meet all of those functional requirements, and your nonfunctional requirements (low processing power) frankly don't matter to mo

A smart-but-disconnected TV can meet all of those functional requirements, and your nonfunctional requirements (low processing power) frankly don't matter to most people. My smart-but-disconnected TV turns on just as quickly as my PC monitors can return from sleep (a second or two); changing inputs is just as quick (input button on remote, left/right to select, okay to confirm), and the automatic input selection when a device turns on means I barely even need to endure that tiny hassle; the interface it displays is more than a dumb monitor's OSD, but not by much. You seem to be of the opinion that it's the principle of the thing, mine is avoiding ads and bloated/slow interface. To me, keeping it disconnected avoids all of the problems of it being smart. Those "smart features" are not features to me (or most people here), but neither are they anti-features.

emodendroket 4y ago
I also wonder if an older device with lower processing power doesn't draw more power, which is a metric I find it easier to care about.
harry8 4y ago
I have a 75" Sony bravia smart tv and it draws 10-20 watts in standby. I have a 70" dell monitor used as a a tv in another room it draws 0 watts in standby.
- cybertronic 4y ago
  Is the Sony tv disconnected?
- wholinator2 4y ago
  Maybe my ignorance here but a 70 inch monitor? At what point is it just a dumb tv? Like is monitor a term used to describe its actual engineering and functionality or just how it's used. Also if engineering, is there a substantial price difference?
  - shric 4y ago
    I've never seen a 70 inch monitor either, but usually text looks a lot better on a monitor and of course many monitors offer much higher refresh rates. Ads aren't the only reason why a 42" 4K TV is generally much cheaper than a 32" 4K monitor
  - throw0101c 4y ago
    > Maybe my ignorance here but a 70 inch monitor? "Dell 75 4K Interactive Touch Monitor - D7523QT": * https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-75-4k-interactive-touch-monitor-d7523qt/apd/210-beqy/monitors-monitor-accessories https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-75-4k-interactive-touch... "Dell 65 4K Interactive Touch Monitor - C6522QT" * https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-65-4k-interactive-touch-monitor-c6522qt/apd/210-ayzn/monitors-monitor-accessories https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-65-4k-interactive-touch... Use-case seems to be conference rooms.
  - aix1 4y ago
    In addition to what others have already mentioned, it would generally be completely acceptable for a monitor to not have built-in speakers. For a TV, not so much.
    - macintux 4y ago
      Ugh, opportunity to rant a bit. As of some iPadOS release last year, I can no longer connect my iPad to a monitor while simultaneously using Airplay to send audio to my HomePod. I assume this is a DRM-imposed bug, but it’s frustrating as hell. I finally bought a cheap speaker with a 3.5mm input because none of my existing Bluetooth speakers have one, so I could plug it into my monitor, but it’s crappy audio and a crappy workaround for a crappy limitation.
- astrostl 4y ago
  Look for a power setting related to quick boots. They are common and increase power draw (at a benefit of quicker on/off cycles).
- actually_a_dog 4y ago
  20 watts standby is only about 14.7 kWh per month. Even at on-peak, summer PG&E rates, we're only talking about $7/month. Granted, I'd much rather pay $0 than $7, and I'd rather not waste energy, but we're probably not talking about anything close to the amount of energy the average household wastes. I'd be looking at refrigerators and other large appliances for energy savings long before I'd be thinking about how much electricity the TV uses on standby.
  - kelnos 4y ago
    Are you seriously trying to suggest that paying $7/mo for literally nothing is a reasonable thing to do? Not to mention the waste this causes... Sure, other appliances may suck down more power, but at least you are getting something valuable for that energy use and expense.
    - actually_a_dog 4y ago
      I am not. I am suggesting there are other savings in the average household energy budget that are more significant. Besides, even "waste" electricity heats a home in the winter, so it's not quite as bad as it sounds even.
      - tapland 4y ago
        And it heats it when you want it cool in the summer. So it’s actually net worse? Unless you have a crazy old bad refrigerator that TV would be up there with the most costly appliance per month for most people. WHILE BEING OFF. You are off your rocker here
  - kortex 4y ago
    That's 20W and $84/yr to do absolutely nothing. There is absolutely, positively no reason the standby power draw needs to be that high. I'm fine with like, 100-1000mW to allow whatever background circuity is required to wake up, but 20W is absurd. That's enough to reasonably illuminate a bedroom (your average 100W-equivalent LED bulb is 14-20W).
  - 4y ago
HnUser12 4y ago
Kinda related note: I also have smart but disconnected Samsung TV. Everything was great until a new neighbour moved in and started repeatedly trying to connect her watch to my TV. Apparently my TV has a bluetooth that's always on and has no way to turn it off.
- bj-rn 4y ago
  If you don't mind voiding your warranty, physically disconnect the BT module. There are "how to" videos on yt. Had to disconnect the WIFI module on mine (also Samsung) to make the remote work again...
  - actually_a_dog 4y ago
    When this happened to me, I just renamed my tv to "STOP TRYING TO PAIR WITH THIS FUCKING TV"
    - ARandomerDude 4y ago
      Funny! But probably not the wisest way to introduce yourself to the neighbors.
    - drewmol 4y ago
      Very tangential, but this reminded me of a much more obscene [0] Wi-Fi name controversy. https://gothamist.com/news/park-slope-childrens-salon-trolled-by-anal-bleaching-for-kids-wifi-network https://gothamist.com/news/park-slope-childrens-salon-trolle...
    - jonathanlydall 4y ago
      Some feedback from being sort of on the other end here. I rent a room and the tenant is on the same WiFi network. They politely messaged me one day saying “I think you’re trying to connect to my TV”. Which as it turns out was our toddler mashing the screen on YouTube Kids. I worked out on YouTube kids how to disable the option in the app. My point being that it’s not always a rational person you’re dealing with, being able to at least disable the option is essential.
imglorp 4y ago
Ads are really the least of our worries. Data about attention (viewing habits) is so immensely valuable, who knows what the next generation will do to obtain it? Years ago, the TV execs told us not to have a private conversation in the TV room. We all know how very easy it would -- if they wanted -- to exfiltrate your data in a variety of ways: Kismet, group Xfinity/Fios wifi passwords, or even ultrasonic beacons between cell phones. Why would they leave cash on the table if they had the option?
- deleted 4y ago
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- j45 4y ago
  Running a Samsung Tv for example thru pihole can solve a lot.
  - deleted 4y ago
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- deleted 4y ago
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- deleted 4y ago
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- fnordpiglet 4y ago
  You mean like using a pervasive low bandwidth cellular data service or Sidewalk or other such tech? I’m surprised blackholing your TV even works any more given how cheap low bandwidth data services are to both add into the set and provision at scale, compared to the value of collecting all the smart tab data that’s not connected. Don’t forget a lot of TV users aren’t savvy enough to configure them, on the other end of the spectrum.
kelnos 4y ago
> My smart-but-disconnected TV turns on just as quickly as my PC monitors Probably because your smart TV is never actually turned off, but sits in a standby state that wastes electricity.
1101010010 4y ago
It's only disconnected until your neighbor's AP decides to advertise an open guest network for it to automatically connect to.
- Larrikin 4y ago
  Networks with no password and no captive sign in portal are extremely rare nowadays. They are on by default and anyone with the IT ability to go in and change it will already know the dangers of letting anyone use the Internet you are paying for. But also are there any actual confirmed cases of TVs doing this? The comment section here always fear mongers about it (kudos for not mentioning Amazon sidewalk), but it isn't anything worth worrying about currently.
  - 1101010010 4y ago
    > Networks with no password and no captive sign in portal are extremely rare nowadays. In my suburban-American experience, they are in fact they are more common these days as more consumers purchase and own ISP-provided equipment. > But also are there any actual confirmed cases of TVs doing this? Given the nature of proprietary closed source software, I am willing to accept a less than charitable assumption of what they do.
    - Godel_unicode 4y ago
      Which ISPs are giving out APs with no key needed and no captive portal? Every one that I’m aware of requires some manner of secret to login to the shared AP.
      - roywiggins 4y ago
        There's nothing actually stopping an ISP from making a deal with a TV manufacturer to provide connectivity though, is there?
        Godel_unicode 4y ago
potatolicious 4y ago
> "A smart-but-disconnected TV can meet all of those functional requirements, and your nonfunctional requirements" Ehhh I beg to differ. I got a Sony TV a year or so ago with Google TV built in. It's been a nightmare - the GUI is basically unusably slow (literally 5 entire seconds from button press to response) and the whole experience sucks. So I did what most reasonable people did - plug in some HDMI device that doesn't suck (in my case, an Apple TV) - except that didn't fix the problem entirely. You see, this TV really really really wants to boot into Google TV. So sure, you have your dongle plugged into this HDMI port full time but it just won't reliably boot into it. Even after setting the HDMI port as the default, half the time it insists on booting into Google TV anyway. And sure, I can grab the TV remote and switch inputs - but again, it's multiple button presses on a software suite that takes ~5 seconds to respond to a single button press. It's a good 20-30 seconds just to switch inputs. It's maddening. So maddening that I am in fact in the market for a dumb TV just so I can be rid of this cursed UX. I'm not particularly puritanical about this. I'm willing to live with "just disconnect it", but that solution doesn't actually work for me!
- sgerenser 4y ago
  My LG C9 OLED from 2019 works great with my AppleTV. It starts up quickly, and I only ever see its interface if I accidentally bump the TVs remote (all normal interaction including power on and volume go through the AppleTV remote). Of course I never connected it to WiFi.
  - speeder 4y ago
    I have one of these and was happy with it until it decided to use the notification system to nag me. 1. Lots of ads of local TV stations on the system update notifications. 2. Often it nag me about other random things too, like asking me to change the brightness settings or telling me that using the TV for too long is unhealthy. 3. Often it decides to stop work properly unless I accept license agreements. Sometimes I accept and immediately deny them again, and then the TV works fine for about a week. 4. It started to show ads for porn stuff. When I complained to my country authorities they said it was just "documentary recommendations, not ads". And thus why I can't disable them by refusing to accept the EULA for the ad service.
hot_gril 4y ago
> changing inputs is just as quick Problem is, it's not. And turning it on is slow. Changing channels is also slow. I'm not picky or principled at all when it comes to TVs, I just want it to work without pissing me off by taking forever to do stuff, and they're failing the test. My old TVs were always fine. Also, my last smart TV bricked itself, which I'll write off as me being unlucky but it probably wouldn't have happened with a dumb one. When I was shopping for a replacement and asked the BestBuy employee if they have any dumb TVs, he said he gets that question a lot, and no. So I don't think I'm a weirdo for wanting one.
- Hikikomori 4y ago
  IPtv will be slower than analog as you need to request the channel when switching.
  - hot_gril 4y ago
    I meant regular cable TV over coax. (Included in my apartment rent, and occasionally I want to watch sports.)
- arcticbull 4y ago
  A lot of smart TVs turn all the way off by default but have a quick power on setting buried in there that uses a bit more power when not on.
  - hot_gril 4y ago
    Not mine, unfortunately.
singron 4y ago
You have to be careful. My Samsung smart tv throws up a splash screen whenever any HDMI input is plugged in or wakes up, which can only be dismissed by using the remote. Sometimes it even shows a few frames of the HDMI input before switching to the splash screen. Infuriating!
- lesuorac 4y ago
  This kills me about the Apple TV. It didn't used to display an ad for Apple's channels but now it does and it requires the remote to dismiss... Previously you could just blindly airplay something but now you have to airplay + dismiss the ad with the remote.
  - fnordpiglet 4y ago
    I’ve been using Apple TV since the first generation and haven’t gotten an ad in my experience - did something change or a new version of the hardware I’ve not noticed yet show up? Are you using the Apple TV app itself?
  - beardedwizard 4y ago
    I frequently use AirPlay with Apple TV and have never experienced this
  - desro 4y ago
    This has never happened to me in 8+ years over dozens of Apple TV's in both home and office settings.
  - justsomeadvice0 4y ago
    That sounds horrible and I would immediately quit the ecosystem... I have never experienced this in nearly a decade of use, but I also pay for TV+; is it possible you got the bad luck of getting a terrible A/B test or something?
scythe 4y ago
>A smart-but-disconnected TV can meet all of those functional requirements One of them will. This thread is full of conflicting anecdotes: one user's smart TV turns on quickly and works like a dumb TV when it's not connected to the Internet; another user's TV takes a full sixty seconds to get going. The fact that one smart TV will do the thing does not at all imply that another one will. And if you have to search for what kind of smart TV will act like a dumb TV when you want it to, you are already looking for a dumb TV! You still have to look at reviews and seek out the other people who didn't want any of this corporate surveillance catastrophe to find out what happened to them. It is the same search process with a slightly broader scope at the cost of a more complicated definition of that scope. Meanwhile, I got a 40" Sceptre dumb TV from Walmart last year and it's been a very satisfying decision. It was cheaper than most if not all of the smart TVs, too. And I don't have to treat it like a contamination risk or worry about it finding an open WiFi network. Maybe I'm just one of those old curmudgeons who doesn't care about image quality. Couldn't tell you.
somedude895 4y ago
> A smart-but-disconnected TV can meet all of those functional requirements I agree. The question should be "What TV doesn't force smart features upon me" instead. I've had an LG Smart TV for four years. Never connected it to the internet, only use it with Apple TV and PS4. I notice none of the issues that GP mentioned.
rolenthedeep 4y ago
Just because a problem doesn't affect you personally doesn't mean that it isn't a problem.

emodendroket 4y ago

I also wonder if an older device with lower processing power doesn't draw more power, which is a metric I find it easier to care about.

harry8 4y ago

I have a 75" Sony bravia smart tv and it draws 10-20 watts in standby. I have a 70" dell monitor used as a a tv in another room it draws 0 watts in standby.

cybertronic 4y ago
Is the Sony tv disconnected?
wholinator2 4y ago
Maybe my ignorance here but a 70 inch monitor? At what point is it just a dumb tv? Like is monitor a term used to describe its actual engineering and functionality or just how it's used. Also if engineering, is there a substantial price difference?
- shric 4y ago
  I've never seen a 70 inch monitor either, but usually text looks a lot better on a monitor and of course many monitors offer much higher refresh rates. Ads aren't the only reason why a 42" 4K TV is generally much cheaper than a 32" 4K monitor
- throw0101c 4y ago
  > Maybe my ignorance here but a 70 inch monitor? "Dell 75 4K Interactive Touch Monitor - D7523QT": * https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-75-4k-interactive-touch-monitor-d7523qt/apd/210-beqy/monitors-monitor-accessories https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-75-4k-interactive-touch... "Dell 65 4K Interactive Touch Monitor - C6522QT" * https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-65-4k-interactive-touch-monitor-c6522qt/apd/210-ayzn/monitors-monitor-accessories https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-65-4k-interactive-touch... Use-case seems to be conference rooms.
- aix1 4y ago
  In addition to what others have already mentioned, it would generally be completely acceptable for a monitor to not have built-in speakers. For a TV, not so much.
  - macintux 4y ago
    Ugh, opportunity to rant a bit. As of some iPadOS release last year, I can no longer connect my iPad to a monitor while simultaneously using Airplay to send audio to my HomePod. I assume this is a DRM-imposed bug, but it’s frustrating as hell. I finally bought a cheap speaker with a 3.5mm input because none of my existing Bluetooth speakers have one, so I could plug it into my monitor, but it’s crappy audio and a crappy workaround for a crappy limitation.
astrostl 4y ago
Look for a power setting related to quick boots. They are common and increase power draw (at a benefit of quicker on/off cycles).
actually_a_dog 4y ago
20 watts standby is only about 14.7 kWh per month. Even at on-peak, summer PG&E rates, we're only talking about $7/month. Granted, I'd much rather pay $0 than $7, and I'd rather not waste energy, but we're probably not talking about anything close to the amount of energy the average household wastes. I'd be looking at refrigerators and other large appliances for energy savings long before I'd be thinking about how much electricity the TV uses on standby.
- kelnos 4y ago
  Are you seriously trying to suggest that paying $7/mo for literally nothing is a reasonable thing to do? Not to mention the waste this causes... Sure, other appliances may suck down more power, but at least you are getting something valuable for that energy use and expense.
  - actually_a_dog 4y ago
    I am not. I am suggesting there are other savings in the average household energy budget that are more significant. Besides, even "waste" electricity heats a home in the winter, so it's not quite as bad as it sounds even.
    - tapland 4y ago
      And it heats it when you want it cool in the summer. So it’s actually net worse? Unless you have a crazy old bad refrigerator that TV would be up there with the most costly appliance per month for most people. WHILE BEING OFF. You are off your rocker here
- kortex 4y ago
  That's 20W and $84/yr to do absolutely nothing. There is absolutely, positively no reason the standby power draw needs to be that high. I'm fine with like, 100-1000mW to allow whatever background circuity is required to wake up, but 20W is absurd. That's enough to reasonably illuminate a bedroom (your average 100W-equivalent LED bulb is 14-20W).
- 4y ago

HnUser12 4y ago

Kinda related note: I also have smart but disconnected Samsung TV. Everything was great until a new neighbour moved in and started repeatedly trying to connect her watch to my TV. Apparently my TV has a bluetooth that's always on and has no way to turn it off.

bj-rn 4y ago
If you don't mind voiding your warranty, physically disconnect the BT module. There are "how to" videos on yt. Had to disconnect the WIFI module on mine (also Samsung) to make the remote work again...
- actually_a_dog 4y ago
  When this happened to me, I just renamed my tv to "STOP TRYING TO PAIR WITH THIS FUCKING TV"
  - ARandomerDude 4y ago
    Funny! But probably not the wisest way to introduce yourself to the neighbors.
  - drewmol 4y ago
    Very tangential, but this reminded me of a much more obscene [0] Wi-Fi name controversy. https://gothamist.com/news/park-slope-childrens-salon-trolled-by-anal-bleaching-for-kids-wifi-network https://gothamist.com/news/park-slope-childrens-salon-trolle...
  - jonathanlydall 4y ago
    Some feedback from being sort of on the other end here. I rent a room and the tenant is on the same WiFi network. They politely messaged me one day saying “I think you’re trying to connect to my TV”. Which as it turns out was our toddler mashing the screen on YouTube Kids. I worked out on YouTube kids how to disable the option in the app. My point being that it’s not always a rational person you’re dealing with, being able to at least disable the option is essential.

imglorp 4y ago

Ads are really the least of our worries. Data about attention (viewing habits) is so immensely valuable, who knows what the next generation will do to obtain it? Years ago, the TV execs told us not to have a private conversation in the TV room. We all know how very easy it would -- if they wanted -- to exfiltrate your data in a variety of ways: Kismet, group Xfinity/Fios wifi passwords, or even ultrasonic beacons between cell phones. Why would they leave cash on the table if they had the option?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
j45 4y ago
Running a Samsung Tv for example thru pihole can solve a lot.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
fnordpiglet 4y ago
You mean like using a pervasive low bandwidth cellular data service or Sidewalk or other such tech? I’m surprised blackholing your TV even works any more given how cheap low bandwidth data services are to both add into the set and provision at scale, compared to the value of collecting all the smart tab data that’s not connected. Don’t forget a lot of TV users aren’t savvy enough to configure them, on the other end of the spectrum.

kelnos 4y ago

> My smart-but-disconnected TV turns on just as quickly as my PC monitors Probably because your smart TV is never actually turned off, but sits in a standby state that wastes electricity.

1101010010 4y ago

It's only disconnected until your neighbor's AP decides to advertise an open guest network for it to automatically connect to.

Larrikin 4y ago
Networks with no password and no captive sign in portal are extremely rare nowadays. They are on by default and anyone with the IT ability to go in and change it will already know the dangers of letting anyone use the Internet you are paying for. But also are there any actual confirmed cases of TVs doing this? The comment section here always fear mongers about it (kudos for not mentioning Amazon sidewalk), but it isn't anything worth worrying about currently.
- 1101010010 4y ago
  > Networks with no password and no captive sign in portal are extremely rare nowadays. In my suburban-American experience, they are in fact they are more common these days as more consumers purchase and own ISP-provided equipment. > But also are there any actual confirmed cases of TVs doing this? Given the nature of proprietary closed source software, I am willing to accept a less than charitable assumption of what they do.
  - Godel_unicode 4y ago
    Which ISPs are giving out APs with no key needed and no captive portal? Every one that I’m aware of requires some manner of secret to login to the shared AP.
    - roywiggins 4y ago
      There's nothing actually stopping an ISP from making a deal with a TV manufacturer to provide connectivity though, is there?
      - Godel_unicode 4y ago

potatolicious 4y ago

> "A smart-but-disconnected TV can meet all of those functional requirements, and your nonfunctional requirements" Ehhh I beg to differ. I got a Sony TV a year or so ago with Google TV built in. It's been a nightmare - the GUI is basically unusably slow (literally 5 entire seconds from button press to response) and the whole experience sucks. So I did what most reasonable people did - plug in some HDMI device that doesn't suck (in my case, an Apple TV) - except that didn't fix the problem entirely. You see, this TV really really really wants to boot into Google TV. So sure, you have your dongle plugged into this HDMI port full time but it just won't reliably boot into it. Even after setting the HDMI port as the default, half the time it insists on booting into Google TV anyway. And sure, I can grab the TV remote and switch inputs - but again, it's multiple button presses on a software suite that takes ~5 seconds to respond to a single button press. It's a good 20-30 seconds just to switch inputs. It's maddening. So maddening that I am in fact in the market for a dumb TV just so I can be rid of this cursed UX. I'm not particularly puritanical about this. I'm willing to live with "just disconnect it", but that solution doesn't actually work for me!

sgerenser 4y ago
My LG C9 OLED from 2019 works great with my AppleTV. It starts up quickly, and I only ever see its interface if I accidentally bump the TVs remote (all normal interaction including power on and volume go through the AppleTV remote). Of course I never connected it to WiFi.
- speeder 4y ago
  I have one of these and was happy with it until it decided to use the notification system to nag me. 1. Lots of ads of local TV stations on the system update notifications. 2. Often it nag me about other random things too, like asking me to change the brightness settings or telling me that using the TV for too long is unhealthy. 3. Often it decides to stop work properly unless I accept license agreements. Sometimes I accept and immediately deny them again, and then the TV works fine for about a week. 4. It started to show ads for porn stuff. When I complained to my country authorities they said it was just "documentary recommendations, not ads". And thus why I can't disable them by refusing to accept the EULA for the ad service.

hot_gril 4y ago

> changing inputs is just as quick Problem is, it's not. And turning it on is slow. Changing channels is also slow. I'm not picky or principled at all when it comes to TVs, I just want it to work without pissing me off by taking forever to do stuff, and they're failing the test. My old TVs were always fine. Also, my last smart TV bricked itself, which I'll write off as me being unlucky but it probably wouldn't have happened with a dumb one. When I was shopping for a replacement and asked the BestBuy employee if they have any dumb TVs, he said he gets that question a lot, and no. So I don't think I'm a weirdo for wanting one.

Hikikomori 4y ago
IPtv will be slower than analog as you need to request the channel when switching.
- hot_gril 4y ago
  I meant regular cable TV over coax. (Included in my apartment rent, and occasionally I want to watch sports.)
arcticbull 4y ago
A lot of smart TVs turn all the way off by default but have a quick power on setting buried in there that uses a bit more power when not on.
- hot_gril 4y ago
  Not mine, unfortunately.

singron 4y ago

You have to be careful. My Samsung smart tv throws up a splash screen whenever any HDMI input is plugged in or wakes up, which can only be dismissed by using the remote. Sometimes it even shows a few frames of the HDMI input before switching to the splash screen. Infuriating!

lesuorac 4y ago
This kills me about the Apple TV. It didn't used to display an ad for Apple's channels but now it does and it requires the remote to dismiss... Previously you could just blindly airplay something but now you have to airplay + dismiss the ad with the remote.
- fnordpiglet 4y ago
  I’ve been using Apple TV since the first generation and haven’t gotten an ad in my experience - did something change or a new version of the hardware I’ve not noticed yet show up? Are you using the Apple TV app itself?
- beardedwizard 4y ago
  I frequently use AirPlay with Apple TV and have never experienced this
- desro 4y ago
  This has never happened to me in 8+ years over dozens of Apple TV's in both home and office settings.
- justsomeadvice0 4y ago
  That sounds horrible and I would immediately quit the ecosystem... I have never experienced this in nearly a decade of use, but I also pay for TV+; is it possible you got the bad luck of getting a terrible A/B test or something?

scythe 4y ago

>A smart-but-disconnected TV can meet all of those functional requirements One of them will. This thread is full of conflicting anecdotes: one user's smart TV turns on quickly and works like a dumb TV when it's not connected to the Internet; another user's TV takes a full sixty seconds to get going. The fact that one smart TV will do the thing does not at all imply that another one will. And if you have to search for what kind of smart TV will act like a dumb TV when you want it to, you are already looking for a dumb TV! You still have to look at reviews and seek out the other people who didn't want any of this corporate surveillance catastrophe to find out what happened to them. It is the same search process with a slightly broader scope at the cost of a more complicated definition of that scope. Meanwhile, I got a 40" Sceptre dumb TV from Walmart last year and it's been a very satisfying decision. It was cheaper than most if not all of the smart TVs, too. And I don't have to treat it like a contamination risk or worry about it finding an open WiFi network. Maybe I'm just one of those old curmudgeons who doesn't care about image quality. Couldn't tell you.

somedude895 4y ago

> A smart-but-disconnected TV can meet all of those functional requirements I agree. The question should be "What TV doesn't force smart features upon me" instead. I've had an LG Smart TV for four years. Never connected it to the internet, only use it with Apple TV and PS4. I notice none of the issues that GP mentioned.

rolenthedeep 4y ago

Just because a problem doesn't affect you personally doesn't mean that it isn't a problem.