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Restoring 5 GHz Wi-Fi on an LG C5 by changing its webOS region
- hawshemi 1mo agoyea... LG policies are real shitty. I didn't have 5Ghz Wifi on my TV. why? cuz I'm in middle east!
- sorenjan 1mo agoSounds more like a legal issue with permitted spectrum use than an arbitrary LG policy.
- jhfdbkofdchk 1mo ago"Saudi Arabia's CITC hates this one weird trick!"
- hawshemi 1mo agoWell, I have Sony and Samsung (both middle east regions) but they dont have any restrictions in these areas. I only see these kinda quirks with LG all the times.
- Avamander 1mo agoIt's more likely an out-of-date regulatory database that predates 5GHz being allowed in those regions.
- ValdikSS 1mo agoLinux's wireless-regdb has proper 5G regulatory information for at least SA, CY, EG, QA, at least since 2017, just checked. The TV in the repo is 2025 year model.
- preponderant-pa 1mo agoIt seems like OP lives in Iran. It seems like at least a good part of the 5GHz band is available there. [1] [1] https://www.spinics.net/lists/linux-wireless/msg262022.html https://www.spinics.net/lists/linux-wireless/msg262022.html
- SlightlyLeftPad 1mo agoIs the wifi spec or perhaps chip required for it subject to export control?
- pzmarzly 1mo agoIf LG ever removes or restricts Developer Mode, I am selling my TV the same day.
- functionmouse 1mo agonew locked down spyware TVs are so cheap, who would want to buy and move -your- locked down spyware TV?
- ctippett 1mo agoJailbroken LG TVs are the panacea of locked down spyware TVs. Although like OP, if I ever lose the ability to run root, then that's the day I look for a new TV (lord have mercy).
- msh 1mo agoI don’t think I will ever again connect a tv to the internet
- kosinus 1mo agoI was playing around with LG TV homebrew a while back. Still have the same TV, and in the age of AI, I'm considering putting a coding agent to work on a dump of the filesystem to see what it'd take to run stock Linux on it.
- cs02rm0 1mo ago[dead]
- zamadatix 1mo agoIt should probably be noted changing the regulatory region of an RF device may result in you using illegal frequencies in your area depending on the combination of which region you're in and which region you're setting it to.
- BlackRabbit1 1mo agoYou mean that this helicopter hovering about my home is looking out for me?
- _davide_ 1mo agoOh no, again
- Avamander 1mo agoIf it's a station (client) then it's unlikely, as long as your APs are compliant. With some chipsets it can end up being entirely ass-backwards - if you use an Intel WiFi chipset, a nearby AP can broadcast the wrong region and cripple your connectivity. Outdated regulatory databases and firmware efforts by vendors have generally made both illegal and legal usage beyond ch 1-12 at 2.4GHz rather difficult.
- embedding-shape 1mo agoYeah, not sure if author knows, they certainly don't share if they understand this or not, but these things aren't available because the some governments say those frequencies are illegal to use. Turkey for example has multiple frequencies under 5Ghz WiFi that is banned, hence consumer don't get to use 5Ghz WiFi. If you change that, you're breaking the law and you might get a visit, depending on how hardcore they are about the rules. Tend to be pretty strict and swift payback when it comes to using frequencies you shouldn't, as they're used for other stuff and easily seen when other traffic appears.
- delamon 1mo ago> Turkey for example has multiple frequencies under 5Ghz WiFi that is banned, hence consumer don't get to use 5Ghz WiFi. Are you sure? According to wiki, there are plenty allowed 5GHz channels in Turkey.
- kwanbix 1mo agoI don't get it, why can't they just change the region in the settings? I was able to on my LG. Nice TV, worst firmware ever. It had an issue with Wifi. It basically will not connect once or so a week. You needed to change, you guess it, the region. So I will keep changing from Germany to Spain to Ireland to Germany to Etc. I sent pictures, videos, emails, links to youtube videos to LG support, they wouldn't care, they would just deny it. In the end I bought a Fire TV Max and that was it. But what a horrible support experience LG never again.
- kotaKat 1mo ago"This project was born out of accidentally changing the area option to EU in the EZ-Adjust service menu on a US TV. The factorymanager binary enforces a region lock (geolock) that prevents reverting the area code — even through the same EZ-Adjust menu that was used to change it" Sounds like service mode shenanigans. I'm curious though - does switching the TV to EU even do anything 'better' privacy-wise or anything, or do you just get trapped in that 'region' for services?
- jonatron 1mo agoMaybe ask in the openlgtv discord if you want to know more about this sort of thing
- physhster 1mo agoAndroid had (has?) a similar issue with the hotspot feature where it will not turn on in a region where 5 GHz is more regulated than in the US but will also not give you any warning about it.
- 0xc133 1mo agoWhy the hell would you ever let a TV on any network?
- TheNastyPatty 1mo ago[flagged]
- flacebo 1mo agoHe is right though.
- tigereyeTO 1mo agoI bought a new TV in 2026 and refuse to connect it to a network. For good reasonS (plural).
- thesuitonym 1mo ago``The voice came from an oblong metal plaque like a dulled mirror which formed part of the surface of the right-hand wall. . . The instrument (the telescreen, it was called) could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off completely.'' ``The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it; moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment.''
- pdpi 1mo agoThat's a needlessly snide take. Any device inside my network that talks to the outside world is a potential vulnerability. TV manufacturers aren't exactly known for their stellar development practices, and dodgy apps on TVs are being used as VPN exit points for cybercrime or scraping. Then there's the part where smart TVs are adding ads to their home screens and other random places. I want my monitors and TVs to be completely dumb. Just a display, the necessary circuitry to plug the display into a bunch of input ports, maybe the necessary circuitry to function as a KVM switch, and nothing else.
- 1mo ago
- flacebo 1mo agoNice workaround. Feels pretty stupid that you have to do that. Sounds like they choose the easy way to comply with the regulations. They could probably just have blocked certain frequency ranges. Although I'm still fully convinced that TVs just got worse for the consumer since they became "smart". My extended family had to replace perfectly good TVs three times because the new version of a streaming app did not work anymore. Add stuff like running ads on an expensive TV, running spyware that sends screenshots even of your HDMI source back to the company (possibly exposing your passwords and everything), the continuous nagging about new versions and ToS (with dark patterns to accept sending voice data home), and I feel like the only sane option is to never ever give internet connection to these TVs. Use a separate device for streaming.
- artisinal 1mo agoRecently when I started an LG TV, there was an unskippable ad for a local delivery service. I pressed the home button and it told me "Smart services not available right now". After the ad I could go to the home menu. If this was my own TV it would have been thrown in the trash.
- simondotau 1mo agoIf my LG TV did that I would return it under Australian Consumer Law.
- ValentineC 29d ago> My extended family had to replace perfectly good TVs three times because the new version of a streaming app did not work anymore. Were they not able to just buy a separate dongle/Apple TV-esque device to use through HDMI?
- KetoManx64 29d agoIt was easier to just buy a new TV than to do an online search for alternatives or Roku it seems.
- xyst 1mo agolg used to be a great tv/monitor manufacturer. Even webOS was praised amongst users. Their OLED displays were top notch. Then almost overnight. They have been making very awful decisions across all layers. Just another case of enshittification or something else?
- rootsudo 1mo agoSince you have ssh access to webos, how is it to remove the telemetry, ads and other such? Is webos better than a generic TCL for such antics? The TCL can be rooted and is android based but I’m not up to date on current rom configurations, etc.
- ctippett 1mo agoMy TV is several years old at this point, but I've never had a single ad show up on it. Telemetry is easily blocked via DNS filters and the homebrew software blocks system updates. Modern versions of Apple TV, Plex, Disney, etc all work fine. The only time I ever watch YouTube is on the TV because it has SponsorBlock baked into it so I never see an ad there either.
- kelnos 1mo agoI have a LG TV, but I do not allow it to connect to a wifi network. I don't trust LG, and expect them to do something anti-consumer to my hardware at some point, or to spy on me. This particular failure is a blessing in disguise.
- throwa356262 1mo agoThey do. I dont understand why EU is not stepping in. LG literally spies on you by capturing screenshot of whatever you watch and send them to the mothership. This includes images and videos from your private USB drive.
- graemep 1mo ago> I dont understand why EU is not stepping in. The surveillance state is not stepping in to stop spying? This is stuff they can use to profile you. The EU Commission is very keen on Chat Control and has pushed a lot of surveillance laws. Governments only protect privacy when there is a lot of pressure to do so.