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I WISH they would make a comeback. Smart TVs are the single worse piece of (shit) consumer electronics on the market. Any time you take anything electronic and
by ghjfrdghibt 2y ago
I WISH they would make a comeback. Smart TVs are the single worse piece of (shit) consumer electronics on the market. Any time you take anything electronic and connect it to the internet you're asking for trouble. Throw an operating system in it controlled by parasitic advertisers and that's where we are today.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y agoThinking about it too much makes me furious. We have supercomputers in our pockets and TVs but it all spies on us and nobody gives a shit because everything is cheap. It's a Faustian deal that sucks! Nobody would actually choose this yet here we are.
- g-b-r 2y agoIt's not that nobody gives a shit, it's that the alternatives have been taken away
- lotsofpulp 2y agoI have the alternative of just plugging in an Apple TV, Nvidia Shield, whatever Google or Amazon makes, any computer with a digital video out port, tons of IPTV boxes that stream tons of pirated channels. All I have to do is not put my wifi password into the TV.
- freedomben 2y agoFor now. We are probably going to start seeing manufacturers, shipping, TVs and other devices with LTE chips built into them, so they can go around our Wi-Fi to get the sweet sweet data. At that point, my biggest fear is that all the people (myself included) who thought we were being clever by depriving the TV of the Wi-Fi password are going to be sad that we didn't instead throw our money behind a manufacturer building ethical products.
- lotsofpulp 2y agoIf that isn’t the reality today, how could an alternative “ethical” manufacturer even compete?
- freedomben 2y agoThere are existing brands that sell dumb TVs. Sceptre is one that I'm fond of. They compete on they aren't the cheapest usually but quite reasonable. Most people want to buy cheaper "smart" TVs though and deprive them off the Wi-Fi password, which makes it harder for dumb TV manufacturers to stay in business and get cheaper through economies of scale, which further compound the problem.
- hedora 2y agoI’d really like to go with a dumb set, but their panels seem way behind. Comparing their flagship 86” set: U860CV-UMRD (claimed) to Hisense U8 (measured, native/worst case): 3000:1 vs. 9449:1 contrast 300cd/m2 vs. 910+ brightness 60hz vs 144hz. The hisense is significantly cheaper, so I think the comparison is fair. Oddly, sceptre reports percent of NTSC gamut and not a modern color space. The percentage doesn’t imply poor color representation, but its a strange choice.
- wkat4242 2y agoThis is what Amazon sidewalk is really for too.
- briHass 2y agoWe already see signs that it might head this way. Numerous IoT junk (Facebook portal and Google Home Minis come to mind), will ignore DHCP-provided DNS servers and use their own (usually 1.1.1.1/8.8.8.8 respectively) if they don't get successful connections to their mothership. My devices are old enough that they don't try DoH, but I'd be shocked if most of these haven't moved to that by now.
- orbisvicis 2y agoSo, does the FCC allow LTE jammers in any form or power level, nowadays? Because that's a compelling reason to burn the entire connectivity industry down. Edit: probably easier to open it up and simply disconnect the LTE antenna.
- hedora 2y agoSome TVs put up a periodic nag screen if you do this. Others have a blinking led behind the IR sensor. Samsungs silently mesh network with other Samsung devices.
- orbisvicis 2y ago> Samsungs silently mesh network with other Samsung devices. What? Supporting link?
- dicknuckle 2y agoMy LG does none of this. It's also never been connected to the internet, and my router also has a static IP reservation to give the TV an IP that is not on my subnet in case someone in my house ever tries to connect it to the internet.
- bmicraft 2y agoThey haven't you're just not buying them. Almost all manufacturers are also selling "digital signage displays".
- EvanAnderson 2y agoI feel this same fury. It's nice to know I'm not alone.
- sneak 2y agoMillions of people actually chose this over their other options. Consumers regularly vote with their wallets against their best interests.
- JoshTriplett 2y ago> Millions of people actually chose this over their other options. What other options would those be? What non-"smart" OLED TVs exist on the market right now?
- oleoleoled 2y agoYou missed the point. You don’t need OLED. You’re just following the crowd for the next shiny dumb new thing yet drives enshittification.
- bmicraft 2y agoYou don't actually need most things. Any yet here we all are, all on the same website. Not because anybody needed to be, just because we wanted.
- sneak 2y agoThe decisions were made months or years ago, when there were non-smart options. Cheaper surveillance TVs won out.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y agoI agree but the reason they were cheaper was hidden. If spying were an opt-in popup that says "spy on me" nobody would choose the spying. It won through sleight of hand.
- sneak 2y agoThe fact that you don’t agree with the choice doesn’t mean that consumers didn’t make one. If they were unfit for purpose, they would have been returned. Most people don’t care about being spied on.
- bdangubic 2y agowhat about laptops? can we connect them to the internet? tablets? phones? :)
- ghjfrdghibt 2y agoI don't get your point. Laptops, tablets, and phones are made for that.
- bdangubic 2y ago> Any time you take anything electronic and connect it to the internet you're asking for trouble. you said if I have an electronic device and connect it to the internet I am asking for trouble :) phone was AMAZING before some moron connected them the internet and now they are “smart…”
- imgabe 2y agoYes, the ads infiltrating Windows, for example. Linux and Mac seem to be holding the line for now.
- danpalmer 2y agoWindows offered me 3 separate subscriptions during setup. After managing to decline all 3 and complete setup, it then re-ran the Windows setup process a week later to help me "finish setting up", where it re-offered all 3 subscriptions.
- shiroiushi 2y agoI don't see the problem here. Badgering you to subscribe to some crap helps make more profit for MS, and this is good for MS shareholders. It might make the user experience worse, but who cares about that? It's not like Windows users are ever going to abandon the platform, so what's wrong with making them miserable in order to increase profits?
- 2y ago
- RGamma 2y agoI only ever use mine as monitor ("PC mode") and have a different device drive it. It would take some major market dysfunction to lose large monitors with this feature.
- immibis 2y agoSmartphones are just as bad.
- m463 2y agoand the bloat. Long boot times and cluttered menus / functions. I don't need a tv home page.
- godshatter 2y agoA quick search for "Dumb TV" on amazon shows two Sceptre models, a 43-inch and a 50-inch. The 43-inch model says it's been ordered 500+ times in the last month and the 50-inch claims 50+. There is also a Pro Scan 40 inch that doesn't have ethernet connectivity. So they do exist, and it looks like there is at least some sales activity with them. I don't know if that's the last dying breath of the dumb tv as a product or if they are trying to make a comeback, though.
- reginald78 2y agoI think the smart car trend is worse, and much harder to work around. I can only buy old cars from the south for so long before that dries up as well.