Most of these ads are actually built into the firmware, I have a pihole set up and I still get ads from my tv, sometimes even on startup there will be a new thing appearing in the corner. Next up is preventing it from accessing the internet entirely, but then I'd need to have a second remote to actually watch my content.
I turned the ads off in my LG TV, took 5 minutes and now it behaves exactly as a dumb TV would to my eyes.
I’m surprised by this community’s refusal to spend even a small amount of time hacking on their TV. Maybe you think it should “just” work, but when is that ever the case?
Because 70% of the population will never bother doing that.
And then it creeps higher, as people get used to it.
"Sure it's opt out, that means it's not forced" is a horrible argument for an anti-consumer move. Wait until IP's are hardcoded and ads can't be turned off, on any consumer TV, because there's no more demand for dumb ones, and it maximizes profit.
We've got folks here declaring they'd march into the store they bought their TV from and demand a refund. That's not a very hacker mindset, is my point.
Also, technically speaking, what you've constructed is a fallacy. When something like what you described happens, nobody's going to use "but you were okay with not-this before, therefore you must be okay with this new thing!"
I'll march into Best Buy right with you when I can't turn it off, but as long as I can, I'm probably just going to do that and move on with my life.
>I'll march into Best Buy right with you when I can't turn it off, but as long as I can, I'm probably just going to do that and move on with my life.
I mean, yeah, I did too, but I'm also writing letters to my reps for the people who don't know how to do that.
>Also, technically speaking, what you've constructed is a fallacy. When something like what you described happens, nobody's going to use "but you were okay with not-this before, therefore you must be okay with this new thing!"
I'm not saying you'd be okay with it, in fact I think your view is pretty reasonable. Personally I want to stop this sort of thing from being on by default, personalized tracking on nearly every TV, etc.
Legislation saying that "network off" settings need to be respected and the device needs to work as much as a possible without a network connection, on pain of 2x revenue + penalty from whatever agreements you made selling data would go a long way.
No more cars that spy on you as you drive around when you turn of network services, no more TVs that spy on what you watch and so on.
What you sounds quite reasonable...from a consumer perspective. Laws are not written for consumers. You have no power and no voice and the vast majority of people are so completely checked out of reality that you are hopelessly outnumbered. Oh, and big business and government surveillance are both lined up on the other side. We are losing this one.
Smart TV apps are largely terrible to start with. The $30 on-sale ($50 retail) Fire TV 4K Stick has been one of my highest bang-for-the-buck consumer purchases in a long time.
It's a great Plex client, YouTube client, Netflix client, Prime Video client (of course), and quickly took over primary video source duties as soon as I installed it.
The prior version (the not 4K one) struggled with even 1080p H265 decoding, but the 4K version handles H265 and all the other formats I've thrown at it just fine.
Even when the TV was brand new, the apps on the TV were terrible (sluggish, disjointed UI, TV remote not comfortable to use as primary remote). 4 years later, they're not going to be any better, while the HDMI input sources can be easily and cheaply upgraded.
I agree. I use a roku instead, but same result. I used the apps on my TV for a bit when I got it, but they would fail, like it had a memory leak if I watched something for over 3 hours. I don't trust telling the TV to disable wifi, so I just changed the wifi credentials on the TV to be incorrect. No problems anymore.
Only a matter of time before they start downloading ads via OTA datastream. Could do rough geolocation by differential signal strengths/timing. TV could run code to infer gender/age/etc or just link it to the serial number of the purchaser and their address.
Of course you didn’t get your 65” TV delivered to your own house, right?
If it’s strictly one-way, ad purchasers may not know precisely how many “hits” they got, but could be inferred from the online TVs.
To be determined if it’s worthwhile if almost everyone puts the TV online anyway, but if there’s a world where people don’t, you’ll still be almost as screwed.
I’m surprised they haven’t paid google to serve long term ads to offline TVs from their street view cars... or Tesla, or any car manufacturer probably parked in a close by garage and able to receive data ota
At least TCL and Hisense manufacture TVs with Roku built in, which seems like a big benefit, streaming services don't need to make and maintain another app specifically for your budget brand.
Depends on the TVs obviously. The C9/CX OLEDs have pretty powerful processors and are snappier in my experience in comparison to the cheaper streaming sticks.
The apps on LG TVs work surprisingly well. I would avoid them for the advertising and tracking concerns, but I just want to point out that the quality has vastly improved since the earliest smart TVs.
if i refused to interact with lying companies i think the only place i could do business is at the independent espresso stand a few miles away run by a senior lady and her cat.
Why would it need to be updated? Either it works, or it doesn't. If you're not using the "smart" parts, then it needs to just decode the damn HDMI signal. If it stops doing that to the point of needing an update, then things are terribly terribly wrong.
It works, but there are other levels of the stack between low level decoding HDMI and the "smart" parts.
Without updates you might miss out on other improvements like decreased input lag, support for another format, and bugfixes for the existing implementations (i.e. the HDMI decoder strobes when specific configuration X is utilized).
As a concrete example, Sony added HDR to one of their lines a year after it's original production a few years ago[1].
What's never mentioned in this brand of article is that $1,500 is probably quite low for the caliber of screen you get in a brand new TV. The state of the art has progressed significantly, while the cost of manufacturing hasn't dropped all that much; and yet the price of a new TV has held more or less constant, because it is subsidized by the income from ads.
The problem isn't that the TVs show ads, it's that there is no option on the market for a non-homebrand TV that is fully functional but doesn't show ads. My guess is that manufacturers are afraid to sell this option because it then becomes trivial to flash the firmware from an adless TV onto an adful TV.
(FWIW I hate nothing more than seeing ads on my TV outside broadcast)
My take is that ad revenue for TV manufacturers is next to nothing today, and it has zero impact on the cost of a TV set. But they're trying in case they can have access to a potentially huge revenue stream in the future. And my take is also that they won't do it well and they won't gain access to a revenue stream that only the likes of Google or Facebook are able to command and manage, but they will certainly annoy a huge amount of users along the way.
Only convenient option here seems to be to not give connectivity to your TV set, or not have a TV set at all.
> $1,500 is probably quite low for the caliber of screen you get in a brand new TV.
I am suspicious of that claim. How much, in real dollars, is your exposure to ads worth over the lifetime of the TV? I bet it doesn't move the needle that much. This is just manufacturers getting greedy, they're not selling TVs at a loss.
> it's that there is no option on the market for a non-homebrand TV that is fully functional but doesn't show ads
Actually, Vizio tried this with their SmartCast TVs. They didn't have any built-in apps, and relied on Google Cast to work. The TVs shipped with an Android tablet so you didn't technically need a smartphone to use it.
They only lasted one year before reverting and putting apps on the TV.
I'm using an Apple TV into a projector (which is not connected to the internet). I'm not getting ads through the Apple TV.
I'm assuming there will be claims that whatever apple is doing to keep ads out and just have their own world is violating anti-trust, but I have to say I like it.
They also do a weird aggregation thing across Amazon etc, so you have shows from multiple channels / service in one view. Not sure how that works, but from consumer side it is very nice.
I don't use hulu. I license movies I like on the itunes store if I'll be watching them a few times. And stream very lightly.
I would not take it well to have to deal with ads on an expensive device, or even be forced to jump through hoops to turn them off. I'm sure Apple is leaving money on the table, but I'm very willing to pay the apple premium to have to worry a lot less about this type of total jerk behavior.
Apple (so far) has been very reliable about letting you give them extra cash for a mostly user-respecting experience, and that's the main reason I buy from them (and has made me happy with my Apple TV purchase)
So as long as these built-in ads on the display can be disabled by disconnecting the thing from the internet, I can live with it. If they ever decide to make them work offline, or start embedding a cell antenna in the TV set, that's when I'll throw a real fit
I think they are planning to pay comcast/xfinity and others for bandwidth off the home router hotspots in an automated way.
So if your neighbor is on that type of program the TV can piggyback on your or their hotspot and push back the analytics / get the ads. That's probably a pretty low cost way to solve the not plugged in or piholed issues.
Was just shopping for a new TV. But previous threads here about Smart TV have me currently browsing Baba for just a panel+hdmi inputs, then I can connect my own "smart"
I've never put a TV on my WiFi. That strikes me as an obviously bad idea. I guess people use the terrible built-in apps? It just seems like a series of poor choices to me. Crazy though that an expensive LG CX OLED would do that. I figured at least if you paid more for the TV it would show some tiny level of respect for the owner but clearly not.
I know the various streaming sticks people use instead show ads too probably if it isn't an Apple TV but at least it is somewhat quarantined. Pretty crazy how antagonistic things are getting.
The LG versions of all the apps I've used are much better because it allows for cursor control and I feel it more reliably leads to HDR and 4k content.
It’s beneficial to use the built in apps on the OLEDs as they automatically play a screensaver when they notice content has been paused over a certain period of time. As well, no need to enable HDR etc for whatever device you are using instead of the built in apps.
I just now setup my LG CX to run through NextDNS to block any ads because of this. Took only about five minutes.
Just block anything going out on port 53 outside the network and keep a dns sever on the network. (useful to block known tls dns servers like cloudflares 1.1.1.1 as well)
That is sufficient for samsung from my experience. (it does try 8.8.8.8 on its own if my ad blocking server rejects requests)
It still doesn't know DNS-over-TLS but if I start seeing ads I'll disconnect it entirely.
I thought the same and bought an Apple TV. That thing sucks.
Turns out, Roku is way better. With respect to "terrible built-in apps", Apple TV has plenty of those. Netflix, Twitch, sports apps, streaming apps, all way better and more usable on the Roku than the Apple TV. Even after all this time with Apple TV remote, the UX is terrible even if the remote is decent
I can use it with the same remote as I turn my TV on with.
In all honesty, these things all are just feature parity, they perform the exact same between the two devices, but I really feel like the UX of fast-forwarding, rewinding etc is completely MIA on Apple TV and therefore it isn't really superior to the native applications, despite the $200 price point
> I can use it with the same remote as I turn my TV on with.
Any modern TV will let the connected turn it on and off with HDMI-CEC. For Apple TV, you just use the volume or whatever button to turn it on, then hold the home button and tap sleep to turn it off. Roku supports this, too.
Man, I completely feel the other way. I've played with Fire Sticks and Rokus and other devices, and they all seem like UX nightmares compared to the AppleTV platform.
(as a side note: isn't it sad that you had to ask this question? why isn't the button on the remote? or at least discoverable? or at the bare minimum part of an on-screen tutorial when you turn on Apple TV for the first time?)
Also, fwiw, UX isn't the only reason I prefer the ATV. E.g.:
- Doesn't Roku track usage for ads and whatnot, or is that just a rumor?
- There's also how well it integrates with everything else. When I go to a search screen, I can use my phone's keyboard to type. AppleMusic is right there, plus I can easily stream from my in-house library (which, admittedly, I almost never bother doing since signing up for Apple Music). I can throw my laptop screen on the TV if I want. Of course, all of this requires being in the Apple ecosystem, but I happen to be in that ecosystem.
Yeah, I get that, but like... What swipe gesture do I use? Maybe the apps I've used that on somehow implemented it badly but I completely fail to scrub thru
> Roku track usage for ads
Probably true, I'm a bit defeated in this domain
> Apple integrations
Yeah, I do like to stream my laptop to my TV sometimes, but once I realized that Roku natively could handle Twitch, sports apps, and streaming apps I have almost never had a use case for doing that
I own two of them, I know how it is supposed to be done and I _still_ struggle at times to do it reliably with the bundled remote. I recently discovered my TV's "crappy" IR remote can control the Apple TV, avoiding the touch pad altogether. It even supports extra buttons the normal remote doesn't have, such as a dedicated FFW key. I think I've seen this work via HDMI-CEC as well on mines.
You pause it, and then you can scroll left and right and then unpause
You can also click while your finger is on one side or the other to skip a few seconds forward or back (this gesture is a little finicky)
The current Apple TV remote definitely has some downsides - I'm not a huge fan of it - but I still love my Apple TV overall compared to all other options
Click the right edge of the touch area, advance 10 seconds. Click and hold the right edge, fast forward until you release. Left edge similar but rewind.
You can also click in the middle and then swipe left or right to move the slider.
It would strike me as a bad idea if I gave a tiny damn that LG know that I watch garbage on YouTube and Netflix. At some level, you’re ultimately giving your data to someone, so in my case, I use the built in apps on my entry level €300 LG TV. Works great, nice picture, 50” - and I don’t know if the ads are a US thing, as I’ve never seen one. Maybe it’s because I’ve never used it for TV, or perhaps because it sits behind double NAT, or maybe they just haven’t rolled out in this market (Portugal) yet - but honestly, I don’t mind being the product for an absolutely dirt cheap and very respectable for the money screen.
My Apple TV remote controls the speakers via IR, and triggers the TV to turn on and switch inputs via the HDMI. My game consoles also do the latter. The only time I have to dig out the TV remote is when I'm using an old console or need to fiddle with the settings
Anecdata-ly - while I was rejigging my home network and media setup (which necessitated disconnecting our previous video-streaming device), my partner started using the Netflix that was built-in to our TV. It performed admirably, and was actually more performant than the equivalent app we'd been using on [Fire TV Stick/PS4 - I forget which] previously.
By all means, rail against anti-privacy, overuse of IoT, adware/spying, etc. - but don't weaken your argument by assuming poor quality of things that _aren't_. It's perfectly possible for an app to do a bad thing well (in this case - spyware _and_ serving up high-quality video).
Yes, the LG Netflix app works as well as anything else I've used (and continues to work after opting out of the various agreements for adware and telemetry, for whatever that's worth). In fact, the LG "magic" motion-sensing remote is quite nice for streaming app UI navigation that's often hit-or-miss on platforms that lack a touch interface or pointing device.
With that said, I only connect my TV (which is also my computer display) to Wi-Fi when I'm actively using one of the built-in streaming apps (so infrequently, most recently when the new Expanse episodes dropped, because Amazon, unlike Netflix, doesn't support 4K streaming on PC or Mac).
Agree completely. To do an update, I change my wifi network name and password, do the update, then put the wifi network name and password back to the previous value.
And you _can_ pay for the article in a way that causes the site to stop serving ads. The Verge is part of Scroll, which is one of the services where you pay a monthly subscription fee to not see ads on their member sites.
Not shilling (I have no affiliation other than being a subscriber), just thought it was relevant to the larger conversation about paying for things and ads.
Use an ad blocker. I don’t feel bad about not giving money to what is essentially a rant about a crappy tv. My life wouldn’t have changed in any way if I hadn’t read it.
I'd like to see legislation that essentially said all ad-supported products of a certain size have to offer a non-ads version. Price is up to the product maker, but start forcing consumers to see what producers think their data and eyeballs is worth
I swear to God, if this happened with my TV I'd take it back to the store in whatever way I could find that would cost the manufacturer the most money. Intolerable.
"Smart" TVs should be banned. Streaming devices or nothing. TVs should be dumb screens.
This is why I can’t bring myself to change out my 32”
Samsung dumb TV. Every time I look elsewhere I see products which are worse even if I gain 4K and some more inches.
Please someone just sell a 4K monitor in 43, 50 inch sizes with HDMI that actually works and decent speakers and I’ll buy it for 25% more than the equivalent sized smart tv.
I hear ya. My 46" Samsung is from 2008. It stated to go wonky in 2013 and I googled and found I needed to literally cut a resistor off the board. It's been fine ever since. Fingers crossed.
The standard response would be to buy a commercial display, but you are looking at more than 25% higher prices. On the other hand, commercial displays theoretically are designed to be run nearly 24/7/365 and thus more durable, and many far more features than your standard television. Many NEC commercial displays, for example, have an expansion slot for a Raspberry Pi Compute Module. Wouldn’t that be fun?
My "commercial display" series 55" 4k LG dumb tv from a few years ago (in Canada) was ~$150 cheaper than its featurewise-near-equivalent (except the smarts) Consumer-oriented smart TV at the time ($900 vs $1050 iirc).
However I don't know if that product series has been updated / still available, and it may have been Canada only. But I'm not sure "commercial displays" are actually more expensive -- it might depend on the type and intended use-case.
The thinness really prevents decent speakers being part of the tv itself. You're essentially getting mobile device level speakers on a 40"+ screen. Then, they aren't even facing you. As much as I'd prefer a dumb TV, I'd also prefer a mute TV. Don't waste effort/money on putting something that nobody is seriously going to use.
Honestly not surprising. I bought a washing machine from LG a year or two ago. At first, I didn't bother even looking into its "connected" features, but recently I came into a spare iPhone that was just gathering dust, so I figured why not give it a shot, maybe there's something useful here.
Holy hell.
The app itself refuses to even attempt to connect to any device, unless granted Location Services permission. WTF? I mean, I expected spyware, I guess I just didn't expect them to be so god damn brazen about it.
After that, it turns out the appliance itself refuses to stay connected to the wifi network unless it can phone home. Needless to say, it ignores both forms of proxy configuration (WPAD and DHCP option) as well. Give it direct Internet, or give it death.
If an app needs to connect to a Wi-Fi AP on the appliance, you have to allow location since having access to the Wi-Fi scan of networks that are in range can allow for some coarse geolocation, thanks to open source SSID databases [1]. I wish Android and iOS would add functionality that allowed an app to connect to a known SSID without access to the scan because the permission requirement is rightly off-putting.
> I wish Android and iOS would add functionality that allowed an app to connect to a known SSID without access to the scan
Would that really help that much? If you know the user's approximate area, e.g. by IP address, and their SSID is unique in that area, than if the app says to the OS "please connect to this SSID if it's available" and the connection happens, the app now has your location.
I suppose that's a case for making location access more granular, not leaving things the way they are. But I bet people doing UIs for Google and Apple won't do that because the average user doesn't understand the possible location implications of giving away your SSID.
May I ask what features your washing machine needs internet access for? I maybe be a bit backward, but it's a washing machine, it washes clothes, I can't see how that would ever require accessing the internet.
Privacy is useful as well. Death by a thousand conveniences? Gawd only knows what the app is doing while you're not doing laundry. Surveillance Capitalism is real.
I have a combined washer/dryer that has a handy one-touch “wash and dry the stuff in the drum” setting, which is enabled in part by moisture detection in the drying phase. I let it know what kind of fabric it’s dealing with (cotton or synthetics) and it does the rest.
Because of this, the total cycle time can be as little as 40 minutes or as long as 2 hours and I have no real control over it. I would love if it could ping my phone since I wear headphones a lot and often miss the chime.
At this point I think the solution is to have a nearby Raspberry Pi or similar detect the chime with a microphone, then send an old-fashioned email. LOL
edit: Actually, can anyone suggest software to do this with? I already have a Pi-alike in the same room.
I've semi-seriously considered getting one of those flashing process lights that you see on industrial equipment and hooking it up to a pi that monitors the power draw through the outlet and lights up whenever it goes high->low.
Oh you can get a zwave or similar power switch that can monitor power usage that does that for you, no custom rpi required. Then you make an automation that sends a push once power is down after an initial increase minimum.
There are also high power zwave switches that should work with driers too.
Don't know about the audio detection software... you might also think about sampling your home power usage and detecting the characteristic usage pattern of your washing machine..?
It sure would be nice to live in a world where I don't have to put conscious effort into minimizing the surveillance teams' knowledge of me when I want to sit back and relax, let alone do something interesting. I'm old enough to remember when I wasn't constantly being micro-analyzed - at the time I didn't realize it was a luxurious lifestyle I led, but in retrospect I sure do miss it.
I know this site is full of ultra-capitalists, will you explain to me why I'm wrong for wanting to pay to not be tracked? Also, explain to me why the fruit of my existence is a resource to be harvested vs something I should be compensated for. I'm sure I'll be roasted super hard for this but very strong privacy laws seem to be a good idea - market effects be damned.
I'm with you, particularly because there really AREN'T alternatives. Most try to blame consumers here for "not paying more", but the reality is there's a healthy pseudo-monopoly in most spheres of tech that we interact with in one form or another and true competition is rare.
It's been said many times here over the past few years, and it'll get said a lot right here today, but rule of thumb: never enable WiFi on a TV except maybe temporarily to do an update or something. And even then only if it's absolutely necessary. Get a Roku or an Apple TV or a game console or whatever you want for watching streaming services. Never use what's built in to the TV, not just for privacy reasons but because it always seems to be a terrible experience compared to running Hulu, Netflix, etc. on anything else. But for privacy too- the TV companies were incredibly egregious about privacy years ago and AFAICT it's only gotten worse since then.
Some TVs allow firmware updates via USB thumb drive, which I think is a feature worth selecting for. This allowed me to get some bug fixes for my Sony Bravia TV that I would’ve had to live without had updates been online-only.
Additionally, there are some models that come with nearly-stock Android TV that are easy to remove creepware from (just plug into laptop and remove with ADB) should one feel inclined to use built-in smarts.
Personally I’ve been using an Apple TV and it’s served me well.
I'd be willing to bet that all modern TVs support local offline firmware updates.
Whether the actual firmware update binaries are readily available to non-commercial end users is another matter entirely (and of course equally important!).
In the case of my recent-ish LG model, they are, and offline USB updates work fine.
The "problem" with the LG OLEDs (I own the 77C9) is that webOS is actually quite good, the interface + processor snappy, and the magic remote quite good for effortlessly switching between your favorite streaming services or Plex. Even with a Harmony remote, it takes 1-2 button clicks to get wherever I need to be.
By contrast, the cheaper Fire and Chromecast devices have always felt much more sluggish. I really want an nVidia Shield but I'm not dropping $200 on outdated hardware when I already have a fantastic HTPC hooked up to my TV.
Fwiw, I've managed to not accept a bunch of license agreements on my C9 and have avoided anything too egregious. It is a glorious panel though and I hope they don't monetize it to the point that you can't use it without an active internet connection.
Hear hear. As a quite satisfied owner of 2 LG OLEDs, I agree with your assessment. It's a shame that no other company makes OLEDs. Panasonic just started making then using LG frames, but I don't know if they are any better in the privacy department.
Samsung doesn't, actually. They now only make "QLED" TV's and LED TV's.
However, a lot of other brands sell OLED TV sets including Sony, Vizio, TCL, etc. Maybe they're referring to manufacturing the physical OLED screen? I don't know what impact that would have on privacy concerns, though.
I own a Panasonic OLED. Never seen an ad on it. It does ping some analytics hostname regularly even with data collection disabled but I’ve klined this in the firewall and it doesn’t try anything else. I didn’t try to see what’s the payload to that data collection domain so maybe it was empty to begin with.
I definitely would support Roku over Google/Amazon. I like having another player in the market that has a "neutral" platform and large support across different streaming apps due to the size of their userbase.
I am just skeptical of something like the Stick+ being snappier or as snappy as the C9 processor. And if I'm looking at dropping $100 on the Roku Ultra, again, I'd rather wait on a Shield update to HDMI 2.1 and then pick that up for $200 in a year or so.
I preferred roku when the Amazon vs google fight meant I couldn't use Youtube TV. I stocked up on rokus in the house figuring they were the safe bet. And then for months there was this stalemate between WB and Roku where I couldn't access HBO Max. Seems like I can't win. I bought an Apple TV and I've been pretty happy with it so far.
Don’t forget — for a while you couldn’t get Amazon Prime video on an Apple TV. I too went all in on Apple TV and I’ve been able to largely avoid the ad issues in the article. But it isn’t like it was completely immune to these shenanigans, especially in the beginning.
> LG says "the new home screen provides faster access to the most frequently used apps and streamlines content discovery with the ability to receive recommendations based on the user’s preferences and viewing history". You can see a big "sponsored" slot in the top left there, so yes, you can expect some ads and paid placement recommendations on the home screen of your future LG TV.
Ouch, yeah that does look horrible. Fortunately my C9 won't be getting that upgrade. I'd still buy an OLED TV if I had to buy a TV now, and it would likely be LG, but I'd just budget spending the extra dollars on a Shield or some other streaming box that is ad free and as privacy friendly as possible.
Some TVs use the network via your HDMI connected devices (ex: the roku or whatever stick) or do searches for open wifi networks that you may have no control over to get their sweet, sweet surveillance fix.
I thought this was the case! A commenter on a previous thread said this was really unlikely [0], but I really believe it happens. Not sure how to prove it though.
I don't think this comment deserves downvotes. The arrival of 5G, and with it devices that can make their own external wireless connections, is a significant risk to consumer privacy. How it is used and regulated over the next few years could establish what is considered an acceptable standard for privacy for a long time afterwards, and it's clear which way a lot of device manufacturers are going to be pushing.
Affordable, embeddable 2g modems have existed for many years and have perpetrated some of the problems you're concerned about.
5G offers greater throughput but I don't think that tracking applications are only now enabled by 5G. Most 5G deployments are small cells in ultra dense areas and most snooping manufacturers would prefer the range of LTE.
I'm more concerned about the near-to-mid future in this respect.
It is still quite unusual to have embedded LTE modems and the like in consumer devices. Outside of a few relatively expensive product types, like cars and of course phones/tablets, I think most people would be surprised to find independent wireless connectivity in their consumer products and a lot of people would probably ask why it was there if it had no obvious purpose.
With 5G looking like it's going to be mainstream in most developed countries within a few years and promoted extensively as a technology for connected devices and applications using inter-device communication, it feels much more credible that both the infrastructure networks and the component manufacturers involved could offer pricing models that make incorporating connectivity cheaply into any device you feel like a realistic outcome.
My concern is that we drift into a situation where including local network communications, possibly sensors, and independent remote communications all in the same devices becomes routine, without anything close to adequate protections for security and privacy to go with it. Given that governments around here (UK/Europe in my case) are only just beginning to act on issues like right to repair and online privacy and have barely touched numerous other issues raised by modern tech and its capabilities, I'm extremely wary of a relatively uninformed public accepting a lot of hostile measures because they either don't know any better or (possibly correctly) assume that by that point there is nothing they can do about those measures even if they don't like them.
I believe the point was that the types of ads or surveillance we are talking about here doesn’t strictly require 5G. It can work perfectly well with existing 4G/LTE networks and infrastructure. You could send a pretty good signature of what someone is watching by SMS if you really wanted to. The components to add that connectivity to consumer electronics is not that difficult or expensive to add from a BOM perspective.
I think the reason why we haven’t seen more of this vector being used isn’t because it is technologically unfeasible, but rather that there are easier ways to get a device connected.
I think the reason why we haven’t seen more of this vector being used isn’t because it is technologically unfeasible, but rather that there are easier ways to get a device connected.
This is true, but it's also something that right now consumers can at least do something about if they are well-informed, as noted by many commenters here referring to not allowing "smart" devices access to home WiFi networks and the like. I think the danger with 5G, and I'm including the surrounding culture and marketing under that umbrella here, is that the channel for remote communication becomes independent and so potentially impossible for consumers to detect, monitor or prevent, even if they are otherwise relatively well-informed about the technology.
This is why I want to push for a right to 'networking off switch'. It's so simple on it's face and so hard to argue against, and so cheap to implement, so it's a good initial legislative baby step.
Hardware switches are a step in the right direction, but not enough. Some devices need network access to do their jobs, and there has to be a way to deter abusing that access for purposes that are user-hostile at the same time.
The Xbox is doing it that way because they need the lowest input latency possible for the controllers. Blocking the antenna for network operations delays the user input. A TV doesn't have that problem and certainly won't have two antennas.
We are effectively helpless against those tinier and tinier SoCs and the only option is not to buy.
Smartphones typically have four (or more) antennas. 2 for cell (main and diversity), one for wifi/bluetooth, one for GPS. Some phones compress that down to 2, but lose signal strength by doing so.
That sounds quite shocking. Basically the tv manufacturer is invading your home. I don't understand how that can be legal. Maybe it's just illegal on such a tiny scale, nobody cases.
And then the endpoint has to also provide a NAT, DHCP server etc? Or at least a bridge/ARP proxy? And it has to know that it should be configured as an upstream device, providing those services and not depending on them.
Can anyone cite a user manual or something official that talks about this feature?
Ethernet over HDMI is definitely a real thing. Someone else would have to comment on whether it's enabled by default on various devices, and which devices are capable of acting as a gateway vs client.
I don't own a smart TV and I, too, am skeptical that your grandparent is correct that TV makers are surreptitiously using other devices as network bridges with HDMI, etc.
BUT ... since we're talking about it ... are the network lines on HDMI reserved for that purpose such that you could create an "HDMI condom" ? I have USB condoms that I use to charge phones with, etc., and wonder if the same concept works with HDMI ...
It looks like HDMI uses separate pins from the video signal for Ethernet and Audio Return Channel. I originally thought it was using a shared packetized bus for HEC, but it's actually kind of clever -- differential mode signal on those two pins is HEC, common mode signal is ARC.
HEAC utilizes two lines from the connector: the previously unused Reserved pin (called HEAC+) and the Hot Plug Detect pin (called HEAC−).
So if you don't need ARC, it should be possible to make a simple filter that blocks both HEC and ARC. Older HDMI cables that might not connect the Reserved pin might also block HEC+ARC. And it also seems like you can get ARC-only by disconnecting the Reserved pin.
I'd guess HEC is most commonly going to be used in situations where you'd also want ARC -- to provide network access from an A/V receiver to a smart TV, and then get the audio back into the receiver.
My TCL bootloops if you disconnect it from the network for more than a week or two. Support is willing to help! First step: connect it to the internet.
Our Sony with built in Android TV is quite nice. It’s a bit of a privacy hit but not too bad. Everything just works, including Android apps like Kodi. It’s hard wired with Ethernet... kinda requires when streaming ultra hi def over the LAN.
I don't know about the newest models but up until the XH series wifi was actually faster than ethernet. The SoC only supported 100MBit/s ethernet which isn't enough for high quality UHD content.
No its not. No one is selling 120 Hz OLED monitor, to the point that people are buying 48" LG CX 48 as a monitor which IMO is just too large for a monitor
An issue that some manufacturers are foreseeing - some TVs, if you don't give them network access, will just start looking for open networks and find their own way out.
Doesn't Roku send the same data? Don't Apple TV apps track what we watch in each app, just like a Kindle tracks what we read and how fast you read it?
Is the goal here to avoid any metrics being transmitted? Is it to avoid aggregate metrics across all of our apps and devices being transmitted?
It seems like the original objection in the article is that it's the advertising that's the problem, not the data collection and metrics, and the suggestion of Roku and Apple TV seems a poor solution for two of those three problems.
I think the majority of the population is OK with ads everywhere and paying for multiple streaming channels for 5-10x more than basic cable from the 90's.
If that's what customers want, or continue to buy, I guess that makes me a grumpy old man like the OP.
Last year my 10+ year old Roku was EOL'd: it literally STOPPED working. Had I paid more than $50 for it, I'd probably be more miffed, but I think this is a consequence that will become more egregious if we continue to buy "smart" things. However it was getting less and less use because there's just nothing I'm interested in watching, or rather, I don't want to pay to click channels like I did in pre-2000. Every show I"m interested in requires a subscription to a new service, so I just said fuck it around 2012-2013 and stuck with Netflix DVDs, and then cancelled that in 2018. Now I rent an Amazon Prime flick once or twice a week for $2.99, which is about 12-24$/month.
I recall reading that there was a place to purchase bezel-less, stripped down TVs w/o the smarts, that are basically monitors without being the quality of monitors so they are cheap, and used for creating giant wall displays.
There's always a bit of the opposite effect too. If supply of something is extremely low, then people eventually stop looking for it. People might want the object, but they might not express that desire if the supply is next to non-existent.
I know with my family we aren't
My parent may for netflix
My sister pays for HBO
My wife and I pay for Disney/Hulu (also espn came in the bundle but none of us watch sports but there wasn't a option to not get it)
we all share accounts and each have our profile.
We each have our own amazon prime account but that's more for shipping, with the streaming as a nice bonus.
I will get a free trail to other services and cancel them after i finish what ever show i wanted i couldn't get on the other pay services. which reminds me i need to sign up for a free paramount+ trial for the next batch of star trek seasons.
then there are all of the free streaming services that are ad supported (pluto IMDBtv etc...)
Honestly though other than a few prestige shows (Witcher, Mandalorian, Wandvision, Picard) and reruns of 90 and 00 sitcoms (scrubs frazer freinds) when i cant sleep, or star trek binge when my wife pulls a weekend evening shift at work I don't watch that much tv.
If I wanted to watch all of the shows I'm interested, and purchased all the streaming services that my Roku refers me to when I search, it would be probably ... US$150/month? Basic cable is $20 on comcast/Xfinity. But it is hard to compare because I search for movies rather than basic TV, which I think was your point.
> Mostly I just listen to audible or watch youtube
Yes, some of us are having our media habits reshaped by our intolerance for bullshit.
That worries me when this sort of obsolescence is baked into devices that are meant to last long, like vehicles or appliances. I prefer when the short-lived stuff stays on a separate device.
I rarely see the main interface since I mostly stream with a ShieldTV, so I can't really say anything about ads there.
I did finally end up enabling wifi though. I kept it off for the first month but the TV got more and more aggressive about posting overlays that warned my that my TV did not have internet access. Even while streaming on an external device. It really took me out of the moment.
I probably would have returned it at that point but my car isn't big enough to fit it and any other TV would probably end up the same way or worse.
Oh, that is so wrong. I don't want to know about not having internet access unless I asked it do something that required internet access. That's even more user hostile than I thought we had debased ourselves.
I run a dns blocker on my router so it may be serving me ads but if it is I don't know. From my research I don't think the X9500 serves ads.
I was quite pleased with upgrading to it from a dumb tv and cheap android tv box. It's faster than the android tv box I had, not suffered any bugs i saw on the android tv box. UI looks pretty much stock android tv, it has airplay and appletv which you don't get on android tv boxes.
I’ve historical owned Samsung TVs and became so fed up with the bugs, the ads, and the uninstallable pre-installed apps. The most recent TV I purchased was a Sony X650H and I love it. It’s android based, the UI isn’t clunky, and I’ve never seen an Ad. I have no idea if they are tracking me behind the scenes. At this point I assume everyone is. But at least they aren’t ruining my viewing experience.
I've literally had it for three hours, but my first impressions are:
• The bass isn't as good as I'd been led to believe. If I were still a bachelor, I would get the sub (I didn't get either the sub or rear speakers)
• The audio sync is blessedly ok for me. I had read some horror stories about this and was worried. I plug an iPhone/iPad into an projector via an Apple HDMI adaptor, and I use AirPlay for the sound. It's a split-second late, but it's acceptable for me. I may even be able to add some latency to my projector to fix this.
• It seems like it really has to be sitting on top of a flat surface. I was planning to wall-mount mine, and right now I have it sitting centered on top of an old rectangular subwoofer. It doesn't sound great that way, but when I put the box it came in underneath it, it sounds much better. It seems to really change the acoustics, and I'm not sure how it'll sound wall-mounted, with nothing below it. I plan to call the company to inquire about this. The difference is very noticeable.
• There is something loose in the speaker that makes it sound like either a cone is being blown out, or is already blown. Based on all their backorder/shipping delays (and what I've seen in forums), I'm guessing they've had Q/A issues in manufacturing. Hopefully this can be fixed without too much hassle.
• Setup was really easy. It's my first Sonos, and I had it set up in about 10 minutes, including calibration (which seems to make a pretty big difference, though it could be all in my head).
Feel free to contact me via email (in profile) if you want to hear as the story unfolds. I've been looking forward to getting this for a long time, and I'm cautiously optimistic so far.
I actually went in for the Arc and Rears. Sub was just too expensive. The other option I considered was Vizio Elevate. But Sonos looks better, is wireless and probably won't have the bugs of Vizio.
One thing is that I have tall ceilings so haven't heard any height atmos effects. Would love to stay in touch to compare notes :)
Luckily my LG smart TV's wifi is so crappy that it cannot stay connected to the internet for more than a few minutes, so I just use my Apple TV and never have to deal with this BS.
I'm aware HDMI can carry it, but how many people are plugging their TVs into things that issue them dhcp leases, and act as a gateway/router for a path to the internet? Probably some, it seems like a feature that comcast or others would build into cable boxes, but not many (yet).
I own one of these. Although I am yet to see full blown video ads like the one the article mentions, I definitely see banner ads on the bottom left of the LG interface, every time I click on the home button to switch between TV apps.
I do have FireTV 4K stick and an Apple TV 4K on HDMI inputs but I still prefer the apps on the TV. They are much better in terms of picture quality, no idea why. Even the Apple TV+ app on the TV looks better than the app on Apple TV!
This is a shot in the dark, but it's possible your HDMI cables aren't fully supporting the 4K. I was having trouble with a 4K monitor not displaying properly and it turned out my HDMI cable was outdated. Replacing it with a DisplayPort fixed the issue. That being said, most modern HDMI cables should support 4K, but it's always good to check the hardware specs of the cable and the TV.
That was my first suspicion. The cables definitely support 4K. I enabled diagnostics overlay on my FireTV and the resolution was definitely 4K and yet the picture looks washed off.
Probably a software issue - the TV is reading the incoming SDR signal and treating it as Rec. 709 (the SDR standard) as opposed to Rec. 2020 (the HDR standard). Since the color primaries for Rec. 2020 are much wider, the values in the signal representing the "amount" of each color are smaller. If you then treat those numbers as in the SDR gamut, you get a washed out (less saturated) image.
This is also just a shot in the dark, but matches your observations pretty well.
I can almost guarantee that the issue is your Fire TV's input is set to a specific picture mode, whereas the built-in apps are using the color-inaccurate vivid mode.
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[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 265 ms ] threadI’m surprised by this community’s refusal to spend even a small amount of time hacking on their TV. Maybe you think it should “just” work, but when is that ever the case?
And then it creeps higher, as people get used to it.
"Sure it's opt out, that means it's not forced" is a horrible argument for an anti-consumer move. Wait until IP's are hardcoded and ads can't be turned off, on any consumer TV, because there's no more demand for dumb ones, and it maximizes profit.
Also, technically speaking, what you've constructed is a fallacy. When something like what you described happens, nobody's going to use "but you were okay with not-this before, therefore you must be okay with this new thing!"
I'll march into Best Buy right with you when I can't turn it off, but as long as I can, I'm probably just going to do that and move on with my life.
I mean, yeah, I did too, but I'm also writing letters to my reps for the people who don't know how to do that.
>Also, technically speaking, what you've constructed is a fallacy. When something like what you described happens, nobody's going to use "but you were okay with not-this before, therefore you must be okay with this new thing!"
I'm not saying you'd be okay with it, in fact I think your view is pretty reasonable. Personally I want to stop this sort of thing from being on by default, personalized tracking on nearly every TV, etc.
No more cars that spy on you as you drive around when you turn of network services, no more TVs that spy on what you watch and so on.
It's a great Plex client, YouTube client, Netflix client, Prime Video client (of course), and quickly took over primary video source duties as soon as I installed it.
The prior version (the not 4K one) struggled with even 1080p H265 decoding, but the 4K version handles H265 and all the other formats I've thrown at it just fine.
Even when the TV was brand new, the apps on the TV were terrible (sluggish, disjointed UI, TV remote not comfortable to use as primary remote). 4 years later, they're not going to be any better, while the HDMI input sources can be easily and cheaply upgraded.
Of course you didn’t get your 65” TV delivered to your own house, right?
If it’s strictly one-way, ad purchasers may not know precisely how many “hits” they got, but could be inferred from the online TVs.
To be determined if it’s worthwhile if almost everyone puts the TV online anyway, but if there’s a world where people don’t, you’ll still be almost as screwed.
Without updates you might miss out on other improvements like decreased input lag, support for another format, and bugfixes for the existing implementations (i.e. the HDMI decoder strobes when specific configuration X is utilized).
As a concrete example, Sony added HDR to one of their lines a year after it's original production a few years ago[1].
[1]https://www.sony.com/electronics/support/articles/00157695
The problem isn't that the TVs show ads, it's that there is no option on the market for a non-homebrand TV that is fully functional but doesn't show ads. My guess is that manufacturers are afraid to sell this option because it then becomes trivial to flash the firmware from an adless TV onto an adful TV.
(FWIW I hate nothing more than seeing ads on my TV outside broadcast)
Only convenient option here seems to be to not give connectivity to your TV set, or not have a TV set at all.
“This stuff can come off as invasive, but it’s also partially what’s steadily brought the prices down on even high-end TVs....”
I am suspicious of that claim. How much, in real dollars, is your exposure to ads worth over the lifetime of the TV? I bet it doesn't move the needle that much. This is just manufacturers getting greedy, they're not selling TVs at a loss.
Just occurred to me that we need some young hackers to start working on "opening" up tv firmware like they have for consoles and phones.
Actually, Vizio tried this with their SmartCast TVs. They didn't have any built-in apps, and relied on Google Cast to work. The TVs shipped with an Android tablet so you didn't technically need a smartphone to use it.
They only lasted one year before reverting and putting apps on the TV.
I'm assuming there will be claims that whatever apple is doing to keep ads out and just have their own world is violating anti-trust, but I have to say I like it.
They also do a weird aggregation thing across Amazon etc, so you have shows from multiple channels / service in one view. Not sure how that works, but from consumer side it is very nice.
If you use an ad supported service like Peacock or Hulu you’ll still see ads in the streams.
I don't use hulu. I license movies I like on the itunes store if I'll be watching them a few times. And stream very lightly.
I would not take it well to have to deal with ads on an expensive device, or even be forced to jump through hoops to turn them off. I'm sure Apple is leaving money on the table, but I'm very willing to pay the apple premium to have to worry a lot less about this type of total jerk behavior.
So as long as these built-in ads on the display can be disabled by disconnecting the thing from the internet, I can live with it. If they ever decide to make them work offline, or start embedding a cell antenna in the TV set, that's when I'll throw a real fit
So if your neighbor is on that type of program the TV can piggyback on your or their hotspot and push back the analytics / get the ads. That's probably a pretty low cost way to solve the not plugged in or piholed issues.
https://searchads.apple.com/
Or is that only on their other devices?
Imagine that connected to (or with an in-built) AppleTV unit, and the sound from four Apple HomePods.
I know the various streaming sticks people use instead show ads too probably if it isn't an Apple TV but at least it is somewhat quarantined. Pretty crazy how antagonistic things are getting.
Edit: there are a lot of people with other smart TVs that progressively got more and more broken applications.
I just now setup my LG CX to run through NextDNS to block any ads because of this. Took only about five minutes.
That is sufficient for samsung from my experience. (it does try 8.8.8.8 on its own if my ad blocking server rejects requests)
It still doesn't know DNS-over-TLS but if I start seeing ads I'll disconnect it entirely.
Turns out, Roku is way better. With respect to "terrible built-in apps", Apple TV has plenty of those. Netflix, Twitch, sports apps, streaming apps, all way better and more usable on the Roku than the Apple TV. Even after all this time with Apple TV remote, the UX is terrible even if the remote is decent
What really sucks on Apple TV is the YouTube app. It may be Google's single least competent publicly available software engineering.
edited to clarify question
I can use it with the same remote as I turn my TV on with.
In all honesty, these things all are just feature parity, they perform the exact same between the two devices, but I really feel like the UX of fast-forwarding, rewinding etc is completely MIA on Apple TV and therefore it isn't really superior to the native applications, despite the $200 price point
Any modern TV will let the connected turn it on and off with HDMI-CEC. For Apple TV, you just use the volume or whatever button to turn it on, then hold the home button and tap sleep to turn it off. Roku supports this, too.
Can you tell me this, no snark: how the hell do you fast forward or rewind on Apple TV?
In any case, here's an article on how to do it:
https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-fast-forward-on-apple...
(as a side note: isn't it sad that you had to ask this question? why isn't the button on the remote? or at least discoverable? or at the bare minimum part of an on-screen tutorial when you turn on Apple TV for the first time?)
Also, fwiw, UX isn't the only reason I prefer the ATV. E.g.:
- Doesn't Roku track usage for ads and whatnot, or is that just a rumor?
- There's also how well it integrates with everything else. When I go to a search screen, I can use my phone's keyboard to type. AppleMusic is right there, plus I can easily stream from my in-house library (which, admittedly, I almost never bother doing since signing up for Apple Music). I can throw my laptop screen on the TV if I want. Of course, all of this requires being in the Apple ecosystem, but I happen to be in that ecosystem.
Yeah, I get that, but like... What swipe gesture do I use? Maybe the apps I've used that on somehow implemented it badly but I completely fail to scrub thru
> Roku track usage for ads
Probably true, I'm a bit defeated in this domain
> Apple integrations
Yeah, I do like to stream my laptop to my TV sometimes, but once I realized that Roku natively could handle Twitch, sports apps, and streaming apps I have almost never had a use case for doing that
> https://support.apple.com/guide/tv/use-other-remotes-atvb041...
You can also click while your finger is on one side or the other to skip a few seconds forward or back (this gesture is a little finicky)
The current Apple TV remote definitely has some downsides - I'm not a huge fan of it - but I still love my Apple TV overall compared to all other options
You can also click in the middle and then swipe left or right to move the slider.
The PBS Kids app is super buggy. It randomly decides to start playing the audio from its home screen over whatever show my kid is trying to watch.
And Emby, which works great on Roku and on iOS, looks great on Apple TV but fails at actually playing videos.
At the end of the day yes. Especially, with older generations around.
Having a separate remote for volume (separate receiver) and TV is enough of a challenge. Having a 3rd creates all sorts of confusion.
By all means, rail against anti-privacy, overuse of IoT, adware/spying, etc. - but don't weaken your argument by assuming poor quality of things that _aren't_. It's perfectly possible for an app to do a bad thing well (in this case - spyware _and_ serving up high-quality video).
With that said, I only connect my TV (which is also my computer display) to Wi-Fi when I'm actively using one of the built-in streaming apps (so infrequently, most recently when the new Expanse episodes dropped, because Amazon, unlike Netflix, doesn't support 4K streaming on PC or Mac).
Never ever leave the TV connected.
There are 12 ads active on this article, and at least 1 autoplaying video ad.
Not shilling (I have no affiliation other than being a subscriber), just thought it was relevant to the larger conversation about paying for things and ads.
apples, meet oranges.
"Smart" TVs should be banned. Streaming devices or nothing. TVs should be dumb screens.
Please someone just sell a 4K monitor in 43, 50 inch sizes with HDMI that actually works and decent speakers and I’ll buy it for 25% more than the equivalent sized smart tv.
However I don't know if that product series has been updated / still available, and it may have been Canada only. But I'm not sure "commercial displays" are actually more expensive -- it might depend on the type and intended use-case.
Holy hell.
The app itself refuses to even attempt to connect to any device, unless granted Location Services permission. WTF? I mean, I expected spyware, I guess I just didn't expect them to be so god damn brazen about it.
After that, it turns out the appliance itself refuses to stay connected to the wifi network unless it can phone home. Needless to say, it ignores both forms of proxy configuration (WPAD and DHCP option) as well. Give it direct Internet, or give it death.
[1] https://wigle.net/map?maplat=37.76559999999937&maplon=-122.4...
Even after enabling the Location Services access, I still had to manually connect to the appliance's AP through the iOS Settings app.
Would that really help that much? If you know the user's approximate area, e.g. by IP address, and their SSID is unique in that area, than if the app says to the OS "please connect to this SSID if it's available" and the connection happens, the app now has your location.
I suppose that's a case for making location access more granular, not leaving things the way they are. But I bet people doing UIs for Google and Apple won't do that because the average user doesn't understand the possible location implications of giving away your SSID.
https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/living-und...
And another OTM fan.
Granted, you do have to remember to start the countdown timer.
Because of this, the total cycle time can be as little as 40 minutes or as long as 2 hours and I have no real control over it. I would love if it could ping my phone since I wear headphones a lot and often miss the chime.
edit: Actually, can anyone suggest software to do this with? I already have a Pi-alike in the same room.
There are also high power zwave switches that should work with driers too.
Or shit can respect our privacy
https://twitter.com/dcseifert/status/1367478685306138629
It needs extermination.
I know this site is full of ultra-capitalists, will you explain to me why I'm wrong for wanting to pay to not be tracked? Also, explain to me why the fruit of my existence is a resource to be harvested vs something I should be compensated for. I'm sure I'll be roasted super hard for this but very strong privacy laws seem to be a good idea - market effects be damned.
Additionally, there are some models that come with nearly-stock Android TV that are easy to remove creepware from (just plug into laptop and remove with ADB) should one feel inclined to use built-in smarts.
Personally I’ve been using an Apple TV and it’s served me well.
Whether the actual firmware update binaries are readily available to non-commercial end users is another matter entirely (and of course equally important!).
In the case of my recent-ish LG model, they are, and offline USB updates work fine.
Hopefully it fails like DIVX, but given there are 4G radios in most cars today, it probably will succeed.
Soon appliances and other IoT will no longer be reliant on your say-so on what data it collects and when...
By contrast, the cheaper Fire and Chromecast devices have always felt much more sluggish. I really want an nVidia Shield but I'm not dropping $200 on outdated hardware when I already have a fantastic HTPC hooked up to my TV.
Fwiw, I've managed to not accept a bunch of license agreements on my C9 and have avoided anything too egregious. It is a glorious panel though and I hope they don't monetize it to the point that you can't use it without an active internet connection.
However, a lot of other brands sell OLED TV sets including Sony, Vizio, TCL, etc. Maybe they're referring to manufacturing the physical OLED screen? I don't know what impact that would have on privacy concerns, though.
It's a combination of the Quantum Dot technology from QLED and OLED.
I am just skeptical of something like the Stick+ being snappier or as snappy as the C9 processor. And if I'm looking at dropping $100 on the Roku Ultra, again, I'd rather wait on a Shield update to HDMI 2.1 and then pick that up for $200 in a year or so.
You might change your mind once you see what LG have done with webOS 6.0. [1]
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/11/22223767/lg-webos-6-tv-so...
> LG says "the new home screen provides faster access to the most frequently used apps and streamlines content discovery with the ability to receive recommendations based on the user’s preferences and viewing history". You can see a big "sponsored" slot in the top left there, so yes, you can expect some ads and paid placement recommendations on the home screen of your future LG TV.
As a user
I want to see relevant partner content on the home screen
So that my content is more targeted to my needs
”
[0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20205969
5G offers greater throughput but I don't think that tracking applications are only now enabled by 5G. Most 5G deployments are small cells in ultra dense areas and most snooping manufacturers would prefer the range of LTE.
It is still quite unusual to have embedded LTE modems and the like in consumer devices. Outside of a few relatively expensive product types, like cars and of course phones/tablets, I think most people would be surprised to find independent wireless connectivity in their consumer products and a lot of people would probably ask why it was there if it had no obvious purpose.
With 5G looking like it's going to be mainstream in most developed countries within a few years and promoted extensively as a technology for connected devices and applications using inter-device communication, it feels much more credible that both the infrastructure networks and the component manufacturers involved could offer pricing models that make incorporating connectivity cheaply into any device you feel like a realistic outcome.
My concern is that we drift into a situation where including local network communications, possibly sensors, and independent remote communications all in the same devices becomes routine, without anything close to adequate protections for security and privacy to go with it. Given that governments around here (UK/Europe in my case) are only just beginning to act on issues like right to repair and online privacy and have barely touched numerous other issues raised by modern tech and its capabilities, I'm extremely wary of a relatively uninformed public accepting a lot of hostile measures because they either don't know any better or (possibly correctly) assume that by that point there is nothing they can do about those measures even if they don't like them.
I think the reason why we haven’t seen more of this vector being used isn’t because it is technologically unfeasible, but rather that there are easier ways to get a device connected.
This is true, but it's also something that right now consumers can at least do something about if they are well-informed, as noted by many commenters here referring to not allowing "smart" devices access to home WiFi networks and the like. I think the danger with 5G, and I'm including the surrounding culture and marketing under that umbrella here, is that the channel for remote communication becomes independent and so potentially impossible for consumers to detect, monitor or prevent, even if they are otherwise relatively well-informed about the technology.
Really just need to make the dark patterns illegal or costly though.
But shielding is just fine and is mentioned elsewhere in this thread.
There's another option: Buy and hook up a dumb hdmi converter to the panel. Taobao has these (low latency, niche gamer market)
We are effectively helpless against those tinier and tinier SoCs and the only option is not to buy.
Can anyone cite a user manual or something official that talks about this feature?
I've heard that repeated but never seen anyone actually test it and it would be shocking if true.
It seems more likely that in these cases, a family member or friend connected to the WiFi instead, without the owner being aware.
And if it were actually true and verifiable then surely journalists would have written articles on it by now.
BUT ... since we're talking about it ... are the network lines on HDMI reserved for that purpose such that you could create an "HDMI condom" ? I have USB condoms that I use to charge phones with, etc., and wonder if the same concept works with HDMI ...
HEAC utilizes two lines from the connector: the previously unused Reserved pin (called HEAC+) and the Hot Plug Detect pin (called HEAC−).
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI#HDMI_Ethernet_and_Audio_R...
So if you don't need ARC, it should be possible to make a simple filter that blocks both HEC and ARC. Older HDMI cables that might not connect the Reserved pin might also block HEC+ARC. And it also seems like you can get ARC-only by disconnecting the Reserved pin.
I'd guess HEC is most commonly going to be used in situations where you'd also want ARC -- to provide network access from an A/V receiver to a smart TV, and then get the audio back into the receiver.
Damn TV!
Is the goal here to avoid any metrics being transmitted? Is it to avoid aggregate metrics across all of our apps and devices being transmitted?
It seems like the original objection in the article is that it's the advertising that's the problem, not the data collection and metrics, and the suggestion of Roku and Apple TV seems a poor solution for two of those three problems.
Roku is the noisiest device on PiHole, constantly trying to phone home, Amazon Firestick is up there too.
Why does a TV need a software update? If it can't show the output of HDMI out of the box, it's not fit for purpose and should be returned.
If that's what customers want, or continue to buy, I guess that makes me a grumpy old man like the OP.
Last year my 10+ year old Roku was EOL'd: it literally STOPPED working. Had I paid more than $50 for it, I'd probably be more miffed, but I think this is a consequence that will become more egregious if we continue to buy "smart" things. However it was getting less and less use because there's just nothing I'm interested in watching, or rather, I don't want to pay to click channels like I did in pre-2000. Every show I"m interested in requires a subscription to a new service, so I just said fuck it around 2012-2013 and stuck with Netflix DVDs, and then cancelled that in 2018. Now I rent an Amazon Prime flick once or twice a week for $2.99, which is about 12-24$/month.
You talk as if there was a $1800 ad-free TV on sale next to the ad-infested one. The majority isn't given a choice.
Unless this TV doesn't allow that?
Agree with your point, there is little choice.
I recall reading that there was a place to purchase bezel-less, stripped down TVs w/o the smarts, that are basically monitors without being the quality of monitors so they are cheap, and used for creating giant wall displays.
The fix is better laws. The exact same TV in Nordic version have an option to turn ads on (it defaults to off).
The friend stops and says, "Look, there is a $20 bill on the ground!"
The economist turns and coolly replies, "Can't be. If there was a $20 bill on the ground, somebody would have already picked it up."
I know with my family we aren't My parent may for netflix My sister pays for HBO My wife and I pay for Disney/Hulu (also espn came in the bundle but none of us watch sports but there wasn't a option to not get it) we all share accounts and each have our profile. We each have our own amazon prime account but that's more for shipping, with the streaming as a nice bonus.
I will get a free trail to other services and cancel them after i finish what ever show i wanted i couldn't get on the other pay services. which reminds me i need to sign up for a free paramount+ trial for the next batch of star trek seasons.
then there are all of the free streaming services that are ad supported (pluto IMDBtv etc...)
Honestly though other than a few prestige shows (Witcher, Mandalorian, Wandvision, Picard) and reruns of 90 and 00 sitcoms (scrubs frazer freinds) when i cant sleep, or star trek binge when my wife pulls a weekend evening shift at work I don't watch that much tv.
Mostly I just listen to audible or watch youtube
> Mostly I just listen to audible or watch youtube
Yes, some of us are having our media habits reshaped by our intolerance for bullshit.
I did finally end up enabling wifi though. I kept it off for the first month but the TV got more and more aggressive about posting overlays that warned my that my TV did not have internet access. Even while streaming on an external device. It really took me out of the moment.
I probably would have returned it at that point but my car isn't big enough to fit it and any other TV would probably end up the same way or worse.
I run a dns blocker on my router so it may be serving me ads but if it is I don't know. From my research I don't think the X9500 serves ads.
I was quite pleased with upgrading to it from a dumb tv and cheap android tv box. It's faster than the android tv box I had, not suffered any bugs i saw on the android tv box. UI looks pretty much stock android tv, it has airplay and appletv which you don't get on android tv boxes.
I'm happy with the purchase so far.
• The bass isn't as good as I'd been led to believe. If I were still a bachelor, I would get the sub (I didn't get either the sub or rear speakers)
• The audio sync is blessedly ok for me. I had read some horror stories about this and was worried. I plug an iPhone/iPad into an projector via an Apple HDMI adaptor, and I use AirPlay for the sound. It's a split-second late, but it's acceptable for me. I may even be able to add some latency to my projector to fix this.
• It seems like it really has to be sitting on top of a flat surface. I was planning to wall-mount mine, and right now I have it sitting centered on top of an old rectangular subwoofer. It doesn't sound great that way, but when I put the box it came in underneath it, it sounds much better. It seems to really change the acoustics, and I'm not sure how it'll sound wall-mounted, with nothing below it. I plan to call the company to inquire about this. The difference is very noticeable.
• There is something loose in the speaker that makes it sound like either a cone is being blown out, or is already blown. Based on all their backorder/shipping delays (and what I've seen in forums), I'm guessing they've had Q/A issues in manufacturing. Hopefully this can be fixed without too much hassle.
• Setup was really easy. It's my first Sonos, and I had it set up in about 10 minutes, including calibration (which seems to make a pretty big difference, though it could be all in my head).
Feel free to contact me via email (in profile) if you want to hear as the story unfolds. I've been looking forward to getting this for a long time, and I'm cautiously optimistic so far.
One thing is that I have tall ceilings so haven't heard any height atmos effects. Would love to stay in touch to compare notes :)
I do have FireTV 4K stick and an Apple TV 4K on HDMI inputs but I still prefer the apps on the TV. They are much better in terms of picture quality, no idea why. Even the Apple TV+ app on the TV looks better than the app on Apple TV!
This is also just a shot in the dark, but matches your observations pretty well.