You're probably better off the buy the screen you like and pair it with a low cost NUC to sidestep the privacy invasion of the "smart" part of that TV.
Not at all, in this case "better off" means don't worry about whether a given TV has smart features or not. Buy the screen/TV you like and bypass the "smart" stuff.
For example if I was in the market my choice would be one of the high end LG TVs. They all have a smart component but I would bypass that and still get the gorgeous screen.
Modern high end TVs, such as those from Samsung, intercept all video coming from every HDMI port and use content recognition on it for ad targeting.
Granted: never put it online, and never use the smart stuff bundled with it, and you should be fine (assuming there's no critical software updates it needs to function, which has also happened). But its still disgusting behavior.
What we really need is a turnkey FOSS smart tv suite of software distributed as a NUC OS. I'd prefer for the NUC to handle the tuner part, too, and let the tv simply be a screen with speakers. Or even a screen with speakers, a few extra ports that are routed back into the NUC, an embedded antenna, maybe a microphone and a webcam... there's still a lot of cool things you could do as a manufacturer of televisions even if you gave up on the modern businesses of rent-seeking and surveillance. TV manufacturers actually make things, things people want and don't feel they can do without. They don't have to rely on the financial scams and deception that make up the rest of the economy to stay in business.
There's already a DRM standard for browsers. We don't need TVs to have proprietary bullshit preinstalled on them to have Netflix.
I agree with the sentiment but you’re only hurting yourself by choosing a worse TV at a given price point compared to just never connecting your TV to the internet.
If you want a competitive display market where the best options are still dumb then look at getting a projector. The price and quality are comparable and I really like being able to “put away” the TV by just rolling up the screen.
It can very well connect to those semi-public WiFi's that require payment or require to be a customer of that ISP (and every router from that ISP automatically broadcasts such a network in addition to the private one).
This isn't something I've seen in the wild yet (beyond anecdotal evidence which I suspect is due to a misconfiguration), however it is a very valid concern especially considering most ISPs are in bed with the media/advertising industry and would directly benefit from allowing these TVs to connect to these networks and making a deal with the manufacturer to make them do so.
That would have to either be done via the ISP gateway recognizing a MAC address or other stuff that is sniffable and potentially crackable (remember this is Samsung software we're talking about) by someone. I would assume by now if anything like that existed it'd be exploited to hell and back for a free Internet connection.
I believe the Roku TVs can operate in a fully functional "dumb" mode if you don't connect them to Wifi. I'm guessing that applies to some other brands as well.
Nah -- Rokus are really bad here, they want to run roku first then be a TV. The more traditional brands -- LGs and Samsungs of the world -- do better at this and don't bitch as much.
Any TCL or Hisense on sale is going to be better than Sceptre. Sceptres quality control is also horrendous, there was a time when one in three panels was shipping to me cracked. They make great ultra cheap monitors, but for the extra hundred or so bucks get a TCL.
You can get an LG (https://www.bestbuy.com/site/lg-65-class-un7000-series-led-4...) for $500, which has HDR. Did not compare these two side-by-side but generally HDR is what sells 4K TV: a small (<80") TV does not benefit from higher resolution, IMHO. HDR on the other hand, is a huge difference (and even on a regular SD signal a "smart" TV can usually blow up dynamic range with some image processing).
I've seen comments here mentioning newest models that won't make it past the boot step if they can't connect. I think these were Samsung but I've never seen real sources for it. Even if the comments were wrong, it is most likely coming soon.
The Vizio that I bought four years ago has kind-of gone that far. They updated the OS so that you can't access the main interface (which includes built in Netflix and Amazon Prime, among others) unless you agree to a ToS giving them access to all kind of information I don't want to give them. So I factory reset it and now I only use my Apple TV with it and am all the more happy having done so. Screw Vizio. They'll never get another dime of mine.
I think there are too many people that have no computer and no home internet (and just use the their phone for internet browsing) for that to happen, at least generally.
They could connect it to their phone, or maybe there is a neighbor whose WiFi has one of those default seperate gateways for other customers that they never disabled (Xfinity I think does this).
Oh I love visiting my friends and hooking all their IOT things back up to the internet! Last time I enabled Alexa on everything. Now they can turn on their microwave from the bathroom! It's truly glorious! They really love it. They were especially thankful when they were able to check if the toilet overflowed while they were on vacation in china.
It may sound like a folk tale but to me at least it doesn't seem like a dumb strategy: Lots of people won't connect the TV to their home WiFi either because they're concerned about data collection or just because they don't want to spend time and effort on it. Most would consent to the TV's terms of service though, especially if a considerable amount of features are locked in case you decline. So if the TV manufacturer can sell its customers' viewership data for more than the cost of the LTE connection on average then there's a clear incentive to do it.
Apart from that I'd always assume the worst case when it comes to digital self-defense.
I suspect that the 5g era will bring with it many more devices connecting unbeknownst to their owners, and that "smart" appliances will be first on the list.
As that approaches, we need solutions that address this as well.
If a significant number of people start leaving their tvs offline maybe they would. Everything is so integrated now. Perhaps it would be on the chips as the wifi so not much of an extra cost?
Maybe it would be sold as a feature, like "Built in 5g hotspot!" or something like that.
Maybe they will build in free 5g but then can’t you just disable it? If they made a tv that could only work with a 5g connection that would be terribly inconvenient and a huge disadvantage.
Another free service that will show up, pop out the 5g modem/sim, and gets paid by repurposing it for mobile data. And after the mobile networks develop strict firewall rules, hopefully they can pivot to selling show popularity as a service.
I let mine on the network so it will get updates, but I just don't use any of the smart features. I understand that some TVs (Samsung?) apparently track your activity and show you unsolicited ads, but as far as my LG TV doesn't track me and all the apps and smart features don't do anything unless I choose to open them.
That is true although if the product is new (or the assembly line never ups the installed firmware version) day-one patches due to rushed software could be a thing.
But you're right, I was just saying everything with software has a reason for updates, though not a good one sometimes.
They are mostly app updates and security issues that only relate to networking and the smart features. But there are occasional updates to support new media features, new color management options, power management changes, etc.
My LG OLED has received updates to support TrueHD audio, add new color settings like Technicolor modes, UI functions like the ability to apply your customized picture settings to all inputs, and changes to the motion smoothing for certain video formats.
Makes sense to me. I just find it hard to believe that TV manufacturers will release software updates for older TVs, but then again I haven’t gone shopping for a TV in nearly a decade.
True, that makes sense. I guess my personal preference would be to keep my TV as just a display and hook up an Apple TV/Chromecast/etc. to it for those features.
There are other virtues of a dumb TV. Simplicity is probably the best reason for wanting one.
If you're getting a dumb TV because it stays off your network, but then get ipTV dongles and boxes for it, then you effectively have a smart TV on the network.
I have one and like it a lot. The remote control is beautifully simple. There is no complicated menu structure; it took all of five minutes to go through all the screens, to discover all that can be tweaked. The remote has dedicated buttons for switching among the HDMI inputs: power it on and hit the button for the input that you want.
I like the separation: the TV is the TV, and the box or dongle is the box. You can ditch the dongle and get another one, while keeping the TV. You can take the dongle on the road and plug it into another TV wherever you are.
The dongle has its own control mechanism (own remote, or smartphone). This simplifies things. You know what is a TV setting and what is an IPTV setting, and talk to the right piece of hardware with the right remote.
There is fault isolation. If your IPTV dongle or box fries itself, then it's just the box. If it's integrated into the TV, then the whole TV is toast.
You can ditch the dongle/box in a few years and upgrade to different/newer one, while keeping the TV. If you're happy with the size, colors and resolution, and the thing works, there is no need to update it. It will work fine with whatever you're interested in four years from now.
The relationship between the smarts and tv are sometimes underrated. It's one less connection to act up. When adjusting picture settings there aren't two independent layers of settings that don't interact with each other.
I was in the dumb tv camp, but I think having all my settings in one menu has converted me a bit.
If you're plugging in a roku or fire anyway just get a roku or fire tv and avoid the extra complexity of the interface handshake.
Could you clarify as I’ve searched and think I get it.
You bought a dumb tv, then plugged in a sort of set top box that does stuff. Then you use that things remote?
Far from it.
The problem with smart TVs is that they provide an inferior experience to a dumb TV.
They have sluggish menu systems, are slow to switch between inputs and startup times frequently measured in 10s of seconds. Compare that to dumb TVs that switch on in less than 2 seconds and respond immediately.
Then there’s of course the ads and spying that you can avoid by not letting it on the network.
I second this. Every smart TV I've used has had an annoying "bootup" time, between 2-5 seconds, just to display the menus. Dumb TVs I've used have all displayed a menu in < 1 second.
I had the pleasure of using one in an airbnb that wouldn't allow you to change volume during the first 5 seconds. It would also not boot up on the previous input, so could be quite noisy with no recourse.
I never noticed any latency problem with my LG, I think that WebOs is quite nice. Though I really use it only for streaming, I can’t really speak about the normal TV.
Haven't read the article but as in the title, you shouldn't look to get the best dumb tv. Look for the best tv you can get, and see if you can make it a dumb one.
I’ve had good luck with sceptre brand TVs. They are no frills and cheap. Plug in a $30 roku and hook it up to some decent speakers and you are good to go. I’ve had two of them going on 8 years strong now. Loads of connectivity to. From vga to dvi to component/composite, 1/8” audio in/out, spdif, hdmi, etc, etc.
On the other hand the power supply in my (former) LG plasma tv died after 1.5 years. I DIY replaced that with a ~$100 part. Then 6 months later it broke down with large green vertical lines interrupting the screen, at which point I gave up on it.
So for me it will be no frills cheap TVs from now on. If it breaks in a few years I can replace it without feeling as much of a hit to the wallet. And the external streaming boxes will always be better, faster and more flexible for me than the inbuilt “smart” software that stops getting updates after a few years.
Currently $379.99 (usually $429.99) and $239.99 (usually $299.99 at Walmart.
Impressive! Electronics are quite a bit cheaper in the USA than in Germany. If quality is similar the panel won't be that great (but not terrible), the UI that is there will be very unimpressive and three's no proof on the web the model actually exists. I hope it's better.
It's worth noting that Roku devices apparently send a lot of information about your usage habits back to their servers, so if "privacy" is one of your reasons for choosing a dumb TV, perhaps Roku's not the best choice.
Not sure if there are authoritative deep dives out there, but here's what the Pi-hole folks saw:
I was disappointed but not surprised to learn that. My experiences with Rokus have been really positive. Tracking issues aside, the user experience is pleasantly simple and responsive. A great example of "it just works" hardware+software. In fact, my 85 year-old dad and his tech-phobic wife even had positive things to say about the remote and interface.
In terms of breakage, no none that I’ve found. I can say it successfully blocks the big ad on the home screen and probably a lot of other requests too.
I have two Roku devices, never been particularly enthused with the response times using the remotes: they've both had issues recognizing signals and screens take a while to load. However, I do like that I can turn my TV on from my phone. I will probably look for a dumb TV at some point, but I'm also hoping to get a pi-hole setup to increase privacy in the meantime.
I got a tv with built-in Roku, and its actually pretty nice. I can change volume, select hdmi inputs and power on/off the tv with the Roku remote (and app) now.
Same, though the giant ad on the home screen was almost a dealbreaker. Can't reclaim that screen real estate either - I blocked all the ad domains on my router and the ad disappeared, leaving a giant hole taking 40% of the screen.
I got a dumb external
monitor for my laptop and then learned it doesn't have the right DRM for me to watch Blu-rays on it. Literally, I can view the Blu-rays on my laptop screen, but if I drag the window to the other screen, it won't display the video.
Sounds like HDCP. I've read that some cheap hdmi splitters will strip HDCP as an undocumented side effect. By strip I mean communicate to the player/source that the display/destination is compliant regardless of whether that's true.
> I've read that some cheap hdmi splitters will strip HDCP as an undocumented side effect
I haven't heard that before, but according to Wikipedia a master key was leaked or reverse engineered 10 years ago, so presumably manufacturers out of Intel's legal reach can produce devices that strip HDCP.
There are plenty of ways around HDCP - some cheap HDMI splitters completely bypass it and will allow you to use your other screen.
Typically the review section of a given HDMI splitter on Amazon is a dead give away as to wether they bypass HDCP. Failing that you can buy a HDFury device - which I've used plenty of times in large AV installs to avoid HDMI/HDCP problems...
The best dumb TV is a monitor with an HTPC attached to it.
Also, you can find "LVDS converter boards" which are sold for repurposing LCD panels out of laptops and such, but they can also be used to dumb down TVs. You can buy a large smart TV just for the panel (which is the majority of its price anyway) and replace its motherboard with a dumb converter board.
It's been a few years now, but when I bought my current TV (Samsung), one of the first things that popped up when I turned it on was several EULAs. I skimmed over them, and went "lol no", and pressed decline. This effectively lobotomized the TV. None of its "smart" features are enabled.
I've heard of Ironcast.TV whose entire selling point is the lack of "smart" features, though I haven't ordered one and I'm not sure if they even shipped any, but on paper it looks nice and reasonably priced: https://displayy.studio/ironcast.tv/
That's how I would implement it, since Bluetooth is a lot simpler than Wi-Fi (no need to build a UI to manage networks, IP addresses, having a TCP/IP stack, etc) and in this case they don't need the online connection that WI-Fi would provide.
I posted in another thread but another option is commercial signage displays. They are built for commercial use which means they are very bright and durable and missing lots of consumer features. They can be more expensive but not outrageous.
I have a similar model from a few years ago (purchased from Canada Computers fwiw), and I love it. Because I don't notice it exists. It just does its job, like a TV should.
The Scepter 50" 4k TVs recommended in the article are $200 at Walmart. The quality probably isn't as good, but at 1/8th the cost that's a hard up-sell.
I have a sceptre. They're really good for the price and super reliable. I won't buy anything else. In fact I might go get a couple spares so I don't have to worry for a while.
Actually, mine was a bit cheaper! It's 55" 4k but no HDR. It was ~$850 CAD. At the time, LG's equivalent (spec-wise, as far as I could tell) "consumer" smart-tv was ~$1000.
The model I linked here, is $1000 CAD on amazon.ca (through 3rd-party sellers), but I don't know how it compares.
Again that's a few years ago so the market may have changed. And annoyingly, LG seems to have different products for Canada vs the US.
One is sometimes english/french or english/spanish manuals. These days though, most manuals are on CD, with tiny 20 language install manuals... so that differentiation is gone.
What I find often happening, is that each large store, BestBuy/Walmart/whatever asks for, and receives, unique model numbers so you cannot price match easily.
There are still models which are generic, but those are used by smaller corps, which cannot negotiate en-masse, and therefore are unable to shrug of price-matching.
Stuff like this burns me up. "We price match!", then "Quick Bob, get on the phone to LG! We want unique models for their product line!"
Along those lines are the commercial display panels intended for digital signage and advertising use. They usually have a very bright picture, are very durable, and have typically been quite expensive but that seems to be changing.
Here are some LG commercial displays ranging from 43" to 86" and priced from $745 to $3,850:
Digital signage isn’t really about advertising. It might be used to eg show departures at an airport/bus station, or show schedules for different rooms at a conference or fair/exhibition/show. Other common uses are to show a few slides on a loop, eg in a reception area of a school showing the school’s achievements.
The uses you mention are common, but digital signage for advertising is big in retail. It's almost always trying to drive you to purchases.
Some network operators run 3rd party advertising to offset costs of running their network.
Also, if you see a sign at person level in a public space there's a high likelihood it's collecting demographics information on (age, gender, ethnicity - via video image processing) on everyone passing by while also trying to identity the mobile device in your pocket to geotag your advertising identity.
I work in a company that provides general interest "filler" type content for networks to display - news, weather, sports e.g.
Even if you're not getting a dumb one, I think LG has the best "smart" TVs around.
Just don't give them access to the internet and they'll do the job of displaying anything you give them via a HDMI port. Integrates nicely with home automation with an API too.
Oh, and they don't have ads in the menus like Samsung does.
LG's TVs are pretty bad as TVs outside of their OLEDs. IPS panels are good for computer monitors where you want color accuracy, fast pixel refresh rates, and good viewing angles, but are terrible for TVs because of their low contrast ratio.
no power on ad either? i use our smart tv the same way, as a huge computer monitor via hdmi. then i run kodi on a laptop as a media center. works fine, and the only irritation is an annoying ad every time the device gets switched on. fortunately it's just an ad about a tv, and probably because of no internet, it's always the same ad too.
Not for everyone I guess, but I've been very happy with a decently modern receiver (in my case Sony STR-DN1080) taking care of all that and acting as an HDMI "switch". 6 HDMI inputs, 2 HDMI outputs and all the other in/outs at least I could possibly want.
"Smart" features are starting to creep into these devices as well, though...
> I love it. Because I don't notice it exists. It just does its job, like a TV should.
Yes. This should be the goal of any good product.
Nowadays, every single time I’ve had to help my wife with the TV (you have to help people with TVs now!) it has been because it is the polar opposite of this.
As a result I’ve setup some macros on my Logitech Smarthub to try to force the TV away from these “smart” aspects, but they still sometimes fail.
My advice is to stop seeing a “smart tv” as a feature and see it as an expensive piece of equipment subsidised by extra advertising revenue. Don’t get upset about this, just understand it for what it is. Now, what can you do about it? Easy, don’t connect it to the internet. They will tell you that it needs updates but come on, what is a security vulnerability going to to to something that’s only output is a screen and audio? So there is your answer. Don’t use the smart features, plug in something you trust like a raspberry pi and use the expensive part of the product (the screen itself) without incurring the cost (the advertising they were using to subsidise the screen)
What's really concerning is that "smart" TV's are no longer an upgrade, but the standard. You practically cannot find a new dumb 4k TV. When I went to purchase one recently, Best Buy at least had no other option.
They won't spy on you, but you'll still have to deal with the laggy shitware they run. In some I've had the misfortune of using, simply changing the inputs was a torturous affair because of the shitty software the TV was running.
Thankfully most let you skip the UI entirely by having direct input selection IR commands. Get yourself a generic universal remote that either has these buttons, or custom ones you can program.
With this I basically never see the UI on my LG and Samsung TVs, and I certainly don't interact with it unless I need to get into settings.
I still remember the near-instant channel switching from the 90s, when analog signals and CRTs where the norm. You could change channels on a dime.
Now with complex video and audio codecs, video post-processing and shoddily coded software there's been a very severe downgrade in that department. I don't have a TV at home but every time I'm in a hotel or my parent's place I notice how laggy it is when I'm just browsing through the channels (which is what I do 90% of the time when I'm using one, since there's hardly anything worth watching anyway).
That video is already laggy compared to what I remember as a kid. If you were watching OTA analog the channel change was near instant. Even on our cable box it was near instant.
My recollection from the 80's was you switch the channel (physically) and it's... switched!
So was there some magical latency there that I just couldn't perceive, or are the "near instant" reports talking about some other type of TV? Or something else?
There absolutely was some latency, about 13ms worth, because it had to wait for the next field to start so it could properly synchronize and start drawing. But you'd never notice that yourself.
I am personally considering just getting an HDMI switch that I can manage externally from the TV. I mostly use the Android TV device I bought and its much more stable than the UI on my offline Smart TV thankfully it has most if not all the apps I need.
There are lots of shitwares that don't do async, so the shitware runs at a snail's pace offline because all the spyware requests have to time out before the shitware can do anything.
I've heard the solution to that is to set up an AP in your house that is either firewalled or doesn't have an outbound connection and connect your smart devices to that AP.
Unless the TV ignores your settings and hops to random networks when it can’t phone home through your AP, this approach should still work fine in apartments.
Smart 'X' in general has become synonymous with 'paid for by your data we scrape 24/7' at least when it comes to most consumer range products and platforms made by big tech companies...
Smart phones
Smart TVs
Smart speakers
Smart doorbell/security cameras
Smart home systems
If there's one thing these all have in common it's:
'Known privacy issues regarding tracking and data collection by large tech companies.'
When a product is marketed as smart...I assume it's smart as in it's watching and learning from me and giving the data to someone.
Not so much. That's why, as a bunch of other comments mentioned, there's commercial displays available with equivalent specs to smart tvs that are essentially dumb terminals with no smart functionality that cost more than twice the price.
I think this is a question that doesn't have a well defined answer. Most likely raw hardware cost is smaller than consumer price, which is smaller than what the consumer price would have been if the manufacturer weren't able to get extra profit by selling your privacy and/or attention. So who's getting the money from selling you to Facebook depends on what you think the "right" price without that would have been, and there's always a wide range of possible prices for any given product.
The saddest part is that it's not even "heavily". From a profit margin perspective it's huge, because those are so thin on a product like a TV. But from a sales price perspective it's not even that notable of an amount.
You mentioned commercial displays costing a lot more but those are a different market entirely, and the extra price is only slightly motivated by the lack of advertising.
But alot of people want Netflix etc streamed. also alot of people dont know how to manage firewalls, pihole etc. This idea of stuffing tracking and ads into everything “smart” is such an insult to the individual.
That's fine for now, but you just know within a crop or two there's going to be panels that insist on being connected to the Internet or they won't even display anything.
And then once one or two companies have made that acceptable, they all will go that way.
My TCL starts to bootloop if it goes more than a month without connecting to the internet so it can download screensaver ads. The warranty people force me into the support gauntlet. The support gauntlet's first demand: connect it to the internet.
soon, not having internet will be like not having a phone, and wanting a tv that works without internet will be like using a computer without internet.
in any case, i'd get any claim that the tv works without internet in writing. then it becomes a warranty issue if the tv stops working
Yes. I lived on a farm for a couple years recently and you had to extensively research any tech you bought even if logic said there’s no reason that particular tech should need internet. The TV we took with us no longer worked (Samsung) so we had to buy a Sony (and have never looked back), among other things.
Also, software. Half the software on our computers stopped working despite not being internet related.
It was incredibly frustrating and really soured me on the direction tech is headed.
Piholes just replace DNS results, so a device using hard coded DNS servers allows it to bypass that. This leads to people redirecting all port 53 traffic to the Pihole, which leads to devices/apps doing DNS over HTTPS, at which point it’s game over unless you can get your self-signed cert onto the device.
but surely these devices are set up to use DHCP and receive home users' DNS servers? giving them static IPs would not work. I suppose it depends on a) if these devices are somehow set up to receive just an IP address over DHCP and use their own hardcoded DNS servers and b) whether the home DHCP server / router would honour this and not enforce its own DNS servers along with the IP address
They’ll be using DHCP, but even when not doing anything nefarious you’re better off using known DNS servers when deploying appliances on random networks because consumer ISPs have a habit of ignoring TTLs and redirecting DNS results when you’re reaching bandwidth quotas and the like.
then the DHCP can assign PiHole as the DNS resolver, and if the requested domain isn't in its block list then it will be forwarded to google, cloudflare, etc.
#2 sounded intriguing, but it seems likely to not be the case [0].
I was curious because I have a Vizio that I deliberately keep disconnected from the internet, and rely on an Apple TV. Seems like that's not an attack vector in this case, though #1 is (and #3) seem worth looking into.
ACR == Automatic Content Recognition. Basically it periodically screenshots what the panel is showing and sends it to their servers to see if it matches the programs they know about to figure out what it is you're watching.
I don't see why people aren't rioting in the streets about this, apart from the fact that there are currently bigger issues already occupying rioters. It's seriously beyond the pale.
I know smart people who have Alexa devices. Some of these people are software engineers who know there's someone on the other end listening to everything. One could argue that they must not be smart to buy these things.
But I think that a more helpful way of thinking about it is that (1) people are great at rationalizing, especially when it makes their lives easier. And (2) the open source alternative isn't good enough or easy enough.
For a long time, pirating music was the easiest way to listen to music that you wanted. Then things like iTunes and the iPod came along.
Until there's an easy, open alternative, even smart people will continue paying money to put surveillance devices in their living rooms and bedrooms.
The TV might still find a way to connect through open WiFi, Comcast xfinity or (a future model) 5G whispernet style connection.
It might not do that today, but perhaps a future firmware update that you would need or want, will do that; Visio TVs started ACRing and uploading that data after an update (they were sued for it and lost; it was called “smart data” or some other innocuous name.
To play the part of the average consumer here... why should I care exactly? I know about the concept of TV ratings so some families are allowing a computer to keep track of what they watch. How does this hurt me? Maybe if I was using my TV as an output for my home surveillance system I would care. Otherwise it’s just displaying content featuring paid actors or other people who are already being watched by millions on TV. Samsung or whoever they sold the data to is just one more viewer for that content.
I get that they can build a profile of me based on what kind of content I’m watching, but it doesn’t seem different from what Netflix or YouTube is doing anyway. Probably they’re going to use the data to show attribution for engagements on ads for media. Good for them I guess. It‘s not in my top 1000 reasons to riot personally.
That a faceless, remote corporation can reach into your home and arbitrarily control a product you've purchased feels very invasive.
Companies like Samsung and LG have previously had cameras and microphones silently streaming unencrypted feeds. They've also been caught running network probes to search out, catalogue and report private media.
All that feels very creepy to some people such as myself.
You want to say no, don't do that ...but you can't.
Exactly. It's my house. It's my behavior. These four walls are sacrosanct.
Imagine you are working from home or your kids are schooling from home, and you use the TV for meetings. Are they recording your presentation? Are pictures of your kids' classmates being fingerprinted and archived somewhere for correlation with all the other classmates?
There are levels of outrageousness here:
- Spying on TV through a purpose-built device: mildly annoying that every show and ad now has a tracking watermark that can be used surreptitiously, but voluntary Nielsen participation is just fine.
- Spying on an app you own: YouTube collecting aggregated watch times for videos is useful to creators to avoid reaching people who don't want to watch them. Netflix collecting in-house analytics is only mildly annoying because I don't know how individualized the data is, but aggregate stats are fine. Behavioral analysis of individuals is still creepy.
-Spying on all apps running on your software: Roku or a smart TV reporting what you watch in all apps is starting to approach unacceptable. Presumably appmakers know about this when they are making the apps, but a third party doesn't have the same checks and balances to make sure they aren't alienating users with creepy behavior. There is not a functioning market here because appmakers don't get a choice of how to reach users, because platform rentiers are claiming all of the users.
- Spying on arbitrary video files you watch through DLNA: not okay. My work-in-progress video productions and self-ripped discs are simply none of the TV makers' business.
-Spying on HDMI inputs: serious WTF. Like I can't even... WTF??? Who do they think they are?
>Probably they’re going to use the data to show attribution for engagements on ads for media.
This is a problem. I don't want advertisements to be optimized for engagement. Anything that makes advertisements more effective is something I'm against.
I have a 65 inch samsung tv that kept popping up on my network. I put it on an isolated wifi network once to get the firmware updates. After I did that I turned it back off.
But it keeps trying to come back for just a moment every couple of days. I had to ban its mac address since there was no way to get it to stop in the settings or after factory resets.
Forcibly banning the MAC address of a TV on your own home network, that you've paid money for, really does sum up the state of consumer electronics atm.
One needs to mentally prepare for the coming 5G era; ubiquitous tracking and data harvesting combined with artificial intelligence and social credit. Where is the opt out from this hellish corporate revolution?
5G doesn't change the economics of having cell radios nor paying for cell data.
Why would notoriously low margin products like a TV ever pay for such a lavish addition when most people voluntary connect it to wifi or ethernet anyway?
A TV is no longer a TV when it is part of a lucrative network of sensors; this not only represents a risk for the buyer, it fundamentally alters what a product is, while reducing language to newspeak.
This is the only reason why I'm concerned about an overly optimistic 5G rollout. It's frustrating that all the nutso conspiratists have made it practically impossible to problematize this without coming off as either uneducated or a lunatic.
Meta-conspiracy-theory: the 5G conspiracy theories were spread deliberately with the precise intention of making the truth look like just another crazy conspiracy theory.
(I don't think that's very likely in this case, but I bet there are actual examples out there of conspiracy theories being deliberately seeded as a way to discredit potential real criticisms.)
I absolutely think that there are forces putting fuel to the flames with this as one goal. Not necessarily the origin or the main driving force, but I'm sure it happens. Just as with other recent polarizing movements.
Samsung TVs are an extreme example though. They’re the most obnoxious and the most disrespectful of your privacy by implementing all these dark patterns. Not to mention their QLED bullshit, it’s just LED but it’s meant to make you think it’s OLED and pay extra.
It's sad because I have multiple (ageing) Samsung appliances (amongst them a dumb TV) and they're all great so Samsung would have naturally be a contender for my next TV.
Old Samsung HDTVs were awesome, but that's changed in the last few years. They added features like in-menu ads to the low end models that seem to be trickling up their top end as well.
I also have a buggy 1.5 year old Samsung stove that has to be reset when I lean a pot lid against the back It causes the touch panel to trigger a random button and lock up.
I have had to service/replace parts of my Samsung dryer 4 times in 3 years, have never read any other positive notes about them. Their appliance quality has went downhill and I am never buying Samsung appliances again.
QLED coating is not bullshit, I had a PC monitor with it and it won against any other VA panel I compare it with. Now, the name is a but unfortunate, but the tech is there
I think the confusion comes from the impression that quantum dots can be individually controlled like pixels in OLED/plasma. But quantum dots are are actually a "dumb" film which converts blue backlight into a RGB components similarly to how phosphor works in LED light bulbs. Of course QD can improve color gamut and brightness but it is still just an improved LED panel. The name QLED tries to confuse people into thinking that it is somehow similar to OLED but they are completely different technology.
QLED refers to the quantum dot film and is part of the process by which the device generates rich colors. It's not OLED and any person who can't read the difference between Q and O probably shouldn't be pretending to choose a TV based on its technology.
There are ways to reduce burn-in, some TVs even have this functionality built-in. But it is enough to simply don't display the same patterns on the same place for long periods (I mean days). As long as you are mostly watching movies and zooming to avoid black stripes or replacing black stripes with gray stripes, you are fine...
My TV is an LG plasma unit from 2010. This tech was also was supposed to suffer from burn in problems. And in fact, just recently I noticed that the Ubuntu screen that manage this TV's content with was starting to burn in where the Icon array is along the top. So, what I should have done in the first place, I did now, which is make that icon automatically hide when the mouse isn't near. And now, about three months later, that burn in image is now imperceptible. The screen's colors are still as fabulous as they were in 2010 but the 720p aspect is starting to feel like a hinderance but one of the best buys I've ever made.
To add to this, various things try to bypass the Pihole by doing their own DNS. Google devices skip the Pihole, and I’ll bet others do too. You can catch at least some of the bad behaviour by blocking all outbound port 53 traffic that isn’t from the Pihole, or redirect it back to the Pihole.
It's funny because at home apps bypassing my dns annoys the hell out of me but in China which is where I currently am DNS-over-HTTPS is necessary just to get online some days.
I just wish there was a manual captive portal check button built into browsers that forces a standard port 53 check because if I'm behind a captive portal I have to reset my dns settings to sign in before then switching it back to get my VPN to connect.
Maybe not so easy in the future. TVs might eventually have 5G internet connections built-in and paid for by the manufacturer. It could be worth it to them if they get enough revenue from their software platform through user tracking and advertising.
There are IoT SIMs available on most major carriers, which are intended for economical occasional low-data usage on large numbers of devices. They're popular in GPSes among other things.
5G is looking to reduce the cost of them further as LPWA is a key part of the standard.
maybe one way to fight this is by finding a way to abuse these SIMs/connections to use a lot of data en masse until they get cut off or dropped altogether.
I don't know why you're downvoted, there's already screens currently in development that have precisely this. They should hit around late 2021 or early 22. There are SOHO routers in development that have this (Q1'21), and the 5G modem isn't even for your usage, its for the manufacturer to push/pull data. There's a side-by-side fridge/freezer that has this already on the market. There's a (commercial) coffee machine for installation in to offices that has this.
Sadly, that won't help you if the smart TV is constantly looking for open wifi networks to use without your knowledge or intervention.
Rather than constantly monitoring and investigating what your TV is doing it's far simpler to just avoid Samsung, LG, Panasonic or Sony products.
Even if your current smart TV doesn't do this, it's exactly the sort of dark pattern that certain manufacturers could add with an update and there's nothing you can do about it because you don't control the product.
I'm reading these comments, and am quite happy that I bought an LG B9 TV. It's smart, fast, has no ads, the UI is quite cool, has a lot of inputs and has an excellent video quality. The only downside was the price, but that's because of OLED.
In my personal experience, TV as a separate device has been obsolete for at least 15 years.
A home cinema projector together with a PC and a wireless keyboard/mouse does much better. You get to choose what you watch, you see no ads, you can use it for gaming & browsing, and as long as you can be bothered to roll the blinds, you get plenty of contrast. You just can't beat that with a regular TV, no matter if it's dumb or smart.
Some people are suggesting just don't connect your smart TV to the internet, others are suggesting it might still connect to open (unsecured) Wi-Fi networks.
Is there any major brand of smart TV's that will attempt to connect to open networks, in order to download updates, ads, send back data, without your consent?
I've never in my life had a Wi-Fi-enabled device that would connect to a network I didn't tell it to, and I'd view that as a major breach of norms/ethics/security/everything.
Is it fine to just not configure the Wi-Fi? Or are there brands that are actually known, proven, to circumvent that, if you have open Wi-Fi nearby? (I've been googling but can't find anything.)
I believe some devices sold by Amazon and Google (not TVs itself but things similar to a chromecast) have tried to connect to open networks because DNS requests (of advertising domains) were being blocked. I don't think a TV manufacturer doing the same thing is improbable if it didn't happen already.
This is exactly why I'm asking -- that story seems like it easily be made up or just plain mistaken. Maybe they've got a family member who tried to connect it to watch something without them knowing.
I've seen random anecdotes like this, but I've never seen anyone actually prove it. E.g. someone with a tech background or a journalist.
And since it would be so trivially easy to actually prove if true, and seemingly a major news story, it feels more plausible to me that it's false.
Yeah this could easily be someone with a kid who was annoyed that some app on the TV didn't work and so clicked on the first available network that worked, or the issue reporter could have clicked on that network by mistake, etc.
On the other hand, I've seen this story about 100 times online at this point and it's absolutely cost Samsung a ton of sales. How hard would it be for them to put out a firm denial that they do this?
It's a good question. But as a general rule, companies don't really bother responding to unfounded rumors until they get to the point where there's an article published about it in the New York Times, or it shows up in the first page of search results.
And I doubt there's really been any measurable effect on sales. The proportion of people who care are miniscule, and they'd likely not be buying Samsung even if they put out a statement.
The LG OLED TV's have "smart" features but work just fine as HDMI connected display devices-- fast the initial startup any of the "smart" stuff appears to be invisible and inert.
I've got a TCL from 2018 with no smart features. The picture and audio are great, but the screen definitely ghosts with quick video games. It was also only ~$300, though.
660 comments
[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 409 ms ] threadFor example if I was in the market my choice would be one of the high end LG TVs. They all have a smart component but I would bypass that and still get the gorgeous screen.
Granted: never put it online, and never use the smart stuff bundled with it, and you should be fine (assuming there's no critical software updates it needs to function, which has also happened). But its still disgusting behavior.
There's already a DRM standard for browsers. We don't need TVs to have proprietary bullshit preinstalled on them to have Netflix.
Like a raspberry pi?
If you want a competitive display market where the best options are still dumb then look at getting a projector. The price and quality are comparable and I really like being able to “put away” the TV by just rolling up the screen.
This isn't something I've seen in the wild yet (beyond anecdotal evidence which I suspect is due to a misconfiguration), however it is a very valid concern especially considering most ISPs are in bed with the media/advertising industry and would directly benefit from allowing these TVs to connect to these networks and making a deal with the manufacturer to make them do so.
Which TVs do this?
Seriously though, why would someone in your house who’s this clueless ever be given the network password in the first place?
hehe just kidding.
Apart from that I'd always assume the worst case when it comes to digital self-defense.
Maybe not LTE, but Kindle comes with 3G cellular.
- A carrier contract costs some money (some m2m contracts for very low bandwidth can go for around 1€/month).
- It's extra design and management effort (antennas, contract management and such)
- Maybe most importantly: It's rather easy to spot and people would ask uncomfortable questions.
I suspect that the 5g era will bring with it many more devices connecting unbeknownst to their owners, and that "smart" appliances will be first on the list.
As that approaches, we need solutions that address this as well.
Maybe it would be sold as a feature, like "Built in 5g hotspot!" or something like that.
I would imagine the profits from that dwarf the hardware costs of some antennas (that the consumer pays the power for).
The profit incentive from surveillance is already there. We have to be vigilant in rejecting products that include it.
Also, smaller antennas.
For 26Ghz, yes. But unless your device will be outdoor-mount-only, you'll need bigger antennas for the frequencies that can punch through a wall.
But you're right, I was just saying everything with software has a reason for updates, though not a good one sometimes.
"Here's why your Samsung Blu-ray player bricked itself: It downloaded an XML config file that broke the firmware":
https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/18/samsung_bluray_mass_d...
My LG OLED has received updates to support TrueHD audio, add new color settings like Technicolor modes, UI functions like the ability to apply your customized picture settings to all inputs, and changes to the motion smoothing for certain video formats.
No idea what they do or yours in particular. But something to consider
If you're getting a dumb TV because it stays off your network, but then get ipTV dongles and boxes for it, then you effectively have a smart TV on the network.
I have one and like it a lot. The remote control is beautifully simple. There is no complicated menu structure; it took all of five minutes to go through all the screens, to discover all that can be tweaked. The remote has dedicated buttons for switching among the HDMI inputs: power it on and hit the button for the input that you want.
I like the separation: the TV is the TV, and the box or dongle is the box. You can ditch the dongle and get another one, while keeping the TV. You can take the dongle on the road and plug it into another TV wherever you are.
The dongle has its own control mechanism (own remote, or smartphone). This simplifies things. You know what is a TV setting and what is an IPTV setting, and talk to the right piece of hardware with the right remote.
There is fault isolation. If your IPTV dongle or box fries itself, then it's just the box. If it's integrated into the TV, then the whole TV is toast.
You can ditch the dongle/box in a few years and upgrade to different/newer one, while keeping the TV. If you're happy with the size, colors and resolution, and the thing works, there is no need to update it. It will work fine with whatever you're interested in four years from now.
I was in the dumb tv camp, but I think having all my settings in one menu has converted me a bit.
If you're plugging in a roku or fire anyway just get a roku or fire tv and avoid the extra complexity of the interface handshake.
Have you ended up with two remotes?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Electronics_Control
They have sluggish menu systems, are slow to switch between inputs and startup times frequently measured in 10s of seconds. Compare that to dumb TVs that switch on in less than 2 seconds and respond immediately.
Then there’s of course the ads and spying that you can avoid by not letting it on the network.
On the other hand the power supply in my (former) LG plasma tv died after 1.5 years. I DIY replaced that with a ~$100 part. Then 6 months later it broke down with large green vertical lines interrupting the screen, at which point I gave up on it.
So for me it will be no frills cheap TVs from now on. If it breaks in a few years I can replace it without feeling as much of a hit to the wallet. And the external streaming boxes will always be better, faster and more flexible for me than the inbuilt “smart” software that stops getting updates after a few years.
* Sceptre 65" 4K UHD LED TV
* Sceptre 50" 4K UHD Ultra Slim LED TV
Impressive! Electronics are quite a bit cheaper in the USA than in Germany. If quality is similar the panel won't be that great (but not terrible), the UI that is there will be very unimpressive and three's no proof on the web the model actually exists. I hope it's better.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Sceptre-50-Class-4K-UHD-LED-TV-U5...
Not sure if there are authoritative deep dives out there, but here's what the Pi-hole folks saw:
https://pi-hole.net/2018/09/19/what-really-happens-on-your-n...
I was disappointed but not surprised to learn that. My experiences with Rokus have been really positive. Tracking issues aside, the user experience is pleasantly simple and responsive. A great example of "it just works" hardware+software. In fact, my 85 year-old dad and his tech-phobic wife even had positive things to say about the remote and interface.
I found the remotes responsive, but I was using the WiFi direct ones.
I would imagine that the IR remotes feel muck pokier, which is of course pretty much always going to be the case with IR.
I haven't heard that before, but according to Wikipedia a master key was leaked or reverse engineered 10 years ago, so presumably manufacturers out of Intel's legal reach can produce devices that strip HDCP.
(An alternate option might be to rip the 4K BluRays, which is doable if you have the right drive, but also a bit of a pain.)
This is what I have been doing with MakeMKV.
Typically the review section of a given HDMI splitter on Amazon is a dead give away as to wether they bypass HDCP. Failing that you can buy a HDFury device - which I've used plenty of times in large AV installs to avoid HDMI/HDCP problems...
Also, you can find "LVDS converter boards" which are sold for repurposing LCD panels out of laptops and such, but they can also be used to dumb down TVs. You can buy a large smart TV just for the panel (which is the majority of its price anyway) and replace its motherboard with a dumb converter board.
This seems way harder than the alternative: just not connecting it to the internet.
I have one where a bunch of non internet features won’t work without internet.
Can you find a monitor as large as a good TV for a reasonable price?
They claim the app is open-source and I'm sure it only uses Bluetooth instead of WIFI thus no internet access at all.
In any case, IR remotes are supported and the app is optional.
I don't mind controlling my TVs settings with an app, I just don't want to have to deal with their crappy TV interface.
I don't know... their site has changed a bunch and seems to have tons of tracking links
Here's an LG 65" 4k HDR dumb TV: https://www.lg.com/ca_en/business/commercial-tv/lg-65UV340H
I have a similar model from a few years ago (purchased from Canada Computers fwiw), and I love it. Because I don't notice it exists. It just does its job, like a TV should.
What did you pay?
As to the hassle, yes you’d probably find it difficult to buy one for personal use. L
Even has an AV in for my playstation 2.
Dumb TV, decent picture, has worked great so far!
The model I linked here, is $1000 CAD on amazon.ca (through 3rd-party sellers), but I don't know how it compares.
Again that's a few years ago so the market may have changed. And annoyingly, LG seems to have different products for Canada vs the US.
One is sometimes english/french or english/spanish manuals. These days though, most manuals are on CD, with tiny 20 language install manuals... so that differentiation is gone.
What I find often happening, is that each large store, BestBuy/Walmart/whatever asks for, and receives, unique model numbers so you cannot price match easily.
There are still models which are generic, but those are used by smaller corps, which cannot negotiate en-masse, and therefore are unable to shrug of price-matching.
Stuff like this burns me up. "We price match!", then "Quick Bob, get on the phone to LG! We want unique models for their product line!"
Here are some LG commercial displays ranging from 43" to 86" and priced from $745 to $3,850:
https://www.displays2go.com/P-42023/86-Inch-4K-Ultra-HD-TV-A...
Here is a brief article from 2019 detailing the differences between digital signage/display monitors and home TVs:
https://www.itesmedia.tv/en/resources/digital-display-monito...
Some network operators run 3rd party advertising to offset costs of running their network.
Also, if you see a sign at person level in a public space there's a high likelihood it's collecting demographics information on (age, gender, ethnicity - via video image processing) on everyone passing by while also trying to identity the mobile device in your pocket to geotag your advertising identity.
I work in a company that provides general interest "filler" type content for networks to display - news, weather, sports e.g.
Just don't give them access to the internet and they'll do the job of displaying anything you give them via a HDMI port. Integrates nicely with home automation with an API too.
Oh, and they don't have ads in the menus like Samsung does.
Just need to fiddle in some menus to disable overscan and whatever magic TV filters are trendy.
"Smart" features are starting to creep into these devices as well, though...
You can get splitters but that's still not as convenient as just being able to switch with the tv's remote.
Yes. This should be the goal of any good product.
Nowadays, every single time I’ve had to help my wife with the TV (you have to help people with TVs now!) it has been because it is the polar opposite of this.
As a result I’ve setup some macros on my Logitech Smarthub to try to force the TV away from these “smart” aspects, but they still sometimes fail.
Smart TVs are just horrible.
With this I basically never see the UI on my LG and Samsung TVs, and I certainly don't interact with it unless I need to get into settings.
Now with complex video and audio codecs, video post-processing and shoddily coded software there's been a very severe downgrade in that department. I don't have a TV at home but every time I'm in a hotel or my parent's place I notice how laggy it is when I'm just browsing through the channels (which is what I do 90% of the time when I'm using one, since there's hardly anything worth watching anyway).
For those of you who are too young to know what I'm talking about, have a look at this: https://youtu.be/v83WEzw8tfw?t=44
My recollection from the 80's was you switch the channel (physically) and it's... switched!
So was there some magical latency there that I just couldn't perceive, or are the "near instant" reports talking about some other type of TV? Or something else?
As Samsung is essentially hostile beyond belief, and has thrown away all pretense of 'helping', I'd say yes.
But if there's just no open wifi points around then you can still be pretty certain of this.
Smart phones
Smart TVs
Smart speakers
Smart doorbell/security cameras
Smart home systems
If there's one thing these all have in common it's:
'Known privacy issues regarding tracking and data collection by large tech companies.'
When a product is marketed as smart...I assume it's smart as in it's watching and learning from me and giving the data to someone.
since it's not necessarily "paid for" via the advertising
Would 'heavily subsidized by' work as well?
With TVs, the sticker price pays for the hardware. The ads pay for the extra house the manufacturer's CEO feels he's entitled to have.
Your data is subsidizing the low hardware costs.
You mentioned commercial displays costing a lot more but those are a different market entirely, and the extra price is only slightly motivated by the lack of advertising.
If not, you could use a Raspi? I had non-techie (but still young) friends who came up with and implemented this idea by themselves.
And then once one or two companies have made that acceptable, they all will go that way.
https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/idiocracy....
1) "Some Samsung TVs already try and connect to open WiFi networks if you don't connect them yourself."
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24629155
2) there is ethernet over hdmi - I would image this is another source of inadvertent connection.
3) samsung tvs require an ethernet cable to "update firmware" so HDMI works.
4) ACR - which will look at ALL the inputs.
and wait for the next few iterations
- smart devices talk to each other and exfiltrate data
- smart device manufacturers collaborate with ISPs who have put wifi gateways in your house and your neighbor's house.
And if you think it stops here, I've got bad news. This is only going to get worse without strict regulation.
in any case, i'd get any claim that the tv works without internet in writing. then it becomes a warranty issue if the tv stops working
Also, software. Half the software on our computers stopped working despite not being internet related.
It was incredibly frustrating and really soured me on the direction tech is headed.
i. e. the ads on smart devices can be blocked
I was curious because I have a Vizio that I deliberately keep disconnected from the internet, and rely on an Apple TV. Seems like that's not an attack vector in this case, though #1 is (and #3) seem worth looking into.
What's ACR in point #4?
[0] https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/325215/appletv-eth...
But I think that a more helpful way of thinking about it is that (1) people are great at rationalizing, especially when it makes their lives easier. And (2) the open source alternative isn't good enough or easy enough.
For a long time, pirating music was the easiest way to listen to music that you wanted. Then things like iTunes and the iPod came along.
Until there's an easy, open alternative, even smart people will continue paying money to put surveillance devices in their living rooms and bedrooms.
It might not do that today, but perhaps a future firmware update that you would need or want, will do that; Visio TVs started ACRing and uploading that data after an update (they were sued for it and lost; it was called “smart data” or some other innocuous name.
I get that they can build a profile of me based on what kind of content I’m watching, but it doesn’t seem different from what Netflix or YouTube is doing anyway. Probably they’re going to use the data to show attribution for engagements on ads for media. Good for them I guess. It‘s not in my top 1000 reasons to riot personally.
That a faceless, remote corporation can reach into your home and arbitrarily control a product you've purchased feels very invasive.
Companies like Samsung and LG have previously had cameras and microphones silently streaming unencrypted feeds. They've also been caught running network probes to search out, catalogue and report private media.
All that feels very creepy to some people such as myself.
You want to say no, don't do that ...but you can't.
Imagine you are working from home or your kids are schooling from home, and you use the TV for meetings. Are they recording your presentation? Are pictures of your kids' classmates being fingerprinted and archived somewhere for correlation with all the other classmates?
There are levels of outrageousness here:
- Spying on TV through a purpose-built device: mildly annoying that every show and ad now has a tracking watermark that can be used surreptitiously, but voluntary Nielsen participation is just fine.
- Spying on an app you own: YouTube collecting aggregated watch times for videos is useful to creators to avoid reaching people who don't want to watch them. Netflix collecting in-house analytics is only mildly annoying because I don't know how individualized the data is, but aggregate stats are fine. Behavioral analysis of individuals is still creepy.
-Spying on all apps running on your software: Roku or a smart TV reporting what you watch in all apps is starting to approach unacceptable. Presumably appmakers know about this when they are making the apps, but a third party doesn't have the same checks and balances to make sure they aren't alienating users with creepy behavior. There is not a functioning market here because appmakers don't get a choice of how to reach users, because platform rentiers are claiming all of the users.
- Spying on arbitrary video files you watch through DLNA: not okay. My work-in-progress video productions and self-ripped discs are simply none of the TV makers' business.
-Spying on HDMI inputs: serious WTF. Like I can't even... WTF??? Who do they think they are?
This is a problem. I don't want advertisements to be optimized for engagement. Anything that makes advertisements more effective is something I'm against.
But it keeps trying to come back for just a moment every couple of days. I had to ban its mac address since there was no way to get it to stop in the settings or after factory resets.
It is maddening how incompatible with Democracy the commercial surveillance system has become.
This claim doesn't seem to be well sourced. It's essentially going on the word of an anonymous redditor.
Why would notoriously low margin products like a TV ever pay for such a lavish addition when most people voluntary connect it to wifi or ethernet anyway?
just make an agreement with one company, done.
(I don't think that's very likely in this case, but I bet there are actual examples out there of conspiracy theories being deliberately seeded as a way to discredit potential real criticisms.)
I despise Samsung and their junk.
I also have a buggy 1.5 year old Samsung stove that has to be reset when I lean a pot lid against the back It causes the touch panel to trigger a random button and lock up.
I suppose, but it's still misleading to be calling it "LED" in the first place when that's just the backlight.
I’m sure this will be beaten though.
I just wish there was a manual captive portal check button built into browsers that forces a standard port 53 check because if I'm behind a captive portal I have to reset my dns settings to sign in before then switching it back to get my VPN to connect.
Maybe not so easy in the future. TVs might eventually have 5G internet connections built-in and paid for by the manufacturer. It could be worth it to them if they get enough revenue from their software platform through user tracking and advertising.
5G is looking to reduce the cost of them further as LPWA is a key part of the standard.
No good. The TVs are starting to nag the user if left unconnected.
Rather than constantly monitoring and investigating what your TV is doing it's far simpler to just avoid Samsung, LG, Panasonic or Sony products.
Even if your current smart TV doesn't do this, it's exactly the sort of dark pattern that certain manufacturers could add with an update and there's nothing you can do about it because you don't control the product.
Best to just avoid brands you don't trust.
A home cinema projector together with a PC and a wireless keyboard/mouse does much better. You get to choose what you watch, you see no ads, you can use it for gaming & browsing, and as long as you can be bothered to roll the blinds, you get plenty of contrast. You just can't beat that with a regular TV, no matter if it's dumb or smart.
The content and structure is intended to be SEO-optimized, but I think it could use some work.
Is there any major brand of smart TV's that will attempt to connect to open networks, in order to download updates, ads, send back data, without your consent?
I've never in my life had a Wi-Fi-enabled device that would connect to a network I didn't tell it to, and I'd view that as a major breach of norms/ethics/security/everything.
Is it fine to just not configure the Wi-Fi? Or are there brands that are actually known, proven, to circumvent that, if you have open Wi-Fi nearby? (I've been googling but can't find anything.)
I've seen random anecdotes like this, but I've never seen anyone actually prove it. E.g. someone with a tech background or a journalist.
And since it would be so trivially easy to actually prove if true, and seemingly a major news story, it feels more plausible to me that it's false.
On the other hand, I've seen this story about 100 times online at this point and it's absolutely cost Samsung a ton of sales. How hard would it be for them to put out a firm denial that they do this?
And I doubt there's really been any measurable effect on sales. The proportion of people who care are miniscule, and they'd likely not be buying Samsung even if they put out a statement.