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Ask HN: What's the best hackable smart TV?

292 points by xrd ↗ HN
I want to get a second TV which will more or less be a second monitor for my System76 laptop which is plugged into a bunch of music equipment, like a korg midi keyboard, and a novation drum pad, all of which work great with linux.

I want to buy this TV used. I'm seeing a bunch of Samsung, LG, RCA, Sony, etc on Facebook Marketplace. What a cesspool Facebook has become, right?

Any suggestions on the best brand or even model for that kind of thing? I don't really want to battle with a bunch of shit that tries to coerce me to install another app from a streaming provider slash gambling entrypoint.

I imagine mostly it will just need HDMI to work, and all the TVs will support that. But, I thought maybe there would be a fun brand that offers interesting other options.

60 comments

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jqpabc123
I bought a Hisense model from Costco and set it to "store mode".

For all practical purposes, it is just a dumb HDMI display attached to my computer.

mongol
What does store mode do?
jimt1234
This is interesting to me. I never heard of "store mode". Is that common for "smart TVs" these days? My interest here is for my elderly mother who tries to watch TV, but her current LG is constantly bombarding her with notifications for software updates, recommendations and ads. It's very frustrating for her; it's to the point where she's afraid to turn on the TV.

I want a TV for her that will power-on directly to YouTube-TV, and that's it, nothing else, no notifications, nothing.

otterley
Are you able to adjust its picture settings when it's in store mode?
jqpabc123
No. Brightness and contrast are maxed out but it's not bad with a cheaper model.

My opinion --- in some cases, the difference between expensive and cheap boils down to the picture controls being intentionally limited for marketing effect.

So the cheap model maxed out looks like the more expensive model at medium. People can recognize the difference in the store so they opt for the more expensive one. But the actual displays themselves are virtually identical.

It may actually be cheaper to make one grade of display and differentiate using the controls.

RajT88
Craigslist an older 1080p TV. People are getting rid of old "dumb" TV's, and sometimes you can get them free. I see seemingly undamaged LCD TV's out by garbage bins all the time. I sourced one such a TV for my wife for $100 a few years ago to use as a monitor - works great. No apps or anything - dumb as they come.
shayway
Be warned, 'seemingly' is a key word there. I have picked up eight TVs up from alleys over the past few years and each has had a broken screen only visible when plugged in. I have no idea how people are breaking so many TVs.
gdulli
What does hackable mean in this context, and what's the downside of any old smart TV not connected to the internet and the input left on your laptop, where you'd never see anything having to with the manufacturer's app OS?
trenchpilgrim
You probably want a computer monitor rather than a TV; monitors will prioritize latency which is important for music production.
wintermutestwin
Huh? You are confusing video refresh rate with audio latency.
nomel
Related, many modern TVs have "game mode" which prioritizes video latency, with the loss of some of the algs being available.

RTINGS actually tracks this, with most being comparable to monitors at the same refresh rate, while in game mode (around 10x faster than non-game mode). [1]

4k@120Hz with VRR is even available in < $1k TVs these days!

And, for audio latency, unless you're using the built in speakers, it's fairly trivial to make the video and audio paths independent.

[1] https://www.rtings.com/tv/tests/inputs/input-lag

IlikeKitties
What you are looking for is a digital signage display and some android tv box
hmokiguess
this should be more upvoted, could even bundle them in a grid-like view and have multiple streams
gosub100
I think Tizen lets you write your own apps. I know I installed Emby on one of the very cheap smart tvs recently and had to install it via developer mode and pull in the package by typing the IP of my laptop into the TV (maybe vice versa).

I didn't write the code but it seemed like you can get a development account from Tizen and write your own apps.

To be clear, Tizen is not a brand of TV, it's the name of the OS. It's fairly common on various no-name hardware brand, check it out.

colangelod
If you just want it for the HDMI input to use as an aux screen for what ever computer your running than anything with an HDMI input in the size range you want should work. I run all the TV's in my house like this; connected to mac mini's instead of futzing with the onboard software mostly because I despise typing one letter at a time with a tv remote.

Honestly all the onboard TV OS stuff I have interacted with in the last decade has been more or less terrible and I wouldn't even consider it when buying a TV especially one that is just going to be a screen. All of the recent installs Ive dealt with (family and friend support) has revealed a ton of pay-to-play features (Samsung frame tv's cough cough). I applaud you for wanting something neat but I cant say Ive come across anything Ive ever actually wanted to use beyond "select input -> HDMI1"...

foobarian
Unfortunately the family likes live TV, and that is very hard to get without compromising the UX.
horsawlarway
Yup.

You generally don't want a smart tv you can hack. You want a decent computer you own sending signal through the external inputs.

The SBC in the TV is, hands down across basically every "smart" TV I've interacted with, a cheap piece of crap (even well into the "expensive" brands and models).

Manufacturers stick the absolute cheapest garbage in there that can output the advertised resolution during playback without stuttering.

So you can spend hours/days/week wrestling this cheap, underpowered board back from the manufacturer... or you can just side-step it entirely and spend much less time and effort sticking a decent computer you own behind the tv.

joshstrange
This!

All my TVs have an Apple TV on them and that's all that is used (aside from a game console here and there). I pretty much never need to interact with the TV OS. Is there a Netflix app on my TV? Probably, I'll never know, I've never even launched the app store.

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Xelbair
Any that you can put in store mode, and run all smart features off separate device.

Otherwise it will run out of updates fast, services will stop working and only way to fix that is to buy.. a separate device.

This also let's you make search easier as you can just look at the panel itself when comparing.

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bestouff
Any smart TV where some hacker could install its own build of the OS ? Kinda like LineageOS for smart TV ?
yjftsjthsd-h
Not per se a TV, but it is worth pointing out that LineageOS literally has builds for some set top boxes; if I go to https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/ and filter to device type > set top box, then it lists 7 options.
th0rine
Older LG sets (tested on C9 OLED) had security vulnerabilities you could use to root your TV and then do "??????" you wanted with them. WebOS as a platform causes a lot of unproductive discussion surrounding it's ecosystem and such but if you want to "hack" or actually have a shell on your TV it's great for that to do anything else you want. Personal favorites include changing the default screensaver behavior to the bouncing DVD logo, running Chocolate Doom, and a port of Space Cadet pinball natively. More info here - https://rootmy.tv/
tamimio
I ditched the whole smart TV years ago. I was never a fan of the slow, ad-ridden software, and later found that enormous packets were being sent when I monitored the DNS at the network level despite the TV being 'turned off'. Instead, I got a non-smart TV (you can find old Sony TVs) and attached a TV box or direct hdmi to an old laptop instead, far smoother and better at all levels.
hamdingers
For "fun and interesting" consider an LG WebOS TV. Many can be rooted[1] which allows installing a homebrew channel[2] of unauthorized apps or writing your own.

I initially did it for Jellyfin before they made it into the official app store, but the Moonlight game streaming app has unlocked many hours of entertainment.

1. https://cani.rootmy.tv

2. https://www.webosbrew.org/

stavros
Moonlight is really fantastic. It's worked better than Geforce Now for me. Amazon's thing worked best, but they don't have as many games as my Steam does.
andrepd
Unfortunately it still spies on you if you connect to the web :S

I guess you can mitigate that if you use something like a pi-hole? I do wish there was a solution using root/devmode to block ads (or better yet, run in whitelist mode!).

jp191919
Great..... another rabbit hole to go down. I have an LG CX and I never knew I could root it. Glad I never gave it internet access.
MisterTea
I mentioned in another post here that I opened a friends TV and found just 3 PCB's: Power, LCD interface, and Video SoC. The video SoC is an Arm SoC for TVs that runs Android complete with video input switching matrix and processing. The SoC board had Wifi, bluetooth, Ethernet and USB. It's all there.

My dream is to hack that SoC to boot whatever OS. Though good luck getting the datasheets...

bombcar
A Vizio without accepting the agreement is a fine hdmi TV.
alprado50
Im using a 43 inch samsung tv as a monitor. It works fine as long as you never conect it to internet.
Rucadi
I compiled/ported the mario64 port to the LG TV quite easily, so I would say that LGTV is the best for that.
bitwize
A dumb TV with an x86 HTPC attached to the back via VESA bracket. Sceptre dumb TVs from the Wal-Mart web site are your cheat code.
AstroJetson
Winner!! I have a pair of these that have multiple HDMI ports. So my "hacking" is hanging a raspberry pi or a x86 computer.
matt_heimer
I have Sony Bravia TV that has Android TV so I went looking for the docs to confirm you can enable developer mode, access adb, and sideload apps. While looking at the docs I discovered I can load HTML5 apps from USB! I never knew that but I'm going to do some experimentation in the near future.

https://pro-bravia.sony.net/develop/app/getting-started/inde...

paulgerhardt
Do recommend the LG C series (C5 or C4 are new or the C1 series if you want a deal on classifieds - same hardware as the higher end models but needs a firmware bit flip). The OS is very rootable and it makes a great TV that doubles as a monitor. Supports free sync / g-sync. OLED is nice at this scale.

Text is very readable, refresh rate is good. It uses the same panels as the fancier G series in the larger sizes. One can root the firmware to make it go brighter. (Though this is screen works well in medium or dimly lit rooms. It does not shine in very bright rooms).

Plenty of YouTube videos singing the C series praises as a TV / Monitor.[1] LG webOS is also trivial/friendly to root in developer mode and network control of the tv is a nice to have.

Would avoid Samsung. I love the matte on the Frame and the design of the Serif but the OS is frustrating / impractical to root.

[1] https://youtu.be/Qtve0u3GJ9Y

WorldPeas
I use a NEC OPS module tv I got on facebook marketplace as a digital signage monitor. Best purchase I've made yet, though I will admit the feet for it being 200 dollars was quite a shock (they're made out of steel and about 2 feet long each so it makes sense) completely dumb tv, takes all inputs from HDMI to component and has features like auto-sleep without any real smarts inside. I love it.