Does everybody know something I don’t… what’s wrong with just buying a “good TV” (i.e. one that meets your needs in terms of size, panel type, inputs/outputs etc) - which will often mean a smart...
Does everybody know something I don’t… what’s wrong with just buying a “good TV” (i.e. one that meets your needs in terms of size, panel type, inputs/outputs etc) - which will often mean a smart TV - and just not putting it online?
I have a fairly top of the line LG OLED TV plugged into an AppleTV. The LG has never been connected to my network, not even once. Isn’t this the best of both worlds? Why do we need to seek out dumb TVs specifically?
My TV has banner ads for the input select baked in so even without connecting to the internet and using it only as a dumb TV, it can still serve you garbage. Thanks Samsung.
My TV has banner ads for the input select baked in so even without connecting to the internet and using it only as a dumb TV, it can still serve you garbage. Thanks Samsung.
Samsung seems by far the worst/most aggressive about this kind of thing. They make great OLED panels but I'd rather buy those panels housed in a device made by a company with a better reputation...
Samsung seems by far the worst/most aggressive about this kind of thing. They make great OLED panels but I'd rather buy those panels housed in a device made by a company with a better reputation (like Sony), even if that ends up costing more… It's not as if I'm buying TVs constantly (my current TV was purchased coming up on a decade ago) so it doesn't make a lot of sense to be pinching pennies on.
Agree. We have a samsung TV because the one we wanted was not available and I let the feeling wanting the purchase to be done win out over waiting to do more research. But I won't buy another one.
Agree. We have a samsung TV because the one we wanted was not available and I let the feeling wanting the purchase to be done win out over waiting to do more research. But I won't buy another one.
Yeah, I was going to spend some time assessing if I can do some trickery with SmartThings on our Frame TV to make input switching better. This is the only TV I've used that seems to struggle with...
Yeah, I was going to spend some time assessing if I can do some trickery with SmartThings on our Frame TV to make input switching better. This is the only TV I've used that seems to struggle with properly handling CEC, and even just resolving inputs (when manually selected) is significantly delayed.
I'm not glued to any particular smart tv platform, but holy crap is Samsung's bad. Bought a Google tv box and was able to customize the launcher to be the complete opposite- incredibly minimal and no ads.
Also, if anyone here wants to block smart tv manufacturer specific ads, there are blocklists for that which you can implement in network-wide DNS solutions.
No television I own will ever be allowed to connect to the Internet. That's a privilege for a device I more fully control, and that is putting the content I want on the screen. Generally speaking,...
No television I own will ever be allowed to connect to the Internet. That's a privilege for a device I more fully control, and that is putting the content I want on the screen.
Generally speaking, all of my televisions are hooked up to Mac Minis or similar. Life's too short to fight with limited operating systems and content pay walls... I've never found a piece of content I couldn't find access to given a solid desktop operating system and enough willpower.
The TV can still connect to any unsecured (or trivially secured) Wi-Fi networks it finds near you, or it can include a cellular modem to send data without ever needing to ask you for a connection....
The TV can still connect to any unsecured (or trivially secured) Wi-Fi networks it finds near you, or it can include a cellular modem to send data without ever needing to ask you for a connection. The manufacturers make enough from ads (i.e. selling your data) that they could be investing some of that in fail-safe connection technology to keep their data stream viable, if they want to. You may consider that a remote risk, but it's not one I'm willing to take, when there are still other options available.
I’ve never seen an ad on my TV and best I can tell the firmware hasn’t updated since I’ve owned it, so I think I’m comfortable assuming that on my TV at least, this isn’t a concern. But in going...
I’ve never seen an ad on my TV and best I can tell the firmware hasn’t updated since I’ve owned it, so I think I’m comfortable assuming that on my TV at least, this isn’t a concern.
But in going down a rabbit hole looking into this as a result of your comment, I found that some TVs will nag you constantly to connect to a network if you don’t do that?! Gross. I’d return any TV that pulled that crap in a heartbeat.
Does anyone here actually live near an unsecured wifi network? None of my apartments have had unsecured wifi nearby, and I have lived in mixed use developments where there are businesses on street...
Does anyone here actually live near an unsecured wifi network? None of my apartments have had unsecured wifi nearby, and I have lived in mixed use developments where there are businesses on street level.
No TV to my knowledge has a cellular modem yet either, which I assume would be discovered reasonably quickly by a third party and reported on extensively.
Comcast famously has unsecured xfinitywifi networks broadcast from their modems by default, I wouldn't be shocked to see a TV manufacturer ink a deal to have access to them. I don't think any have...
Comcast famously has unsecured xfinitywifi networks broadcast from their modems by default, I wouldn't be shocked to see a TV manufacturer ink a deal to have access to them. I don't think any have (yet), but that's one way this could happen. I can't control whether my neighbors disable the hotspots or switch ISPs, and even then, they also have strand mount wifi radios also broadcasting that SSID.
IIRC the Ring doorbell cameras have/had a mesh network feature too, so that they can get Internet access even if the owner does not connect it to the internet directly. From my family's experiences buying new build houses in the past 5 or so years, builders are including them by default, and HOAs are starting to require owners keep them on and enabled too. There's some precedent for devices including means to get Internet access despite the wishes of their owners.
There are other reasons to prefer hardware that doesn't have a smart component. While I use a TV that has FireTV built in- yes, i keep it disconnected from internet and set a default input so it...
There are other reasons to prefer hardware that doesn't have a smart component. While I use a TV that has FireTV built in- yes, i keep it disconnected from internet and set a default input so it always goes to my linux PC as a source, I would still prefer a non-smart TV because of other problems with some smart TVs, including mine:
bloat. the UI is slow and annoying for menus, because the menus are inside the OS, not a simple on-screen display
another point of failure and lack of repairability- there's an entire corporate locked "computer"/OS inside my TV rather than simple electronics
my TV takes FOREVER to boot up. TVs should never need a "boot process", but because my smart TV has to boot the FireTV OS on crappy slow hardware built into the TV, it takes 60 seconds to turn on
my TV can be buggy. weird software bugs can cause settings to occasionally not work or do weird things, or make it unnecessarily difficult to make changes. my TV has frozen and while showing the picture fine, stopped responding at all to my remote control until i rebooted the TV to fix it (the asinine idea of having to "reboot" a TV makes me go mad)
everything is unnecessarily complicated for zero benefit
As an aside- I had to go with a full PC because limited OSs like the AppleTV or FireTV have all sorts of problems and restrictions that drove me nuts to the point I realized a full PC was the way to go for me. The "apps" built for these specialized TV boxes are often awful and just lacked the amount of control over my experience I find necessary
This is all I do. I've had my TV for about 5 years now and it's never been connected to my network and is specifically blocked from doing so. It's a little slower to interact with than my old dumb...
This is all I do. I've had my TV for about 5 years now and it's never been connected to my network and is specifically blocked from doing so.
It's a little slower to interact with than my old dumb TV, but it works just fine as a monitor for my HTPC. It turns on and off easily and doesn't give me any fuss.
I looked into doing this, but it was very difficult to find any TV reviews that would tell me which TVs don't have any ads, prompts, etc. when they aren't connected to the Internet. I am also...
I looked into doing this, but it was very difficult to find any TV reviews that would tell me which TVs don't have any ads, prompts, etc. when they aren't connected to the Internet.
I am also really picky about interfaces. I don't want my TV to have a GUI — I just want to plug things in and have them work immediately without any overlay or input — but I couldn't find any reviews on that, either.
So instead I got a dumb TV (marketed as a computer monitor for some reason) and I'm extremely happy with it.
It may not be a perfect rule, but generally the midrange to higher end Android based TVs don’t have offline ads and often even include a “basic TV” mode that disables a lot of the “smart”...
It may not be a perfect rule, but generally the midrange to higher end Android based TVs don’t have offline ads and often even include a “basic TV” mode that disables a lot of the “smart” functions. You can also plug them into a computer and treat them like gigantic Android phones/tablets, including using the same utilities (adb) to remove any unwanted preinstalled packages.
Sony TVs fall into this category and are my personal preference but there are others too.
I have an LG OLED CX and, after developing a bit of muscle memory, it’s pretty much exactly this. The only buttons I press on the remote are the volume, power, and source buttons - it basically...
I have an LG OLED CX and, after developing a bit of muscle memory, it’s pretty much exactly this. The only buttons I press on the remote are the volume, power, and source buttons - it basically never interrupts me except for the source menu the odd pixel balancing prompt. The benefit of having an offline smart TV is that some of the smart features are quite useful, in my case having ARC support means I only need one remote, and there’s a few processing features that are actually quite good for older systems with lower resolutions.
I went through this last year when my Roku box started showing full-screen video ads when going to the home screen. They completely lost my trust. I got an Apple TV box and a Sceptre dumb TV. The...
I went through this last year when my Roku box started showing full-screen video ads when going to the home screen. They completely lost my trust.
I got an Apple TV box and a Sceptre dumb TV. The Apple TV is really good - the liquid glass interface they've updated it to is as bad as on any Apple device, but you don't use the home screen much, so it's minor compared to the benefits in privacy and performance. Privacy is a bigger benefit than you might expect, too. With the Roku box, apps are allowed to use the internet at any time. You can tell because you can tell the YouTube mobile app to cast to it without starting YouTube first. On the Apple TV, you have to start YouTube before the app can see it. Who knows what else they're doing that I didn't request, then?
I'm happy with the Sceptre TV, even though it doesn't have the best backlighting, and the sound quality is so bad as to require external speakers (sound bar). I like it because it does what it said it was going to. It doesn't have the chips to spy on me, to insert ads, to update itself with whatever evil the manufacturer can profit from next. And it was cheap! I think it proves that other manufacturers don't have to include predatory features that make them money; they could charge $300 more than the Sceptre's $250, improve the backlighting and speakers, and still make $100 more than Sceptre per TV.
I'm no fan of Rokus but the example doesn't prove that apps can use the internet at any time. Maybe they can! But one way that the protocol could work is the device wakes the app with the stream...
I'm no fan of Rokus but the example doesn't prove that apps can use the internet at any time. Maybe they can! But one way that the protocol could work is the device wakes the app with the stream url when casting locally. Apple TV doesn't support that same cast protocol, so the only way for YouTube to work with "casting" on Apple TV is for the app to be active and listening. Again, I've never looked into the protocol, but there are reasonable ways to have it work without running the app 24/7 on Roku.
Roku makes a ton of money on ads and selling data so that's reason enough for me to avoid them!
What exactly do you mean by proxying? If you mean that the Roku supports the chromecast protocol natively, just like thousands of other devices, including stereo receivers, soundbars, amps, and...
What exactly do you mean by proxying? If you mean that the Roku supports the chromecast protocol natively, just like thousands of other devices, including stereo receivers, soundbars, amps, and TVs, then yes. But I don’t see how that is relevant. If you mean that they proxy the cast stream through Roku servers, then no, they don’t do that. It’s just that chromecast is a native protocol supported by Roku. It also natively supports the AirPlay protocol, even if there are no Apple apps on the Roku. It’s just that an Apple TV doesn’t natively support the chromecast protocol, and YouTube hides AirPlay targets by default. You actually can AirPlay YouTube to an Apple TV without YouTube even being installed. So the exact same scenario as the Roku.
I didn’t care for my Roku either for a variety of reasons, but this seems to be tilting at windmills.
As I understand it Roku has the most exploitative business model in the space because they triple dip. First you have to buy a box**, then they continuously serve you ads, and finally they collect...
As I understand it Roku has the most exploitative business model in the space because they triple dip. First you have to buy a box**, then they continuously serve you ads, and finally they collect and sell all your usage data
**I know some are built into TVs which obscures this cost into the price tag. Apparently these contracts have mostly ended as the relationship soured
I have heard that there are versions of smart TVs without the smart options that get sold to offices and restaurants. A while back I was reading into where to get these versions for normal...
I have heard that there are versions of smart TVs without the smart options that get sold to offices and restaurants.
A while back I was reading into where to get these versions for normal consumers, but there's hoops you have to jump through and some can be expensive unless you get them second hand.
They're often called digital signage displays, and they're not that hard to get - there are several models on Amazon for around the same price as a regular TV of the same size. The trouble is that...
They're often called digital signage displays, and they're not that hard to get - there are several models on Amazon for around the same price as a regular TV of the same size.
The trouble is that the manufacturers are getting wise to the reason they're selling these to new markets, and the signage displays now often include some of the same nonsense you find in smart TVs.
Those TVs also have a number of trade-offs compared to consumer models so be careful. It won't affect 99% of users but if you're going to do something like, say, hook up a PC or PS5 and run 4K HDR...
Those TVs also have a number of trade-offs compared to consumer models so be careful. It won't affect 99% of users but if you're going to do something like, say, hook up a PC or PS5 and run 4K HDR with VRR and 120Hz output, you should look into seeing if the commercial model supports that.
We found this out the hard way at our office where the commercial Sony TVs we procured don't support this even though their consumer variants do. Not that it made a big deal but it certainly was a bit disappointing for our game room.
I wonder if there are multiple variants. I didn't think of this until now, but I used to work with events and experiential alongside the entertainment industry and Comic Con and we'd rent TVs...
I wonder if there are multiple variants.
I didn't think of this until now, but I used to work with events and experiential alongside the entertainment industry and Comic Con and we'd rent TVs where the event needed 4K HDR like super nice stuff to show off the show/movie that was being promoted, but it was public facing and high profile so the TVs were locked down so no funny guy with a universal remote could mess up our event.
That was not my department at all, but it just occurred to me that I have no idea where those TVs came from but we did have requirements.
I have nothing but dumb TVs in my home. 4 of them are 32-inch Insignias (Best Buy's house brand), and I've got a 47-inch and a 55-inch that both need some repairs that I'm inclined to either pay...
I have nothing but dumb TVs in my home. 4 of them are 32-inch Insignias (Best Buy's house brand), and I've got a 47-inch and a 55-inch that both need some repairs that I'm inclined to either pay for or try myself. I've had one smart TV ever and it had a Wii-like remote that I detested and I got rid of it as soon as humanly possible.
Kodi from a PC connected to a tv works for me. That said, did I recall something about smart TVs connecting to home networks without login credentials? It sounds impossible, but some article said...
Kodi from a PC connected to a tv works for me. That said, did I recall something about smart TVs connecting to home networks without login credentials?
It sounds impossible, but some article said that they found a way in certain circumstances? Anybody remember reading this a few years ago?
Unless you live in a rural location with some distance between homes, a smart TV could connect to any unsecured (or trivially secured) Wi-Fi networks around you. They don't need to be on your...
Unless you live in a rural location with some distance between homes, a smart TV could connect to any unsecured (or trivially secured) Wi-Fi networks around you. They don't need to be on your network, just a network, to do what they want. Of course, they could do even more evil on your network, associating your TV habits with all the other local network traffic they can sniff, making the data even more valuable for buyers.
It also isn't very expensive for them to include a cellular modem, in which case they can send whatever data they want from the TV regardless of whether they can connect to any Wi-Fi network.
Wow, all good points and it reminds me that what I read was about it connecting to unsecured networks. I'm sure we'll never see justice for the total abdication of responsibility to protect...
Wow, all good points and it reminds me that what I read was about it connecting to unsecured networks.
I'm sure we'll never see justice for the total abdication of responsibility to protect people's privacy by our governments and it's obvious why. Society at large doesn't seem to care what's in terms and conditions and what approving them could result in down the road, but isn't it the job of representative democracies to use your judgement to act in your constituents best interests?
It's horseshit as far as I'm concerned. Jazzed up by cool toys to the point by that we're willing to hand it all over.
I don’t think it matters because if I’m using a separate device to get the content, it probably doesn’t know much about my habits. Let’s say I have Apple TV connected to a smart tv. I never gave...
I don’t think it matters because if I’m using a separate device to get the content, it probably doesn’t know much about my habits.
Let’s say I have Apple TV connected to a smart tv. I never gave the smart tv network access and I don’t run any apps on it. All the input is coming from the Apple TV device. I think it’s unlikely that the smart tv can know what I’m watching. Maybe it could know the time I’m watching something and that’s about it. Other than that it’s just displaying pixels coming through the hdmi. Unless hdmi somehow reports more about what it is displaying than I expect, or the tv has some kind of AI which is recognizing the content it is displaying.
In fact, it does know what you watch regardless of source, using "automatic content recognition": https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/your-smart-tv-watching-what-you-watch
Another option is to not accept the terms and conditions for content recognition and you deny them from doing this to you. Unless they cheat and secretly do it anyway but hey that's a different...
Another option is to not accept the terms and conditions for content recognition and you deny them from doing this to you. Unless they cheat and secretly do it anyway but hey that's a different matter.
I've never let it connect to my network and I can tell on my router that it is not joining. I do have some neighbors wifi networks in range, so it is possible I guess if one of theirs is not...
I've never let it connect to my network and I can tell on my router that it is not joining. I do have some neighbors wifi networks in range, so it is possible I guess if one of theirs is not secured. But then Samsung won't really know it is me, will they? I guess in some indirect way they could know that someone on my block is watching certain things.
Is there a way for Joe Schmoe to check this, like a product data sheet? I certainly don't trust myself to pop the case off my TV and check the components without breaking something expensive.
It also isn't very expensive for them to include a cellular modem
Is there a way for Joe Schmoe to check this, like a product data sheet? I certainly don't trust myself to pop the case off my TV and check the components without breaking something expensive.
Does anyone know if there are any open source alternatives for Apple TV and similar "smart tv boxes"? I know of Plex and Jellyfin and stuff, but I'm more talking about an OS which lets you install...
Does anyone know if there are any open source alternatives for Apple TV and similar "smart tv boxes"? I know of Plex and Jellyfin and stuff, but I'm more talking about an OS which lets you install apps on it and launch them from a home screen, like on any smart tv.
There's Linux distros that boot straight into Kodi like LibreELEC, but that's not quite what you're asking for. The closest might actually be something like Bazzite, which is kind of like a...
There's Linux distros that boot straight into Kodi like LibreELEC, but that's not quite what you're asking for. The closest might actually be something like Bazzite, which is kind of like a general-PC community maintained version of SteamOS, which boots into Steam Big Picture by default just like a Steam Deck. That could act as a controller/remote friendly launcher since you can add non-Steam apps to it.
I'll try to rember to elaborate tomorrow, but I built my own fanless "home theater PC" (HTPC) and it's our primary entrypoint to our TV. It's just running Ubuntu. I installed FlexLauncher on it...
I'll try to rember to elaborate tomorrow, but I built my own fanless "home theater PC" (HTPC) and it's our primary entrypoint to our TV.
It's just running Ubuntu. I installed FlexLauncher on it and configured it to use CEC to turn the TV on and off when it comes in and out of sleep.
It's... Fantastic? We love it. We use an "airmouse" (basically a Wiimote with mouse buttons and a keyboard on the back) as a controller.
What's your GPU/connector set up for the CEC component? My understanding is that most consumer/desktop GPUs aren't wired with the pin for CEC on their HDMI outputs. I was once able to work around...
What's your GPU/connector set up for the CEC component?
My understanding is that most consumer/desktop GPUs aren't wired with the pin for CEC on their HDMI outputs. I was once able to work around this by using a DisplayPort to HDMI adapter, but I'm curious how others might've solved the problem.
Here's the full build: https://pcpartpicker.com/user/s.moores/saved/#view=TTzXnQ I'm using a Pulse Eight USB CEC adapter, which basically uses USB as the transport layer for the CEC protocol, and...
I'm using a Pulse Eight USB CEC adapter, which basically uses USB as the transport layer for the CEC protocol, and provides a little module with the proper CEC header for the HDMI out to connect to.
Does everybody know something I don’t… what’s wrong with just buying a “good TV” (i.e. one that meets your needs in terms of size, panel type, inputs/outputs etc) - which will often mean a smart TV - and just not putting it online?
I have a fairly top of the line LG OLED TV plugged into an AppleTV. The LG has never been connected to my network, not even once. Isn’t this the best of both worlds? Why do we need to seek out dumb TVs specifically?
That's what the article recommends for most people.
My TV has banner ads for the input select baked in so even without connecting to the internet and using it only as a dumb TV, it can still serve you garbage. Thanks Samsung.
Samsung seems by far the worst/most aggressive about this kind of thing. They make great OLED panels but I'd rather buy those panels housed in a device made by a company with a better reputation (like Sony), even if that ends up costing more… It's not as if I'm buying TVs constantly (my current TV was purchased coming up on a decade ago) so it doesn't make a lot of sense to be pinching pennies on.
Agree. We have a samsung TV because the one we wanted was not available and I let the feeling wanting the purchase to be done win out over waiting to do more research. But I won't buy another one.
Yeah, I was going to spend some time assessing if I can do some trickery with SmartThings on our Frame TV to make input switching better. This is the only TV I've used that seems to struggle with properly handling CEC, and even just resolving inputs (when manually selected) is significantly delayed.
I'm not glued to any particular smart tv platform, but holy crap is Samsung's bad. Bought a Google tv box and was able to customize the launcher to be the complete opposite- incredibly minimal and no ads.
Also, if anyone here wants to block smart tv manufacturer specific ads, there are blocklists for that which you can implement in network-wide DNS solutions.
No television I own will ever be allowed to connect to the Internet. That's a privilege for a device I more fully control, and that is putting the content I want on the screen.
Generally speaking, all of my televisions are hooked up to Mac Minis or similar. Life's too short to fight with limited operating systems and content pay walls... I've never found a piece of content I couldn't find access to given a solid desktop operating system and enough willpower.
We use a raspberry pi.
The TV can still connect to any unsecured (or trivially secured) Wi-Fi networks it finds near you, or it can include a cellular modem to send data without ever needing to ask you for a connection. The manufacturers make enough from ads (i.e. selling your data) that they could be investing some of that in fail-safe connection technology to keep their data stream viable, if they want to. You may consider that a remote risk, but it's not one I'm willing to take, when there are still other options available.
I’ve never seen an ad on my TV and best I can tell the firmware hasn’t updated since I’ve owned it, so I think I’m comfortable assuming that on my TV at least, this isn’t a concern.
But in going down a rabbit hole looking into this as a result of your comment, I found that some TVs will nag you constantly to connect to a network if you don’t do that?! Gross. I’d return any TV that pulled that crap in a heartbeat.
Does anyone here actually live near an unsecured wifi network? None of my apartments have had unsecured wifi nearby, and I have lived in mixed use developments where there are businesses on street level.
No TV to my knowledge has a cellular modem yet either, which I assume would be discovered reasonably quickly by a third party and reported on extensively.
Comcast famously has unsecured
xfinitywifinetworks broadcast from their modems by default, I wouldn't be shocked to see a TV manufacturer ink a deal to have access to them. I don't think any have (yet), but that's one way this could happen. I can't control whether my neighbors disable the hotspots or switch ISPs, and even then, they also have strand mount wifi radios also broadcasting that SSID.IIRC the Ring doorbell cameras have/had a mesh network feature too, so that they can get Internet access even if the owner does not connect it to the internet directly. From my family's experiences buying new build houses in the past 5 or so years, builders are including them by default, and HOAs are starting to require owners keep them on and enabled too. There's some precedent for devices including means to get Internet access despite the wishes of their owners.
This would only apply to people with other WiFi networks around.
There are other reasons to prefer hardware that doesn't have a smart component. While I use a TV that has FireTV built in- yes, i keep it disconnected from internet and set a default input so it always goes to my linux PC as a source, I would still prefer a non-smart TV because of other problems with some smart TVs, including mine:
As an aside- I had to go with a full PC because limited OSs like the AppleTV or FireTV have all sorts of problems and restrictions that drove me nuts to the point I realized a full PC was the way to go for me. The "apps" built for these specialized TV boxes are often awful and just lacked the amount of control over my experience I find necessary
This is all I do. I've had my TV for about 5 years now and it's never been connected to my network and is specifically blocked from doing so.
It's a little slower to interact with than my old dumb TV, but it works just fine as a monitor for my HTPC. It turns on and off easily and doesn't give me any fuss.
I looked into doing this, but it was very difficult to find any TV reviews that would tell me which TVs don't have any ads, prompts, etc. when they aren't connected to the Internet.
I am also really picky about interfaces. I don't want my TV to have a GUI — I just want to plug things in and have them work immediately without any overlay or input — but I couldn't find any reviews on that, either.
So instead I got a dumb TV (marketed as a computer monitor for some reason) and I'm extremely happy with it.
It may not be a perfect rule, but generally the midrange to higher end Android based TVs don’t have offline ads and often even include a “basic TV” mode that disables a lot of the “smart” functions. You can also plug them into a computer and treat them like gigantic Android phones/tablets, including using the same utilities (adb) to remove any unwanted preinstalled packages.
Sony TVs fall into this category and are my personal preference but there are others too.
I have an LG OLED CX and, after developing a bit of muscle memory, it’s pretty much exactly this. The only buttons I press on the remote are the volume, power, and source buttons - it basically never interrupts me except for the source menu the odd pixel balancing prompt. The benefit of having an offline smart TV is that some of the smart features are quite useful, in my case having ARC support means I only need one remote, and there’s a few processing features that are actually quite good for older systems with lower resolutions.
I went through this last year when my Roku box started showing full-screen video ads when going to the home screen. They completely lost my trust.
I got an Apple TV box and a Sceptre dumb TV. The Apple TV is really good - the liquid glass interface they've updated it to is as bad as on any Apple device, but you don't use the home screen much, so it's minor compared to the benefits in privacy and performance. Privacy is a bigger benefit than you might expect, too. With the Roku box, apps are allowed to use the internet at any time. You can tell because you can tell the YouTube mobile app to cast to it without starting YouTube first. On the Apple TV, you have to start YouTube before the app can see it. Who knows what else they're doing that I didn't request, then?
I'm happy with the Sceptre TV, even though it doesn't have the best backlighting, and the sound quality is so bad as to require external speakers (sound bar). I like it because it does what it said it was going to. It doesn't have the chips to spy on me, to insert ads, to update itself with whatever evil the manufacturer can profit from next. And it was cheap! I think it proves that other manufacturers don't have to include predatory features that make them money; they could charge $300 more than the Sceptre's $250, improve the backlighting and speakers, and still make $100 more than Sceptre per TV.
I'm no fan of Rokus but the example doesn't prove that apps can use the internet at any time. Maybe they can! But one way that the protocol could work is the device wakes the app with the stream url when casting locally. Apple TV doesn't support that same cast protocol, so the only way for YouTube to work with "casting" on Apple TV is for the app to be active and listening. Again, I've never looked into the protocol, but there are reasonable ways to have it work without running the app 24/7 on Roku.
Roku makes a ton of money on ads and selling data so that's reason enough for me to avoid them!
Wouldn't that imply that Roku is proxying all cast requests? That'd be even worse!
What exactly do you mean by proxying? If you mean that the Roku supports the chromecast protocol natively, just like thousands of other devices, including stereo receivers, soundbars, amps, and TVs, then yes. But I don’t see how that is relevant. If you mean that they proxy the cast stream through Roku servers, then no, they don’t do that. It’s just that chromecast is a native protocol supported by Roku. It also natively supports the AirPlay protocol, even if there are no Apple apps on the Roku. It’s just that an Apple TV doesn’t natively support the chromecast protocol, and YouTube hides AirPlay targets by default. You actually can AirPlay YouTube to an Apple TV without YouTube even being installed. So the exact same scenario as the Roku.
I didn’t care for my Roku either for a variety of reasons, but this seems to be tilting at windmills.
As I understand it Roku has the most exploitative business model in the space because they triple dip. First you have to buy a box**, then they continuously serve you ads, and finally they collect and sell all your usage data
**I know some are built into TVs which obscures this cost into the price tag. Apparently these contracts have mostly ended as the relationship soured
I have heard that there are versions of smart TVs without the smart options that get sold to offices and restaurants.
A while back I was reading into where to get these versions for normal consumers, but there's hoops you have to jump through and some can be expensive unless you get them second hand.
They're often called digital signage displays, and they're not that hard to get - there are several models on Amazon for around the same price as a regular TV of the same size.
The trouble is that the manufacturers are getting wise to the reason they're selling these to new markets, and the signage displays now often include some of the same nonsense you find in smart TVs.
Those TVs also have a number of trade-offs compared to consumer models so be careful. It won't affect 99% of users but if you're going to do something like, say, hook up a PC or PS5 and run 4K HDR with VRR and 120Hz output, you should look into seeing if the commercial model supports that.
We found this out the hard way at our office where the commercial Sony TVs we procured don't support this even though their consumer variants do. Not that it made a big deal but it certainly was a bit disappointing for our game room.
I wonder if there are multiple variants.
I didn't think of this until now, but I used to work with events and experiential alongside the entertainment industry and Comic Con and we'd rent TVs where the event needed 4K HDR like super nice stuff to show off the show/movie that was being promoted, but it was public facing and high profile so the TVs were locked down so no funny guy with a universal remote could mess up our event.
That was not my department at all, but it just occurred to me that I have no idea where those TVs came from but we did have requirements.
I have nothing but dumb TVs in my home. 4 of them are 32-inch Insignias (Best Buy's house brand), and I've got a 47-inch and a 55-inch that both need some repairs that I'm inclined to either pay for or try myself. I've had one smart TV ever and it had a Wii-like remote that I detested and I got rid of it as soon as humanly possible.
Kodi from a PC connected to a tv works for me. That said, did I recall something about smart TVs connecting to home networks without login credentials?
It sounds impossible, but some article said that they found a way in certain circumstances? Anybody remember reading this a few years ago?
Unless you live in a rural location with some distance between homes, a smart TV could connect to any unsecured (or trivially secured) Wi-Fi networks around you. They don't need to be on your network, just a network, to do what they want. Of course, they could do even more evil on your network, associating your TV habits with all the other local network traffic they can sniff, making the data even more valuable for buyers.
It also isn't very expensive for them to include a cellular modem, in which case they can send whatever data they want from the TV regardless of whether they can connect to any Wi-Fi network.
Wow, all good points and it reminds me that what I read was about it connecting to unsecured networks.
I'm sure we'll never see justice for the total abdication of responsibility to protect people's privacy by our governments and it's obvious why. Society at large doesn't seem to care what's in terms and conditions and what approving them could result in down the road, but isn't it the job of representative democracies to use your judgement to act in your constituents best interests?
It's horseshit as far as I'm concerned. Jazzed up by cool toys to the point by that we're willing to hand it all over.
I don’t think it matters because if I’m using a separate device to get the content, it probably doesn’t know much about my habits.
Let’s say I have Apple TV connected to a smart tv. I never gave the smart tv network access and I don’t run any apps on it. All the input is coming from the Apple TV device. I think it’s unlikely that the smart tv can know what I’m watching. Maybe it could know the time I’m watching something and that’s about it. Other than that it’s just displaying pixels coming through the hdmi. Unless hdmi somehow reports more about what it is displaying than I expect, or the tv has some kind of AI which is recognizing the content it is displaying.
In fact, it does know what you watch regardless of source, using "automatic content recognition": https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/your-smart-tv-watching-what-you-watch
Another option is to not accept the terms and conditions for content recognition and you deny them from doing this to you. Unless they cheat and secretly do it anyway but hey that's a different matter.
I've never let it connect to my network and I can tell on my router that it is not joining. I do have some neighbors wifi networks in range, so it is possible I guess if one of theirs is not secured. But then Samsung won't really know it is me, will they? I guess in some indirect way they could know that someone on my block is watching certain things.
Is there a way for Joe Schmoe to check this, like a product data sheet? I certainly don't trust myself to pop the case off my TV and check the components without breaking something expensive.
If that would've been the case you would've known about it already through other news.
Does anyone know if there are any open source alternatives for Apple TV and similar "smart tv boxes"? I know of Plex and Jellyfin and stuff, but I'm more talking about an OS which lets you install apps on it and launch them from a home screen, like on any smart tv.
There's Linux distros that boot straight into Kodi like LibreELEC, but that's not quite what you're asking for. The closest might actually be something like Bazzite, which is kind of like a general-PC community maintained version of SteamOS, which boots into Steam Big Picture by default just like a Steam Deck. That could act as a controller/remote friendly launcher since you can add non-Steam apps to it.
I'll try to rember to elaborate tomorrow, but I built my own fanless "home theater PC" (HTPC) and it's our primary entrypoint to our TV.
It's just running Ubuntu. I installed FlexLauncher on it and configured it to use CEC to turn the TV on and off when it comes in and out of sleep.
It's... Fantastic? We love it. We use an "airmouse" (basically a Wiimote with mouse buttons and a keyboard on the back) as a controller.
What's your GPU/connector set up for the CEC component?
My understanding is that most consumer/desktop GPUs aren't wired with the pin for CEC on their HDMI outputs. I was once able to work around this by using a DisplayPort to HDMI adapter, but I'm curious how others might've solved the problem.
Here's the full build: https://pcpartpicker.com/user/s.moores/saved/#view=TTzXnQ
I'm using a Pulse Eight USB CEC adapter, which basically uses USB as the transport layer for the CEC protocol, and provides a little module with the proper CEC header for the HDMI out to connect to.