Ask HN: Is there a TV on the market without “Smart TV” features?
Or is there at least one where Smart mode can be turned off verifiably AND it doesn’t keep enticing you to turn it on by withholding ease of use or some convenience feature until you just give up?
412 comments
[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 175 ms ] threadOne of the suggestions I remember seeing is to buy a large display/monitor instead of a TV. I don't remember the specifics.
But the answers are probably out of date by now.
E.g., my answer about buying a cheapo Spectre from Walmart-- that one has been out of stock for at least two of the several times this topic has been brought up now.
Is it always the same old hardware and software? Because if they suddenly start shipping with AdJank 0.2 you're back to square one.
https://www.rtings.com/tv/tests/ads-in-smart-tv (The ones with a "10" in the ad-free column.)
The often-given advice of "just don't connect it to the internet" is viable only sometimes. My TV shipped with some missing features that were enabled after a software update.
Perhaps plug it in, update the software, and then unplug it again.
It's important to remember these reviews can become outdated with firmware, too. Even old TVs can suddenly start "benefiting viewers, content providers and advertisers" with "features" like ads playing as screensavers, and phoning the content of your screen back to Big Brother.
Here's a related Reddit thread from the Jump Ad announcement [2].
[0] - https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/05/vizio-tv-buyers-are-...
[1] - https://www.flatpanelshd.com/news.php?subaction=showfull&id=...
[2] - https://old.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/tv303i/vizio_tvs_a...
This actually seems like a good market opportunity for yet another home device, a router with aggressive spyware and ad mitigation that's made to explicitly connect all your smart gadgets and untrusted devices that phone home.
Knock, and keep that ip offline. With no way to change locationation(DNS), their little ad sceme won't work.
Even better if it makes companies shy about using such methods.
Very curious definition of “white hat” you have
>A white hat (or a white hat hacker) is an ethical security hacker.[1] Ethical hacking is a term meant to imply a broader category than just penetration testing.[2][3] Under the owner's consent, white hat hackers aim to identify any vulnerabilities the current system has. [...] There is a third kind of hacker known as a grey hat who hacks with good intentions but at times without permission.[6]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_hat_(computer_security)
I of course also use UBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, Decentraleyes, and Referer Block on the laptop in addition to the Pi-hole. I do the same at work, as they allowed me to use a Pi-hole since I'm IT and on my own portion of the network on a private VLAN.
Since some people use laptops in lieu of TVs, you can always use FreeTube, which blocks ads by default and can also be proxied in the settings so YouTube cannot see your location. https://freetubeapp.io/
How to block ads on Amazon Firestick https://troypoint.com/youtube-without-ads/
SmartTubeNext https://smartyoutubetv.github.io/
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/googles-nest-alarm-system-has-a...
EDIT: Even better, Visio's lapse. This shit used to be illegal, and now it's supposed to be not super creepy, too? No thanks.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/07/business/vizio-television...
People weren't pleased that their $4000 Sony TVs were turned into a spam conduit, but Google was quite pleased to say FU.
So far, I've been lucky. After finally moving off of a CRT for primary TV viewing, I picked up a smart plasma from Samsung. Never put it online, and that TV is awesome! Gonna miss it one day. Looks like OLED is going to deliver nicely, and that's what I'm looking at in the future.
Did pick up two "Hi Sense" ROKU sets, and they are remarkably clean. Apparently, there are sets out there sans the AD spamming, and or I bought in just prior to this all very seriously escalating.
But yes, I get your point.
(I recommend LG over Samsung - Samsung TV has native undismissable ads from 2019 still)
Do these TVs start up and boot directly into the selected input for something like an Apple TV, or do you have to go to extra hoops when it starts up to switch to your desired input? I'd actually be perfectly happy with a smart TV that's disconnected if it never throws its UI in my face when I'm trying to just use an input for something.
However, these days, most of the streaming sticks have their own shitty recommendations and ads anyway, so unless you're doing a self-hosted Plex box or something, expect ads. And then of course there are the actual streaming service ads.
I only had the TV online once to update the firmware, not sure that was needed.
The TV also have one other nice feature: you can remove the logo, there’s just one screw holding it in place.
This is when it's plugged into the HDMI ARC port on a Samsung TV, which I think is a CEC port as well.
https://support.google.com/chromecast/answer/7199917
> What is CEC?
> CEC (Consumer Electronics Control) allows for HDMI devices to be controlled with one remote control.
> If you try to cast to a CEC supported TV while on a different source input (local TV channel, Cable, USB), source input will automatically switch to the HDMI port where the Chromecast is connected. Certain TVs will also power on (when powered off) when trying to cast to the Chromecast.
They also run near-stock Android TV so even if I decided to use the built in smarts, the experience probably wouldn't be too bad. They do come with a content ID daemon preinstalled, but that's easy enough to remove with a laptop connected via USB with ADB.
Additionally, Sony has been great about supporting firmware updates via USB flash drive, so you're not missing out on fixes and improvements by opting to keep it offline.
I've been doing the same; get an AppleTV or GoogleTV dongle and never, ever attach the LG or Samshung TV to the network.
Benefits of this strategy:
* So simple, even non-savvy folks can follow the rule
* Protects your privacy
* Eliminates an unnecessary, highly invasive, and parasitic advertising vector (ads directly from LG or Samsung)
* Protects your TV performance and functionality from surprise degradation due to "updates"
I don't see any significant downsides compared to the upsides :)
It's unfortunate the manufacturers are in a position where such perverse anti-customer incentives exist.
All we really need and want is a great product crafted with love. What we got was a creepy spy box that eventually gets so slow it becomes unusable and worthless e-waste.
Instead, it will have its own upgrades which will degrade performance and/or UI.
A recent Android TV update on my Xiaomi Android TV brought ads covering a 1/4 of the screen from services I'm not subscribed to. Had to revert the upgrade and stop it from updating.
Why can't we have a consumer organization that protects us from having to buy stuff that we don't want.
Wouldn't it be great if any product sold in mass quantities would have to pass a consumer/environment protection committee first?
Because of too much money from corporations in politics
that's why I said "in mass quantities".
> ... don't have to rely on government agencies to enforce ...
Who's enforcing the mandate?
You don't have to buy stuff you don't want.
You just can't buy the stuff you do want without it being bundled with stuff you don't want - the manufacturers have decided there's no market for it.
Evidently it's more profitable to persuade a large fraction of people that they are “consumers”, whose lives are a series of branded commercial experiences, than it is to cater to the unlucrative number of people who object.
As ever, the problem is consumerism.
Depriving people of TVs, phones and computers is not the solution. Redirecting them to the FOSS alternatives which are more expensive, have less features and are harder to use is also not a solution.
I recall seeing some pictures of models that eventually refuse to display content until they get a network connection to update (well, really, download new ads).
If they refuse to run built-in apps (like netflix/hulu/etc), I can see that, makes sense. But if you dont use those TV apps anyway and just get all content on TV through Chromecast/AppleTV, that refusal doesn't matter at all.
Source: that's how I've been running my own setup for a while, zero issues. Tried with both a 5+ years old 4k Sony smart TV and a more modern LG C1.
> "* Protects your privacy"
these two things are at complete odds. appletv is only marginally better, but it is better. anything google is going to spy on you for its own benefit and those of its advertisers.
If you don't then you probably don't need any of these dongles! Just connect your TV to OTA and you're fine!
it's the least bad option right now (that still allows you to watch just about any content), not a great long-term one. as apple establishes itself more and more in the content business, i'm sure they'll eventually succumb to more invasive tracking and targeting for advertisers as well.
The thing gets warm only when you play 4k youtube video.
And now you have to deal with windows privacy :)
Wow you get ads even when you never connected it to the internet? That's really user hostile design.
If I get a tv it'll be LG anyway because they do real OLED, not that Qled stuff that Samsung does.
Owner of 2 LG OLEDs
I can see it still, but I don't care. And thinking about it, I quit caring at 1080i. (Growing up with CRT video, interlace isn't something that bothers me)
I super appreciated 1080p :)
And that's all I really need. What I've noticed is that my appreciation of the material doesn't improve with the resolution beyond 1080p. And I really like glowing phosphors in tubes, first the CRT, then a pretty great plasma that I plan on camping on, until whatever OLED thing makes sense at some point in the future.
That set will probably run well beyond 1080p. I won't care, might even run it at 1080p anyway.
Extreme detail seems to take me out of the production sometimes, or I see artifacts that I would not see at a lower resolution. Think people call it the "soap opera" effect.
How bright do you want them to be? Do you watch Netflix in a sun-lit room?
Edit: Actually, one thing that LG do is that they have a white pixel (RGBW layout) for the really high brightnesses required for HDR. This means colours get paler when the white pixel is used. This could be what they meant.
I currently have a 32" LG LCD which I'm also pretty happy about. It's obviously no OLED and it's not 4K but for a cheap LCD it's pretty decent. I also love the serial control options (over USB) and I'm working to integrate it with Home assistant (so my screen will dim also when I dim the lights in the room).
So yeah that would be super important. Thanks for the comparison!
> AppleTV or similar
Pick your poison. Doesn't have to be Apple TV, you could use anything from a Roku to a kodi stick to plugging a computer into the TV and playing things locally. What you're criticizing isn't the point.
This really is the most nitpicking anti-Apple comments I’ve seen in a while. A friend of mine had a TV that would randomly interrupt films and programs he was watching (even in the middle of an action sequence) and show an ad that was inserted by the TV software. Luckily only happened for about 6 months - I’m guessing viewer reaction was too much for this ‘feature’ to survive.
To see the ‘ad’ you’re referring to, you’d have to go into the Apple AppStore, search for an app, go to the result screen and maybe see a small section at the top of that view with a sponsored application.
I think this feature was a commercial failure so hopefully it's universally unsupported.
For example, imagine you want to keep a smart TV offline but you also want the latest greatest eARC features over HDMI 2.1; or you want that new Dolby tech to work with your PlayStation 5. That's stuff that came out in the last couple years. Assume it will take the TVs five years to work seemlessly. In the meantime you're gonna need firmware updates. It won't work out of the box. Or maybe it will, but with a noticeable lag.
Whatever smart TV model you're considering, read the patch notes and visit the fan reddits so you know what you're getting into.
An alternative is to get a gaming monitor; however these rarely reach TV screen sizes so if you're looking for 45"+ you're stuck with smart TVs
A quick search shows that at least some Samsung models have this capability as well.
You might have to agree to a ToS when you first connect to internet. Who knows what privacy you give away signing that.
The update might be a trojan horse containing both the bugfix you need and a new mandatory streaming service tile on the home screen.
I also don't care about tiles on the home screen, because I literally never see the home screen. I always have a device plugged in (and have never connected a TV to the internet for software or other updates, thankfully).
My 2016 OLED LG model had a firmware update that supposedly would halve the max backlight to the point where the TV was unusable. Since I never connected the TV, I was safe from this but as you said I might miss out on some features.
The answer is not giving these companies money.
Second best, though, is getting out the soldering iron.
I’ve had to do it myself once as well.
I don’t care about voiding my warranty.
And that won't work easily, or for too long. They will just embed stuff in chips.
Maybe we will see "Brazil" style setups with TV's in some sort of Faraday Cage
At present, connecting your device is an opt-in since you have to give it wifi creds. In the future, devices will be connected by default and you'll have to opt out if you want to disconnect. Even if you're one of the few people who opt out, devices are going to have fine print that they can always receive "critical" updates via mesh.
Eventually many devices simply assume they are always connected, it's baked into their operation. They'll delegate key features to the cloud and opt-out won't even make sense.
There's no nagging on a Samsung when you do this and use a Chromecast.
When researching, what blew my mind is that the HDMI spec now includes Ethernet-over-HDMI (called HEC - HDMI Ethernet Channel). The end devices just need to support it. That got me thinking that perhaps we might see popular set top boxes like AppleTV transparently start giving internet to the connected smart TVs, perhaps against our wishes and with no way to turn it off.
Amazon FireTV also phones home quite a bit , but since it runs android you can sideload a firewall like Netguard to try and contain some of the telemetry and usage data being siphoned off the device
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31674957
My comment was you can buy it via Walmart:
https://www.walmart.com/ip/NEC-MultiSync-m551-55-Diagonal-Cl...
Note: Sharp paid him for this
A silly distinction in some ways, but a distinction nonetheless. I explain how I accept different types of sponsorship / review samples in my youtube repo: https://github.com/geerlingguy/youtube#paid-videos--product-...
A lot of content creators don't include any disclaimers if they were provided anything besides cash for a review :(
Devices can refuse to function without a network connection, and the profits to be made from simply including a cellular connection of some sort for ad refresh + tracking are too high to be ignored forever.
So this isn't a reliable, long-term solution.
(ok, most TV vendors won't bother to fix and most video sources ate somewhat trusatable not to exploit ... especially as an exploit can't do much unless it is connected to a network)
Some of them allow updates via USB stick.
Name it TVLobotomy.
https://developer.samsung.com/smarttv/develop/getting-starte...
Here's how to do it through cable:
http://wiki.samygo.tv/index.php?title=Ex-Link_Cable_for_J/K/...
I have a thousand times more confidence that microsoft or sony will keep their operating system patched and free from zero days than some random OS on a TV. And at least they're big enough that their telemetry and data collection practices are documented.
Yes, it's true you can't get much use out of an xbox series x without an internet connection, but at least you know what you're getting yourself into in advance.
To my knowledge I can't find any reliable first-hand accounts of this happening. It's all pseudonymous internet commenters claiming it's happening, or tech news websites reposting said claims. For a phenomena that should be so easy to reproduce (all you need is a smart TV plus a laptop with wireshark), the absence of reliable evidence should be used as evidence against its existence. It's in the same category as "facebook is secretly eavesdroping on your conversations".
This works for now but Amazon is already working on a way to share messages from devices through echo dots etc in the area. Even your neighbors'.
It's intended precisely for this purpose :( To capture days from those trying to stay under the radar. It's called sidewalk.
Personally I don't even have cable TV. I never watch live TV anymore. I get all my news from the web (I never liked watching TV for it) and shows I just download or stream.
Isn't that just regular OTA linear tv?
But really, I'm not sure how legal it would be for the stations to mess with what they use that band for and what is distributed.
I’d expect manufacturers to split it by continents so their NA model has roaming in Can, US, Mex. And their EU model has roaming all over the EU because otherwise it’s a stocking nightmare if you can only sell one device in one country.
If you read the paper, the goal of Sidewalk is to handle "how do I unlock my smart door" when your power/internet has gone sideways. It's intended for super low bandwidth "please pass this note to this device" type situations.
But I'm personally sure that "keeping visibility on a device the user doesn't want to be connected" is also a goal. I could be wrong but Amazon is just as focused on data collection everywhere as Google.
Perhaps Amazon simply doesn't understand some of us want all our devices to not be connected to their hive all the time. But I'm sure the reason they want this is for their benefit, not ours.
Its literally not. Sidewalk is based off LoRa, which has serious bandwidth and duty cycle constraints. Its effectively limited to sub-dialup speeds, which will heavily limit its ability to get OTAs over it, never mind download 4k video ads.
It probably could be used for very limited telemetry, however.
Unfortunately, that won't stop it from using (local or drive-by) open networks if it wants to, nor will it signal to manufacturers that some of us don't want internet-connected TVs.
If stuck with a smart TV, I would remove or disable the radio module. If buying new, I would look at computer/gaming monitors, commercial displays, a few lesser-known models/brands (e.g. Sceptre), and projectors.
Unfortunately that's a rumor that can't be substantiated.
I bought the Panasonics and never had any issues.
https://na.panasonic.com/us/audio-video-solutions/profession...
Im sure there are other companies. Im on my phone so can’t research. Look for “digital displays” instead of tv.
Good luck!
I don't even recall it being much of a factor in the launch of 4K TVs which launched at typically very high prices and begun falling in price without ads becoming a big thing.
I think this is just unacceptable greed.
Since noise is usually not a factor to be considered, they are also usually built with much bigger temperature profiles in mind than your consumer indoor TV (e.g. by using cooling fans or heating elements) so they can work just as well in -20 °C in the winter or at 80 °C in the summer heat.
Also, some of these offer features that consumer displays do not offer:
- YUV or SDI inputs
- RS232 remote control / status monitoring
- especially in zero-bezel modules: support for grid processing. Basically you have a HDMI/DVI/SDI input and a loop output, and you daisy-chain the whole bunch of displays. Then you tell each of them to slice and upscale just a specific part of the picture.
So just get a TV based on features and don't connect to WiFi if you are not interested in smart functionality. Think of all the money you are saving by buying a high volume consumer product rather than a commercial display that goes for at least twice more.
Also consider that EVs have different requirements for their transmissions than ICE vehicles and there are no EVs with manual transmissions as far as I know at all.
https://www.wired.com/2012/08/brammo-empulse-r/
I really enjoy shifting gears on my bike. But if motorcycles didn’t come with manual transmissions I don’t think it would be the worst thing.
You have confused personal preference with universal truth.
And aside from that, the difference is complexity and reliability is still a fact.
"Like it or not"
I drive my manuals daily in all kinds of traffic and weather. I live in NJ where neither the weather nor the traffic nor the roads are ideal. On the worst day, on the worst road, in the worst traffic, I still prefer to operate my vehicle rather than be carried by it. It's primarily a feeling of being involved and engaged in the activity.
I don't try to tell you that you must therefor also prefer that.
Are we understaning my point yet?
Are we understaning my point yet?
You don't have one, merely some idiotic hyperbole.
Smart TVs don't make sense when televisions both have inputs, and there exist multiple off the shelf solutions like chromecast, appletv, roku, etc. (I'm lame, I just use an Intel NUC with a full operating system.) Smart TVs are TV/VCR combos at best, and at worst a vector for your network to be attacked after the company moves on from updating them (or existing.)
Lost me already. I enjoy manual transmissions. The function they perform which makes sense anymore is being enjoyable.
And I'm allowed to thankyouverymuch. You have confused pointless to you with pointless.
They are not telling consumers what their preferences should be.
Here's how it's already playing out:
- The dumb TVs start to disappear or become very expensive.
- The smart TV manufacturers identify those who get around their tracking and advertising as "cheaters", and work to plug up those holes.
Soon enough you really won't have any option. You don't think they won't start making all the monitors, all commercial displays, every available screen mesh-connected advertising stations once they've proven that you'll lie down and accept it?
Cmon, hacker newserites - you're supposedly all champions of the free and unregulated market. Buy a dumb TV while you can. Let them know there's still a market. If you're reading this site there's a good chance you can afford it.
There are enough ethical violations by Samsung to NEVER trust them when it comes to internet anything. So just omit the connection.
Basically treat any TV today as a monitor and nothing more. Never make a buying decision based on any feature that isn't specifically monitor-related (e.g. only resolution matters; no other whiz-bang features should enter into the decision).
sigh sorry about that, this is why we can't have nice things.
https://www.sony.com/ng/electronics/televisions/a9g-series
Turned off networking and did factory reset
The biggest annoyance was the Roku “smart” remote needing new batteries every couple of weeks
TCL + Roku TVs (and probably other models?) have one physical button that you can use to turn on and off and change inputs. It's well-hidden, under the center logo.
Try this. You’ll likely pay more but your TV won’t be subsidized by ads and such.
And notably those LG signage TVs still run webOS.
These days you can get a 65 inch LG OLED TV for under $1500. Sure, you can infer that it's $500 cheaper than it "should" be because of their expected advertising earnings over the lifetime of the device (although that seems really high), but I see no "dumb display" options even in the $3000 range.
Because many users will hook up their smart TV, the makers of those sets get subsidized, in the same way bloatware end up on Windows laptops and non-Pixel Androids. I'll take the w re the price.
My current Vizio is extremely sluggish for some reason.
Maybe that’s correlated with smart features…
They're cheap, and that's about the only thing they have going for them.
Re: Samsung, they only makes a few TVs that are decent these days. They've ruined their brand by removing features from mid tier models and soured enthusiasts due to their terrible laggy ad-ridden interface, the cheating in benchmarks, the downgrading of panels in high end models to low contrast IPS panels, and the lack of Dolby Vision because they want people to use their own HDR10+ standard (not to be confused with HDR10).
I want the tv to manage all of my bluetooth connections and hot swap to the appropriate “OS” when i reach for each bluetooth remote/controller.
This minimizes the role of the tv itself to a thin layer of sensor/peripheral management and routing the video feed to the oppropriate OS
You can experience an actual decrease in complexity simply by getting a device that supports the streaming services desired and reducing the "smart" TV to the dumb duty of displaying the content that comes in via the device's input.
Therefore, as a user, I just want good hardware that respects what all of these players are trying to do but makes my life as easy as possible. In my view, this is what hardware should do. Having a TV trying to stick it’s own ugly UI in front of all these other ugly UIs is just making the problem worse, not better. I would rather it not even have it’s own remote. It’s like everyone promises their remote will be the one you will use, but in reality you just added another remote to the living room. You didn’t solve it you just made it worse. The best TV right now actually subtracts, not adds.