I never connect my smart TVs to the network, I just plug in my Apple TV and move on. It's frustrating because it takes longer to turn these devices on than it should because of all the additional overhead I don't want or need. I wish someone would make a painless gadget to flash the software with dumber software that loads instantly.
They're also cheaper because they're subsidized. I did the same thing with a FireTV but understood the extra crap they want to boot and use is part of why they're so cheap, they're hoping for information to sell or puchases they can monetize.
The most insane thing which I wouldn't believe if I hadn't experienced it myself, but Samsung will periodically just install random apps and games on your phone. You delete them, then a month later, new apps show up. It's one of the most aggressive anti-consumer thing I've seen and it's coming from such a large player.
I'd guess it's happening during silent updates to your android OS. Those can come packaged with anything Samsung wants. I had a similar fight lately with HP's printer software which insists on waking your computer up for a printer health check and reenables the scheduled task randomly even without updates. Finally excised it from my PC.
We just bought a vizio to replace one that broke. Once you skip the setup process, all you need to do is remove the solder from the 'home' button on the remote or whatever it is and you'll never see their pop up crap again.
I get why people like this, though. It takes all of your accounts and puts them in one place. Honestly, if I could run Plex and my own media through it, it would be tempting to just block it from dialing out and get rid of my Nvidia shield.
I have a chromecast with google tv plugged into mine. Not sure what it's called these days. Chromecast Home?
It comes with a super minimalist remote that does volume and a d-pad and on/off and a remappable netflix button. My tv's original remote is... Somewhere. It's been more than a year since I've needed it.
Both the chromecast and my xbox uses hdmi-cec to instruct the tv to "switch your input to me". The chromecast remote controls the tv volume directly.
I have an Emby media server on the network, and I use the emby app on the chromecast to play content. I'm also a sellout so we have the standard streaming apps on there as well.
Yeah, the current Chromecast on an HDMI port is far superior than anything the TV vendors offer. I think you pretty much get access to every service you might want except Apple TV (no surprise, Apple gonna Apple).
Yeah, I don't connect my TV to WiFi at all; as long as TVs have HDMI ports I'll just use an Nvidia Shield TV (or something similar). If I do that I have access to more apps, a snappier interface, and it's easier to upgrade if I need to later.
I've looked into flashing it to use a dumber firmware, but it got into technical documentation that I don't really understand really quickly. I haven't looked into it since I got a Claude Code membership though, so it might be worth revisiting with AI assistance.
I've got a Sony TV with Google TV (not connected to internet) that turns on pretty quickly.
If it's going from a cold boot e.g. where it was unplugged or if it's doing a full reboot it takes a bit longer and shows a splash screen, but if it's turning on from a regular "off" state it takes about the same amount of time as the rest of my dumb screens and goes directly to the last used input.
My google dongle got progressively worse and worse. Frequent disconnects, I found out you had to like orientate it a special way, youtube kept having issues. Dumped it and switched to my built in LG OS (WebOS based I think). Works fine, does basically the same thing as my Google dongle did without the slow degradation march
Same here! none of my home Tvs, most LG and Samsung, have ever seen w Wifi password. Always putting firestick on it and call it a day. At least firestick I can unplug throw away, God only knows what updates TV does that I obviously cannot revert.
> Always putting firestick on it and call it a day.
Aren't you just letting amazon collect and monetize your viewing habits while allowing them to push ads at you? Avoiding ads and data collection are the reasons I'd want to leave my TV offline in the first place.
This presumes that, now or later, there won't be an on-screen message that can't be dismissed saying "Sign in to a Walmart account to enable all TV features."
There's plenty of ways they can interfere with attempts to use the TV in "dumb" mode. Heck it could refuse to show any video at all til you've signed in.
Yep. I bought a Samsung TV that I never even put online. It pops up with a half-screen display that lasts for 2 minutes every time I turn it on . Never again.
What is the half-screen display? On my Samsung S90D (new within the last year or so), I can set it to skip the "home" screen and go directly to the last input on power on. It works well.
A manufacturer can target multiple markets and make different choices for different markets.
The Samsung S90D (a 65" 4K model) you bought appears to sell for about $1000. Looking at Best Buy's site, you can also buy a Samsung 65" 4K TV for as little as $180 (model DU6900).
Yes, there's other differences. LED vs OLED etc. But at a glance they seem equivalent to a consumer...and one costs 5x more. The $1000 TV is targeting a market that expects more from their purchase and would potentially grate at a persistent sign-in notification. The <$200 TV is targeting a market that wants a big TV and hasn't thought much past that.
There's definitely a chance that on some models Samsung would be more aggressive about enabling smart features, because those models are expected to be subsidized by ads.
While all of that is certainly true, even the DU6900 has the "Start with Smart Hub Home" option that defaults to enabled but can be disabled according to its manual. I assume that's what OP is seeing; it's a common thing to want to disable on Samsung TVs.
I'm not at home currently so can't check, but you might be right about what it is. I'll definitely have to check! I do remember being nagged to connect to wifi though, but it might be a combination or something. I appreciate you mentioning this because if I can just disable it, that would actually improve my life :-)
But don't think people who can afford the more expensive TV are also more tech-savvy. Some just want a nicer TV. Also, they are a much more lucrative target market than people who cannot afford the nicer TV.
It had a noticable array of sensors and (I think?) microphones along with a camera smack dab in the middle. Above that was its permanent ad display. The TV also has access to its own portal, which was what was on when I saw it. An AI-generated reporter was talking about entertainment news.
Not even Orwell could've imagined a better telescreen than this. You know it's chock full of anti-defeat protections to prevent curious minds from scoring a free TV.
Heh, I really almost did. It started a big fight with the wife, and I lost the battle quickly. Not a day goes by that I don't wish I'd fought that fight.
Samsung is top of my list of companies to never buy from.
Except SSDs, I guess. Would be nice if I could meaningfully reject all products from a given company. I'm sure they'll someday cram ads and spyware into those also.
I get that they could do this in a future update, but if you never connect it to the Internet, a TV that doesn't require it today isn't going to just start. (Unless they pregamed to do it on such-and-such-a-date, but that would be a nightmare for their legal department if the rules change)
Pi-Hole sped up my Samsung home and menu screens tremendously. I use something like this list [0]. The growing size of the list itself is a testament to the enshittification of Smart TVs.
I wonder if the SmartTV blocklist change history and size of commits could tell a historical story of how things have evolved? I'm aware that DoH makes this approach less and less viable ... but for my existing TVs it still seems to work fine as long as I'm careful not to blindly update.
"It will not let you do anything until you download the app on your phone, make an account, and log in on the TV. You cant just change it to HDMI 1 and use a Firestick. I set it up with a throw away email, then deleted the app, and took the TV off of the WiFi."
Do they tell you this up front? When you buy it? I once returned a small bluetooth speaker, because it would not just let me connect to it. It wanted me to download an app, create an account, sign in and then accept a metric ton of crap about how they would collect all kinds of data about (in this case my mom's consumption of content that would be streamed to the speaker).
It was a damn portable bluetooth speaker. Well it was returned within an hour and the competitor was bought online.
At least, the store accepted it - I would have instantly send this as a case to the consumer protection agency, if they hadn't, though. Because they never even hinted (neither on the packaging, nor in the store) towards the necessity of the app and crap.
I've got a Roku on a TV in a spare room because it's the cheapest way to add airplay to a tv - I have it plugged in to a "smart" power bar that only provides power to the roku when the TV is turned on, so at least for the 99% of the time that the TV isn't turned on the roku isn't spamming my network.
Same for me. I had to quarantine my FireTV box with its own rules on my network to stop it from using all of my XFinity bandwidth for the month just doing nothing but maybe an hour of actual usage per day.
I've never noticed ads on mine, but I basically just go immediately to Fubo or ESPN apps and that's all do with it. I don't watch much on TV other than live sports.
If people spent a small amount of fuss to make sure they never paid for an ad-ridden spyware OS just to fulfill their "takes a few HDMI in" requirements, then we wouldn't be struggling with ad-ridden spyware OS TVs now.
Can you even buy 'just a screen'? We have huge (100"+) screens in the office, they cost A LOT. full of spam, apps, ads, popups. It doesnt even swithc to hdmi or what ever you input automatically, you need to select the screen mode orso.
The local electronics chain has 50-100 different TV's. All are 'smart'.
I would be ok with classifying this as a crime against humanity. /s
But honestly, I've just given up. I don't watch tv or movies or stream anymore, because it's all the same bullshit
Sceptre used to sell dumb TVs but they seem to be exiting the marketplace. Computer monitors and digital signage may be your best bet. You'll have to save up for 'em but that was true of TV sets back in the day too.
Sceptre still has a bunch of dumb TVs on their site. I used to be all in on them, but I bought one that had the backlight go out after only two years, and their answer was "lol buy a new one"
Is there any kind of “hook up” on wholesale large dumb displays?
I know I’m preaching to the choir, but I just want a giant dumb display from my Apple TV. I vaguely remember someone posting a link to tvs restaurants use but I don’t remember exactly what or if it was what I’m looking for.
I wonder about this every time I see a smart TV-related thread on HN. I recently purchased an LG OLED (C5 48") because my old TV died so I'll finally comment. As others have said, just don't connect it to the internet. But you knew this already, so I'll provide my anecdote on the experience of this since I wondered the same thing for years before getting this TV.
When the TV is never connected to internet, and you use a single HDMI source like me, the TV acts completely like a dumb TV. It gets turned on via my AppleTV remote and displays the picture 1-2 seconds later. No LG logo (I disabled this), and no smart interface shown whatsoever.
If you want to change settings, you can display the settings interface via LG remote control and it generally acts like a dumb TV (not blocking the entire screen, so you can adjust picture quality and see the result as expected).
I've had the TV for about two months and never been asked to update it or shown any ad. The only time I've ever seen the smart fullscreen interface is when you unplug a live HDMI source and the TV detects that nothing is there. (If you turn the source off, it tells the TV to turn itself off as well.)
Hope this helps since it's a lot easier to buy a nice smart TV and do it this way than find a truly dumb commercial panel.
They could also make agreements with ISP's where their TV's can be whitelisted for access to a public or potentially unlisted WiFi, enabling them to connect that way, without the vast majority of customers ever being aware.
Similarly, these TV's could connect to any open wifi hotspot it can find and phone home/download updates that way. Cox for example proudly boasts how more than 4M of it's residential customers modem+router+ap's can be used for "WiFi Hotspots" by anyone - not just the customer/resident - if they have a cox account. I don't see why Samsung or any other manufacturer may approach said ISP's to use this network to update devices under some guise of "convenience" or "seamless updates" ostensibly for their less tech savvy users.
I don't know if these business deals exists, but "smart devices" will often try to phone home/update anyway they can, even if you don't manually configure it on a private network.
Mine is a Vizio from Target that's never been online. I've gotten close to cutting its wifi antenna circuit to prevent this but I think I got it before they started programming anything like this in and I should be safe if it stays offline.
But then I still think about cutting it in case I ever have anyone over that would be stupid enough to sign in to the wifi on it. Better for it to have never happened.
Totally correct and a good call out. I did check this as best as I could for this particular model of TV. But I'd have to do the same in a few years if it was ever to be replaced. I suspect I'll have to desolder the cellular module of my next TV circa 2036...
Yeah, if you want a TV that looks terrible. They usually have terrible response times and focus on nits at all costs. Try watching anything HDR on a display panel.
Most are also larger, heavier, with higher power consumption, and sometimes uncomfortably high minimum brightness. They rarely use the same panels as retail models because they have to support different operating conditions like extreme temperatures and 24/7 operation.
> the cost was double because the target market is "ad agencies" or whatever.
A TV capable of operating in those conditions has to be more expensive or else it'll need replacing twice as often and cost even more long term. Remember when Tesla used bog standard laptop screens in their dash because they were cheaper than automotive grade, leading to high failure rate?
This makes me wonder if my local McDonalds, which has three big screens mounted vertically in the drive-thru, ended up with not the commercial grade ones. They’re cooking in the sun in a hot climate all day, so they fail and turn into flickery messes, and it seems like they’re on a cycle of roughly 3 months newly-replaced & working, 1 year flickering.
Many (most?) "smart" TVs will work fine if their network connection is never set up. Many of those can be set to wake on an HDMI signal from, for example, an outboard streamer box. That means you can take advantage of the subsidy paid by the bloatware that comes inside your TV, for a price that I bet is coincidentally close to the same as the price difference of an unsubsidized dumb TV.
I wondered this as well when I was shopping for a new TV a few years ago. Unfortunately, not only is it really difficult to find a "dumb" modern TV, but the best display panels will always be on smart TVs because that's what sells.
That said, I ended up getting a Sony A95K 55" TV, and it's been great. It has Google TV built-in, but I immediately connected our Apple TV to it, and it's never seen the Internet since. No nags, either. Sony also made it really easy to disable motion interpolation, a feature I really dislike.
Dell has the P5525QC, a 4K 55 inch screen. Here in Denmark they sell it for 8846 DKK (~$1300 USD). I use a predecessor with my Apple TV and it works great.
Just use any TV but don't log into your WiFi or connect an Ethernet cable. It sounds like that won't work with these Vizio TVs, but they're likely junk anyway. This is what I do with my Sony and LG TVs in my house and they work fine as dumb displays attached to my AppleTV box.
I've said it before on HN, but I just want a somewhat trustworthy group to develop "DUMB" certification. I think enough people would pay extra for a certified DUMB TV for it to be worthwile. "Don't Upload My Bits"
I wonder if a "woot" style service could work. If 10K like-minded consumers made a group-buy every 2-3 years, a high-end panel vendor might be willing to provision a new SKU with a few firmware tweaks.
For a while, Costco had a reputation as the place where you could buy a TV and be confident that it was usable as a "dumb" TV. The rumor (unconfirmed as far as I know) was that, among the customizations that manufacturers would make for retailer-specific models, the Costco ones included firmware tweaks to pull back on requirements for things like mandatory connectivity, account creation and the like.
I'm not sure how true any of that is, but in any case Costco still has a reputation as a place where it's easy to return a TV, and they pay attention to the stated reason for return.
Somehow these dumb displays always seem to be cheaper than the smart ones. For some mysterious reason all the chips and stuff to needed run an OS have a negative cost.
We already live in Harrison Bergeron's world, for anyone forced to, say, watch the NBC broadcast of the Olympics' opening and closing ceremonies. "Don't go having unsanctioned thoughts about that artistry, or forgetting about our commercial sponsors!"
I remember the 2010 Olympics were aired on pre-enshittified Youtube (in a few countries). You could click on icons to go to a live stream of different events, zero ads, no cutting to studio announcers (stayed on the fields), zero fuss. It was glorious.
I feel like living in a country advertisers don't care about makes your digital life better. For example the NBA league pass is very cheap in my country, all teams. For an amount I'd be glad to pay per month, I can watch all games for all teams on demand, without blackouts. And during game breaks we either watch the stadium feed, an animated NBA logo, or highlights and countdowns of other games.
We would never force a user to watch a 15-second ad every 5 minutes.
We simply augment their content with a 15-second fully-immersive aesthetic and psychological experience which highlights the quality of our sponsor's product.
Filtering ads outright would never happen. They'd create a market where the device would replace the ads you see or hear with the ads of the highest bidder, and then insert new ads on top of that.
NeuraLink a year later: "Help your ad bubble to the top! Our BlueCheck ad partnership plan bypasses our filters for the paltry sum of 10% of conversion revenues!"
This is why you never connected a "smart TV" to the internet.
If you disagree, do it and then run a Wireshark analysis.
The best option I have found, after trying them all is Apple TV.
Least about of telemetry, best picture quality, and very secure.
A lot of people do their grocery shopping at Walmart (even if you don't). This positions Walmart as being able to offer discounts for food and other daily necessities to people right on their TV. People are going to like this-especially the cohort that would buy a cheap TV at Walmart. They're going to really like saving a few dollars on groceries or gas. Not to mention Walmart can now offer perks through the TV to its millions of employees. They're going to like it too.
Walmart is one of the most litigated companies ever, and probably has 10+ active lawsuits against it at any given time. So if they're getting into this, they're fairly sure it will work legally now and in the future.
The battle against personal-data-collection by default on TVs is probably lost at this point. It's over. Non-smart TVs will probably become specialized, super-expensive corporate-class expenses out of reach of most people before too long.
Projectors are capable of creating a big image on a wall like a TV, and while it's not as bright, it comes with much less privacy invasion, and is also portable. That's where I'm likely spending my future TV dollars until those gets caught up in this as well.
Great point! My knee-jerk reaction was that this is an intrusion and the enduser would be held hostage unless he/she gives up personal information to Walmart...and maybe that is the case for some, but some will surely benefit from the personal advertising and discounts. I do believe there should be a large, bright, unavoidable notice on the outside of the TV packaging stating that a Walmart account is required to use the TV.
And that will also benefit Walmart. They have Walmart+ which is their grocery delivery and in-store checkout app - which, if you've ever shopped at a busy Walmart near a city, both of those either enable you to avoid actually entering a Walmart or make it much quicker if you go in the store.
So that sticker will be a big "This TV requires a Walmart+ account - Sign up for Walmart+ and get free grocery delivery on orders over $30 and discounts at the self-checkout AND deals on streaming!" Their electronics department people will probably be trained to answer any questions and help people sign up on the app (if they're not already).
Brighter picture perhaps, but good luck being able to have anything resembling "actual black", best you'll get is dark gray.
Alternative solution that doesn't require worse picture quality, never hook up the TV to the internet. State of the art quality, none of the data collection.
I would bet five figures that within 5 years it will be commonplace for TVs to require an Internet connection in order to be used at all. One is ATSC 3.0 and its DRM encryption capabilities. The other scenario is probably be that, because the TV has pre-installed applications, then the TV has to record your age and register it upstream to comply with an age-verification law or interpretation thereof.
Agreed, you'd still need to darken the room for the best picture in any projector scenario, as the darkest black you can get is whatever the ambient light level is.
My solution to this problem has been to stop using TVs.
The last TV I actually enjoyed more than a PC/Mac display was a monster Panasonic plasma that had some serious practicality issues. I'd use it maybe 2-3 hours per week.
None of the other display technologies are that interesting to me. OLED gets close sometimes, but nothing matches the visceral urgency of a plasma panel clocked at 600hz. The noises it would make in bright scenes was crazy. You had to have a powerful sound system to cover up the semiconductor switching. And, that's kind of the entire point for me with a television. Go big or go home. Exhibition. If I just want to consume content without pissing off the neighbors, my MacBook/PC tends to provide a much better experience.
I finally had to let my mid2000s plasma go, only because moving it required two people (I can one-person a mattress). Not even OLED can reproduce those backlightless blacks (but my 48" Aorus comes close, when viewing straight-on).
At my last job we bought a lot of Vizio tvs. We used them for conference rooms, hallway displays, etc. They were reasonably priced and had a good feature set needed.
They have been on a decline for years and this is a nail in the coffin.
There are business models that are dumb displays that you bring your own device to do conference stuff on whatever platform you wish. I'm not current with the pricing but they typically have good warranties.
They are insanely priced compared to disposable Vizios - renting a "real" display monitor for a conference would be $1000 or so (including the shipping, setup, return, usually involving large crates and trucks).
Buying a similar Vizio would be delivered by free by Walmart for $200, you just ignore the setup prompts, stick HDMI in, and give it to a nice hotel employee when done.
Kinda a wild idea I had never really considered, but absolutely a possibility: using a TV as a loss leader to sell ads.
Not sure if that's they're intent here, but I could easily see that becoming a thing (if it isn't already). And what better way to collect useful ad data on people than forcing them to create an account and then tracking their usage of the device.
Part of the reason that computer monitors are considerably more expensive. They're higher density, higher refresh rate panels, but they're also dumb so the sticker price has to cover the whole cost; no "netflix" button on the remote control contributing a few bucks or whatever.
This has been a thing for years, and so much so, that there's an entire TV with a dedicated second screen that shows you ads underneath your main screen: https://www.telly.com
Wow. I guess I'm surprised it took this long for banner ads to reach TVs.
I think I have my next startup idea: a physical ad blocker for this thing. We could even have multiple styles: yellow sticky note, duct tape, painters tape.
And if you want cheaper ones, we can print our own ads on your ad blocker!
that does not reflect my reality, for the things i have bought (or considered buying), no.
but i dont have hard data to back that up, so maybe i am wrong about the general case and the price increases are more local or specific to some other variable.
Vizio and every other major brand has been, for years, harvesting data from your smart TV. It's a lot easier to track what you are doing if you have to be logged in.
At this point, it can actually be easier to piece parts together instead of paying for a TV with Tizen OS on a tv that may have a camera to watch you sit on the couch with your fingers all orange from the cheeto binge screaming at the TV because that seems to happen a lot now.
1984 has been here for 10 years, now it's just grown big enough to be noticable.
This actually seems better than before when a vizio account was required. At least now its a walmart account. If forced to choose, Id prefer a walmart account.
Of course, I would never buy this tv because of the requirement. I just buy dumb tvs and then stick an apple tv in front if the hdmi input.
Amazon does in fact have their own brand TVs. I don't know if Google and Roku own a TV brand, but both provide the software that runs on TV's, and both require accounts and sell ads, so it comes out about even.
At the moment, my strategy is only to own older TVs that have no smart features. Eventually this strategy won't work. When that happens I'll either use a computer monitor or forgo TV altogether.
"A Walmart spokesperson confirmed to Ars Technica that Walmart accounts will be mandatory on “select new Vizio OS TVs” for owners to complete onboarding and to use smart TV features."
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Some questions prospective buyers should ask:
1. Is "onboarding" necessary for this "Smart TV" to function as a "dumb screen"? i.e. Would a user need to get a Walmart account just to access video settings?
2. Does it inject ads or phone home to share screen captures from HDMI input?
3. Is not giving it access to WiFi sufficient, or does this thing have alternative ways of getting "updates"?
Recently I sourced two TVs for my elderly mom, who is never going to stream or use an app. I only looked at TVs which had their manuals online for review. I found two LGs which I could disable the app splash screen, and set to "select last input on power-up", which in her case is a cable box on HDMI-1. Don't know how long choices such as this will be available.
For the data harvesting, TVs should be free. Consumer value will revert when your humanoid can project shows on any home surface and retailers will rejoice that freed up flatscreen floorspace.
That's the point though. TVs like from TFA are preventing use when air gapped. As more manufacturers go this route, there will be fewer tvs that will allow that to work
Reminds me of the insta go 360 3s cam I bought recently, have to install a mobile app on your phone to activate it. At least you can uninstall the app after.
The hardware is amazing, the software could improve in terms of how it deals with motion blur and surfaces like gravel.
Now that you mention it, DJI action cameras required the same thing (installing an app to activate the camera). I bought one, discovered this during setup, and promptly returned it and got a GoPro instead.
I have a Hisense Roku TV with on a network with a pihole. It can't reach any of it's ad networks so the interface is always the default. The default isn't great, mind you, but it is ad-free.
I also don't connect PS4 — but if you have your DHCP server issue your PiHole's address for DNS, then you can probably block that ad server specifically (just like you could for Roku/Vizio).
Wondering when the TV manufacturers begin requiring an internet connection to u se, perhaps even hard-coding DNS-via-https addresses.
I don't have to do anything extra. I have a pihole on my network blocking ads, I have a Roku TV that has the ability built-in to stream from streaming services. I connect the TV to Wifi and my goal of having a streaming TV without ads littering the interface was achieved.
This is a friendly reminder that your local e-waste collection site likely has no shortage of sufficiently dumb TVs available for the taking. (Check local regulations before taking anything without permission.)
This is why I have protonmail aliases, a burner second phone, and an x1 virtual cc. While I can't stop the enshittification, I can fight back by remaining pseudo anonymous and compartmentalize each service.
What you described is aliasing, not compartmentalization. To effectively compartmentalize requires a different email, phone, and CC for every service. By only having one alias of each, the ad networks that are sharing information about you with partners have no obstacles tying together your habits when they see the same proton email, etc across several vendors, even if you have a different name on your alternate products. After these have been matched enough times, there enough of a profile on you to effectively know who you are, even if it is just probable instead of proven.
You mention proton, which allows several emails on a paid account, and there are several competitors offering a similar service with varying success, so this should be no problem to implement. There are also companies that offer anonymous CCs, although they are slowly not working. Privacy and Ironvest are two that used to work but I'm not sure if they still do. I'd be interested if you know of CC companies that still work most of the time at vendors. Regarding phones, there are several sources for this as well, depending on whether you want long term or just one time use numbers, but these likewise have been failing as security measures increase.
For now, we can vote with our wallets and avoid this crap. But, how long until the entire TV and display industry requires an account to tether you to each company in order to use their products?
I do that by never shopping at Walmart. I was bored one weekend, and went to a bunch of stores to compare prices. The Walmart near me did have somethings that were cheaper, but for the most part the prices were average with other stores. So I can honestly say for things I buy, Walmart is not worth it for me and it's not just the principle of not shopping at Walmart but it's a principal issue
The Onn TV sticks (Google TV based) are an incredible value (the middle of the line-up $25 version is the best deal currently) for a bloat/ad-free experience if you just install the free Projectivy launcher from the Play Store and uninstall any unused TV apps.
I just have Stremio, Jellyfin and VLC installed and remapped the free TV button on the remote to Stremio.
I just got a LG G5 and I bought a $499 Mac Mini and a light up bluetooth keyboard with built in track pad. I never see the OS on my TV. Works fantastic.
In every Smart TV thread there are dozens or hundreds of comments that say people don't put connect their TV to their wireless.
I understand. I've been an EFF supporter for decades, at least when I can afford it. I get it.
The problem though is that you sometimes want to screencast a video or song from your phone. Your dirty dirty phone that has been out in the wild collecting malware. Or a guest does. And sure, what's one video?
And of course your TV doesn't have the latest updates.
It's a fucking perverse incentive that will lead to more regulation of the Internet and IoT when we get malware "leaks" and outbreaks.
The civil libertarians have been co-opted with game theory and smart knowledge of the tragedy of the commons in this case by the intelligence services.
Instead of just educating citizens and democratic debate.
I don't have the political power to sell that idea now, and I know it sounds crazy.
I never connect my smart TVs to the network, I just plug in my Apple TV and move on. It's frustrating because it takes longer to turn these devices on than it should because of all the additional overhead I don't want or need. I wish someone would make a painless gadget to flash the software with dumber software that loads instantly.
They're also cheaper because they're subsidized. I did the same thing with a FireTV but understood the extra crap they want to boot and use is part of why they're so cheap, they're hoping for information to sell or puchases they can monetize.
The most insane thing which I wouldn't believe if I hadn't experienced it myself, but Samsung will periodically just install random apps and games on your phone. You delete them, then a month later, new apps show up. It's one of the most aggressive anti-consumer thing I've seen and it's coming from such a large player.
I'd guess it's happening during silent updates to your android OS. Those can come packaged with anything Samsung wants. I had a similar fight lately with HP's printer software which insists on waking your computer up for a printer health check and reenables the scheduled task randomly even without updates. Finally excised it from my PC.
The frustrating thing is the lack of options. If you buy a $300 TV or a $3000 TV it will still come loaded with bloat/ad/spyware built in.
I'd pay $3000 for a 85" OLED panel that doesn't have anything except an on/off button and a HDMI 2.1 port.
(Yes, and options to adjust the image a bit, but I'll turn on "filmmaker mode" anyway, so even those can be cropped by 90% vs regular TVs)
We just bought a vizio to replace one that broke. Once you skip the setup process, all you need to do is remove the solder from the 'home' button on the remote or whatever it is and you'll never see their pop up crap again.
I get why people like this, though. It takes all of your accounts and puts them in one place. Honestly, if I could run Plex and my own media through it, it would be tempting to just block it from dialing out and get rid of my Nvidia shield.
I have a chromecast with google tv plugged into mine. Not sure what it's called these days. Chromecast Home?
It comes with a super minimalist remote that does volume and a d-pad and on/off and a remappable netflix button. My tv's original remote is... Somewhere. It's been more than a year since I've needed it.
Both the chromecast and my xbox uses hdmi-cec to instruct the tv to "switch your input to me". The chromecast remote controls the tv volume directly.
I have an Emby media server on the network, and I use the emby app on the chromecast to play content. I'm also a sellout so we have the standard streaming apps on there as well.
It's a truly god-tier setup and it works so well.
Yeah, the current Chromecast on an HDMI port is far superior than anything the TV vendors offer. I think you pretty much get access to every service you might want except Apple TV (no surprise, Apple gonna Apple).
Apple tv is available on my chromecast?
Yeah there's an appletv android app.
That's my main setup too. Sometimes still need to main TV remote but not often.
Yeah, I don't connect my TV to WiFi at all; as long as TVs have HDMI ports I'll just use an Nvidia Shield TV (or something similar). If I do that I have access to more apps, a snappier interface, and it's easier to upgrade if I need to later.
I've looked into flashing it to use a dumber firmware, but it got into technical documentation that I don't really understand really quickly. I haven't looked into it since I got a Claude Code membership though, so it might be worth revisiting with AI assistance.
I've got a Sony TV with Google TV (not connected to internet) that turns on pretty quickly.
If it's going from a cold boot e.g. where it was unplugged or if it's doing a full reboot it takes a bit longer and shows a splash screen, but if it's turning on from a regular "off" state it takes about the same amount of time as the rest of my dumb screens and goes directly to the last used input.
Some TVs have an “instant on” feature that uses some more watts but only ever turns the backlight/screen off.
> I never connect my smart TVs to the network, I just plug in my Apple TV and move on.
You're not alone.
My google dongle got progressively worse and worse. Frequent disconnects, I found out you had to like orientate it a special way, youtube kept having issues. Dumped it and switched to my built in LG OS (WebOS based I think). Works fine, does basically the same thing as my Google dongle did without the slow degradation march
Same here! none of my home Tvs, most LG and Samsung, have ever seen w Wifi password. Always putting firestick on it and call it a day. At least firestick I can unplug throw away, God only knows what updates TV does that I obviously cannot revert.
> Always putting firestick on it and call it a day.
Aren't you just letting amazon collect and monetize your viewing habits while allowing them to push ads at you? Avoiding ads and data collection are the reasons I'd want to leave my TV offline in the first place.
Option A: use Amazon Prime Video to watch shows. Share your viewing habits with Walmart/Vizio and Amazon.
Option B: use Amazon Prime Video to watch shows. Share your viewing habits with Amazon.
Using a firestick means amazon collects data on what you watch regardless of the platform you view it on. Also ads.
Isn't that actually great? Just never create and sign into a Walmart account and now your TV isn't infected.
This presumes that, now or later, there won't be an on-screen message that can't be dismissed saying "Sign in to a Walmart account to enable all TV features."
There's plenty of ways they can interfere with attempts to use the TV in "dumb" mode. Heck it could refuse to show any video at all til you've signed in.
Yep. I bought a Samsung TV that I never even put online. It pops up with a half-screen display that lasts for 2 minutes every time I turn it on . Never again.
What is the half-screen display? On my Samsung S90D (new within the last year or so), I can set it to skip the "home" screen and go directly to the last input on power on. It works well.
A manufacturer can target multiple markets and make different choices for different markets.
The Samsung S90D (a 65" 4K model) you bought appears to sell for about $1000. Looking at Best Buy's site, you can also buy a Samsung 65" 4K TV for as little as $180 (model DU6900).
Yes, there's other differences. LED vs OLED etc. But at a glance they seem equivalent to a consumer...and one costs 5x more. The $1000 TV is targeting a market that expects more from their purchase and would potentially grate at a persistent sign-in notification. The <$200 TV is targeting a market that wants a big TV and hasn't thought much past that.
There's definitely a chance that on some models Samsung would be more aggressive about enabling smart features, because those models are expected to be subsidized by ads.
While all of that is certainly true, even the DU6900 has the "Start with Smart Hub Home" option that defaults to enabled but can be disabled according to its manual. I assume that's what OP is seeing; it's a common thing to want to disable on Samsung TVs.
I'm not at home currently so can't check, but you might be right about what it is. I'll definitely have to check! I do remember being nagged to connect to wifi though, but it might be a combination or something. I appreciate you mentioning this because if I can just disable it, that would actually improve my life :-)
It's like poor people living in the crowded business district with little peace and giant billboards shining in the bedroom window.
There are free TVs now that are completely subsidized by ads: https://www.telly.com/
But don't think people who can afford the more expensive TV are also more tech-savvy. Some just want a nicer TV. Also, they are a much more lucrative target market than people who cannot afford the nicer TV.
I finally saw one of these in person last year!
It was as fascinating as it was terrifying.
It had a noticable array of sensors and (I think?) microphones along with a camera smack dab in the middle. Above that was its permanent ad display. The TV also has access to its own portal, which was what was on when I saw it. An AI-generated reporter was talking about entertainment news.
Not even Orwell could've imagined a better telescreen than this. You know it's chock full of anti-defeat protections to prevent curious minds from scoring a free TV.
2 minutes. I think I would have boxed that up and returned it to the store as broken.
Heh, I really almost did. It started a big fight with the wife, and I lost the battle quickly. Not a day goes by that I don't wish I'd fought that fight.
Samsung is top of my list of companies to never buy from.
Except SSDs, I guess. Would be nice if I could meaningfully reject all products from a given company. I'm sure they'll someday cram ads and spyware into those also.
They can't do that later if you never sign in. If they do that now, you just refuse their terms, get a refund.
I get that they could do this in a future update, but if you never connect it to the Internet, a TV that doesn't require it today isn't going to just start. (Unless they pregamed to do it on such-and-such-a-date, but that would be a nightmare for their legal department if the rules change)
Pi-Hole sped up my Samsung home and menu screens tremendously. I use something like this list [0]. The growing size of the list itself is a testament to the enshittification of Smart TVs.
I wonder if the SmartTV blocklist change history and size of commits could tell a historical story of how things have evolved? I'm aware that DoH makes this approach less and less viable ... but for my existing TVs it still seems to work fine as long as I'm careful not to blindly update.
[0] https://github.com/Perflyst/PiHoleBlocklist/blob/master/Smar...
Just use an AppleTV, Roku, etc. and connect it to the HDMI port.
TV is just a screen. That is how I've used mine for the last 5+ years.
Saw this elsewhere:
"It will not let you do anything until you download the app on your phone, make an account, and log in on the TV. You cant just change it to HDMI 1 and use a Firestick. I set it up with a throw away email, then deleted the app, and took the TV off of the WiFi."
Well that sucks, but maybe tolerable for a cheap TV if you only have to do it once.
Do they tell you this up front? When you buy it? I once returned a small bluetooth speaker, because it would not just let me connect to it. It wanted me to download an app, create an account, sign in and then accept a metric ton of crap about how they would collect all kinds of data about (in this case my mom's consumption of content that would be streamed to the speaker).
It was a damn portable bluetooth speaker. Well it was returned within an hour and the competitor was bought online.
At least, the store accepted it - I would have instantly send this as a case to the consumer protection agency, if they hadn't, though. Because they never even hinted (neither on the packaging, nor in the store) towards the necessity of the app and crap.
Everybody tolerates it, and then they will make it even worse. Thats how we go to where we are now with this bullshit.
I find roku really ad heavy and it sent tons of traffic back to roku.com. Same for firetv.
I've got a Roku on a TV in a spare room because it's the cheapest way to add airplay to a tv - I have it plugged in to a "smart" power bar that only provides power to the roku when the TV is turned on, so at least for the 99% of the time that the TV isn't turned on the roku isn't spamming my network.
Same for me. I had to quarantine my FireTV box with its own rules on my network to stop it from using all of my XFinity bandwidth for the month just doing nothing but maybe an hour of actual usage per day.
I've never noticed ads on mine, but I basically just go immediately to Fubo or ESPN apps and that's all do with it. I don't watch much on TV other than live sports.
Exactly. If I wanted ads and surveillance I'd have just connected the smart TV directly to internet in the first place.
It won't be "just a screen" for much longer if people continue paying for TVs that do this bullshit.
IDK. People are always going to want to connect game consoles, computers, etc to big screens without a lot of fuss.
To me "a lot of fuss" includes having to sign up for a walmart account and dealing with ads being shoved in my face
If people spent a small amount of fuss to make sure they never paid for an ad-ridden spyware OS just to fulfill their "takes a few HDMI in" requirements, then we wouldn't be struggling with ad-ridden spyware OS TVs now.
Can you even buy 'just a screen'? We have huge (100"+) screens in the office, they cost A LOT. full of spam, apps, ads, popups. It doesnt even swithc to hdmi or what ever you input automatically, you need to select the screen mode orso.
The local electronics chain has 50-100 different TV's. All are 'smart'.
I would be ok with classifying this as a crime against humanity. /s
But honestly, I've just given up. I don't watch tv or movies or stream anymore, because it's all the same bullshit
I meant, I treat the TV as "just a screen."
Set the input to "HDMI-1" or whatever my Roku is connected to, and that's the last thing I touch on the TV remote.
Sceptre used to sell dumb TVs but they seem to be exiting the marketplace. Computer monitors and digital signage may be your best bet. You'll have to save up for 'em but that was true of TV sets back in the day too.
Sceptre still has a bunch of dumb TVs on their site. I used to be all in on them, but I bought one that had the backlight go out after only two years, and their answer was "lol buy a new one"
Is there any kind of “hook up” on wholesale large dumb displays?
I know I’m preaching to the choir, but I just want a giant dumb display from my Apple TV. I vaguely remember someone posting a link to tvs restaurants use but I don’t remember exactly what or if it was what I’m looking for.
(Sorry, being lazy here)
I wonder about this every time I see a smart TV-related thread on HN. I recently purchased an LG OLED (C5 48") because my old TV died so I'll finally comment. As others have said, just don't connect it to the internet. But you knew this already, so I'll provide my anecdote on the experience of this since I wondered the same thing for years before getting this TV.
When the TV is never connected to internet, and you use a single HDMI source like me, the TV acts completely like a dumb TV. It gets turned on via my AppleTV remote and displays the picture 1-2 seconds later. No LG logo (I disabled this), and no smart interface shown whatsoever.
If you want to change settings, you can display the settings interface via LG remote control and it generally acts like a dumb TV (not blocking the entire screen, so you can adjust picture quality and see the result as expected).
I've had the TV for about two months and never been asked to update it or shown any ad. The only time I've ever seen the smart fullscreen interface is when you unplug a live HDMI source and the TV detects that nothing is there. (If you turn the source off, it tells the TV to turn itself off as well.)
Hope this helps since it's a lot easier to buy a nice smart TV and do it this way than find a truly dumb commercial panel.
Don't assume that because you don't connect something to the internet that is doesn't connect to the internet.
Things can use cellular modems to phone home. This is already done.
Walmart could also easily cut deals with cable providers for outbound access via WiFi and cover most of the country.
They could also make agreements with ISP's where their TV's can be whitelisted for access to a public or potentially unlisted WiFi, enabling them to connect that way, without the vast majority of customers ever being aware.
Similarly, these TV's could connect to any open wifi hotspot it can find and phone home/download updates that way. Cox for example proudly boasts how more than 4M of it's residential customers modem+router+ap's can be used for "WiFi Hotspots" by anyone - not just the customer/resident - if they have a cox account. I don't see why Samsung or any other manufacturer may approach said ISP's to use this network to update devices under some guise of "convenience" or "seamless updates" ostensibly for their less tech savvy users.
I don't know if these business deals exists, but "smart devices" will often try to phone home/update anyway they can, even if you don't manually configure it on a private network.
EDIT: Forgot the source on the cox hotspots claim: https://www.cox.com/residential/internet/learn/cox-hotspots....
Mine is a Vizio from Target that's never been online. I've gotten close to cutting its wifi antenna circuit to prevent this but I think I got it before they started programming anything like this in and I should be safe if it stays offline.
But then I still think about cutting it in case I ever have anyone over that would be stupid enough to sign in to the wifi on it. Better for it to have never happened.
Comcast/Xfinity does this as well.
Totally correct and a good call out. I did check this as best as I could for this particular model of TV. But I'd have to do the same in a few years if it was ever to be replaced. I suspect I'll have to desolder the cellular module of my next TV circa 2036...
Look for used 'Digital Signage' or 'Commercial' displays. They usually have dumb firmware and the same panels as retail models.
Yeah, if you want a TV that looks terrible. They usually have terrible response times and focus on nits at all costs. Try watching anything HDR on a display panel.
Most are also larger, heavier, with higher power consumption, and sometimes uncomfortably high minimum brightness. They rarely use the same panels as retail models because they have to support different operating conditions like extreme temperatures and 24/7 operation.
And the worst part, usually way more expensive too, seen some panels where the cost was double because the target market is "ad agencies" or whatever.
> the cost was double because the target market is "ad agencies" or whatever.
A TV capable of operating in those conditions has to be more expensive or else it'll need replacing twice as often and cost even more long term. Remember when Tesla used bog standard laptop screens in their dash because they were cheaper than automotive grade, leading to high failure rate?
This makes me wonder if my local McDonalds, which has three big screens mounted vertically in the drive-thru, ended up with not the commercial grade ones. They’re cooking in the sun in a hot climate all day, so they fail and turn into flickery messes, and it seems like they’re on a cycle of roughly 3 months newly-replaced & working, 1 year flickering.
They’re probably inside commercial displays - not outdoor rated, which are much, much more expensive (and usually look much worse).
Many (most?) "smart" TVs will work fine if their network connection is never set up. Many of those can be set to wake on an HDMI signal from, for example, an outboard streamer box. That means you can take advantage of the subsidy paid by the bloatware that comes inside your TV, for a price that I bet is coincidentally close to the same as the price difference of an unsubsidized dumb TV.
I wondered this as well when I was shopping for a new TV a few years ago. Unfortunately, not only is it really difficult to find a "dumb" modern TV, but the best display panels will always be on smart TVs because that's what sells.
That said, I ended up getting a Sony A95K 55" TV, and it's been great. It has Google TV built-in, but I immediately connected our Apple TV to it, and it's never seen the Internet since. No nags, either. Sony also made it really easy to disable motion interpolation, a feature I really dislike.
Dell has the P5525QC, a 4K 55 inch screen. Here in Denmark they sell it for 8846 DKK (~$1300 USD). I use a predecessor with my Apple TV and it works great.
Link: https://www.dell.com/da-dk/shop/dell-55-4k-sk%C3%A6rm-til-m%...
I bought a 60 inch Spectre tv from walmart and it works great as over the air and receiving video from my appletv.
I just googled “dumb tv” and that brand showed up.
Just use any TV but don't log into your WiFi or connect an Ethernet cable. It sounds like that won't work with these Vizio TVs, but they're likely junk anyway. This is what I do with my Sony and LG TVs in my house and they work fine as dumb displays attached to my AppleTV box.
I've said it before on HN, but I just want a somewhat trustworthy group to develop "DUMB" certification. I think enough people would pay extra for a certified DUMB TV for it to be worthwile. "Don't Upload My Bits"
I wonder if a "woot" style service could work. If 10K like-minded consumers made a group-buy every 2-3 years, a high-end panel vendor might be willing to provision a new SKU with a few firmware tweaks.
For a while, Costco had a reputation as the place where you could buy a TV and be confident that it was usable as a "dumb" TV. The rumor (unconfirmed as far as I know) was that, among the customizations that manufacturers would make for retailer-specific models, the Costco ones included firmware tweaks to pull back on requirements for things like mandatory connectivity, account creation and the like.
I'm not sure how true any of that is, but in any case Costco still has a reputation as a place where it's easy to return a TV, and they pay attention to the stated reason for return.
I would go in on a group-buy dumb TV, but not every 2-3 years.
I’ve been using my TCL Roku disconnected from the internet for 6 years
Somehow these dumb displays always seem to be cheaper than the smart ones. For some mysterious reason all the chips and stuff to needed run an OS have a negative cost.
Skim through B&H and you'll find commercial displays but also various other display formats that are sufficiently stupid.
NEC/Sharp commercial displays are great. Even come with a daughter board you can throw a Raspberry Pi onto to run your own OS.
2040: a $30k neural interface becomes available.
2042: a $20 budget neural version hits the market but requires the user to watch a 15s ad every 5 minutes.
We already live in Harrison Bergeron's world, for anyone forced to, say, watch the NBC broadcast of the Olympics' opening and closing ceremonies. "Don't go having unsanctioned thoughts about that artistry, or forgetting about our commercial sponsors!"
I remember the 2010 Olympics were aired on pre-enshittified Youtube (in a few countries). You could click on icons to go to a live stream of different events, zero ads, no cutting to studio announcers (stayed on the fields), zero fuss. It was glorious.
I feel like living in a country advertisers don't care about makes your digital life better. For example the NBA league pass is very cheap in my country, all teams. For an amount I'd be glad to pay per month, I can watch all games for all teams on demand, without blackouts. And during game breaks we either watch the stadium feed, an animated NBA logo, or highlights and countdowns of other games.
2041: a $30k neural interface that forces a user to watch a 15s ad every 30 minutes replaces previous version.
Every year after: interval decreases by a minute between ads
Let's be honest, they'd put ads in the pay version too.
We would never force a user to watch a 15-second ad every 5 minutes.
We simply augment their content with a 15-second fully-immersive aesthetic and psychological experience which highlights the quality of our sponsor's product.
If the neural interface can filter other ads, that frequency would be a reduction for many people.
Filtering ads outright would never happen. They'd create a market where the device would replace the ads you see or hear with the ads of the highest bidder, and then insert new ads on top of that.
NeuraLink a year later: "Help your ad bubble to the top! Our BlueCheck ad partnership plan bypasses our filters for the paltry sum of 10% of conversion revenues!"
This is why you never connected a "smart TV" to the internet. If you disagree, do it and then run a Wireshark analysis. The best option I have found, after trying them all is Apple TV. Least about of telemetry, best picture quality, and very secure.
A lot of people do their grocery shopping at Walmart (even if you don't). This positions Walmart as being able to offer discounts for food and other daily necessities to people right on their TV. People are going to like this-especially the cohort that would buy a cheap TV at Walmart. They're going to really like saving a few dollars on groceries or gas. Not to mention Walmart can now offer perks through the TV to its millions of employees. They're going to like it too.
Walmart is one of the most litigated companies ever, and probably has 10+ active lawsuits against it at any given time. So if they're getting into this, they're fairly sure it will work legally now and in the future.
The battle against personal-data-collection by default on TVs is probably lost at this point. It's over. Non-smart TVs will probably become specialized, super-expensive corporate-class expenses out of reach of most people before too long.
Projectors are capable of creating a big image on a wall like a TV, and while it's not as bright, it comes with much less privacy invasion, and is also portable. That's where I'm likely spending my future TV dollars until those gets caught up in this as well.
Great point! My knee-jerk reaction was that this is an intrusion and the enduser would be held hostage unless he/she gives up personal information to Walmart...and maybe that is the case for some, but some will surely benefit from the personal advertising and discounts. I do believe there should be a large, bright, unavoidable notice on the outside of the TV packaging stating that a Walmart account is required to use the TV.
And that will also benefit Walmart. They have Walmart+ which is their grocery delivery and in-store checkout app - which, if you've ever shopped at a busy Walmart near a city, both of those either enable you to avoid actually entering a Walmart or make it much quicker if you go in the store.
So that sticker will be a big "This TV requires a Walmart+ account - Sign up for Walmart+ and get free grocery delivery on orders over $30 and discounts at the self-checkout AND deals on streaming!" Their electronics department people will probably be trained to answer any questions and help people sign up on the app (if they're not already).
Walmart's pretty smart here.
Get an actual projector screen and mount it on your wall, you'll get a much brighter picture than just projecting on a painted wall.
Brighter picture perhaps, but good luck being able to have anything resembling "actual black", best you'll get is dark gray.
Alternative solution that doesn't require worse picture quality, never hook up the TV to the internet. State of the art quality, none of the data collection.
I would bet five figures that within 5 years it will be commonplace for TVs to require an Internet connection in order to be used at all. One is ATSC 3.0 and its DRM encryption capabilities. The other scenario is probably be that, because the TV has pre-installed applications, then the TV has to record your age and register it upstream to comply with an age-verification law or interpretation thereof.
Agreed, you'd still need to darken the room for the best picture in any projector scenario, as the darkest black you can get is whatever the ambient light level is.
> People are going to like this-especially the cohort that would buy a cheap TV at Walmart.
What? If anyone truly believes that "People are going to like this", then just make it opt-in.
There is a reason it's not "opt-in". They know damn well people are NOT going to like it.
My solution to this problem has been to stop using TVs.
The last TV I actually enjoyed more than a PC/Mac display was a monster Panasonic plasma that had some serious practicality issues. I'd use it maybe 2-3 hours per week.
None of the other display technologies are that interesting to me. OLED gets close sometimes, but nothing matches the visceral urgency of a plasma panel clocked at 600hz. The noises it would make in bright scenes was crazy. You had to have a powerful sound system to cover up the semiconductor switching. And, that's kind of the entire point for me with a television. Go big or go home. Exhibition. If I just want to consume content without pissing off the neighbors, my MacBook/PC tends to provide a much better experience.
>plasma that had some serious practicality issues
I finally had to let my mid2000s plasma go, only because moving it required two people (I can one-person a mattress). Not even OLED can reproduce those backlightless blacks (but my 48" Aorus comes close, when viewing straight-on).
At my last job we bought a lot of Vizio tvs. We used them for conference rooms, hallway displays, etc. They were reasonably priced and had a good feature set needed.
They have been on a decline for years and this is a nail in the coffin.
There are business models that are dumb displays that you bring your own device to do conference stuff on whatever platform you wish. I'm not current with the pricing but they typically have good warranties.
They are insanely priced compared to disposable Vizios - renting a "real" display monitor for a conference would be $1000 or so (including the shipping, setup, return, usually involving large crates and trucks).
Buying a similar Vizio would be delivered by free by Walmart for $200, you just ignore the setup prompts, stick HDMI in, and give it to a nice hotel employee when done.
This was a what can we order under X dollar amount from Target kinda thing. We bought 2 TVs a month for several years.
I wish rtings had a list of best TVs without smarts.
I have a $1700 Samsung TV. It's quite nice, but I struggle with changing the HDMI input of all things.
Kinda a wild idea I had never really considered, but absolutely a possibility: using a TV as a loss leader to sell ads.
Not sure if that's they're intent here, but I could easily see that becoming a thing (if it isn't already). And what better way to collect useful ad data on people than forcing them to create an account and then tracking their usage of the device.
That's been the standard for a decade. $200 for a 4k 55" TV is not realistic without a secondary profit source
Part of the reason that computer monitors are considerably more expensive. They're higher density, higher refresh rate panels, but they're also dumb so the sticker price has to cover the whole cost; no "netflix" button on the remote control contributing a few bucks or whatever.
This has been a thing for years, and so much so, that there's an entire TV with a dedicated second screen that shows you ads underneath your main screen: https://www.telly.com
Wow. I guess I'm surprised it took this long for banner ads to reach TVs.
I think I have my next startup idea: a physical ad blocker for this thing. We could even have multiple styles: yellow sticky note, duct tape, painters tape.
And if you want cheaper ones, we can print our own ads on your ad blocker!
"ERROR: PLEASE REMOVE AD BLOCKER TO CONTINUE VIEWING."
"TO RESUME PLAYBACK, PLEASE STAND UP AND SHOUT THE NAME OF THE BRAND ON THE LOWER SCREEN"
"THANK YOU. PURSUANT TO YOUR CONTRACT WITH US, A VIDEO OF YOUR PROMOTIONAL ENDORSEMENT WILL BE POSTED TO OUR SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS"
> Kinda a wild idea I had never really considered, but absolutely a possibility: using a TV as a loss leader to sell ads.
They did it with a computer to sell ISP services. Maybe they could sell a TV that requires streaming subscriptions?
https://www.theregister.com/2000/03/20/circuit_city_shuts_do...
TV has always been a loss leader for propaganda, so why not?
This comment brought to you by Ovaltine.
> using a TV as a loss leader to sell ads
That's Amazon's Fire TVs in a nutshell.
it is definitely a thing. a 65" 4K OLED tv costs less than 32GB of ram!
practically every other electronic has gone up in price like crazy, tvs have gone down.
Havent all electronics dropped in price?
Computers are cheaper. Phones are sort of cheaper. Headphones are cheaper.
Game systems cost more.
>Havent all electronics dropped in price?
that does not reflect my reality, for the things i have bought (or considered buying), no.
but i dont have hard data to back that up, so maybe i am wrong about the general case and the price increases are more local or specific to some other variable.
Vizio and every other major brand has been, for years, harvesting data from your smart TV. It's a lot easier to track what you are doing if you have to be logged in.
At this point, it can actually be easier to piece parts together instead of paying for a TV with Tizen OS on a tv that may have a camera to watch you sit on the couch with your fingers all orange from the cheeto binge screaming at the TV because that seems to happen a lot now.
1984 has been here for 10 years, now it's just grown big enough to be noticable.
This actually seems better than before when a vizio account was required. At least now its a walmart account. If forced to choose, Id prefer a walmart account.
Of course, I would never buy this tv because of the requirement. I just buy dumb tvs and then stick an apple tv in front if the hdmi input.
So, just like Google, Amazon, and Roku TV's? (And probably LG and Samsung too?)
Google and Amazon make smart TVs?
No, but neither do Roku. All three participate to embed their software (and hardware, probably) on smart TVs that other people make.
Roku makes TV, as well as Amazon.
All 3 make streaming devices (Stick, set-top box, etc).
Show me a listing for a Roku made TV? All the ones I've seen are for like a TCL Roku tv. Same for Amazon, usually the same makers.
n/m I do see that Roku sells tvs under its own name now. That's a change from the last time I looked.
Sure:
https://www.roku.com/products/roku-tv
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DD2P7YVW
Amazon does in fact have their own brand TVs. I don't know if Google and Roku own a TV brand, but both provide the software that runs on TV's, and both require accounts and sell ads, so it comes out about even.
(Seehttps://www.amazon.com/firetv for Amazon brand TVs)
TV/streaming devices. Amazon's launched in 2014 and GoogleTV in 2010 according to wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_TV_(2010%E2%80%932014)
Amazon has Fire TVs as well as the 'Fire stick' you're talking about.
I still use a Chromecast 2 on my non connected TV. Works well.
At the moment, my strategy is only to own older TVs that have no smart features. Eventually this strategy won't work. When that happens I'll either use a computer monitor or forgo TV altogether.
"A Walmart spokesperson confirmed to Ars Technica that Walmart accounts will be mandatory on “select new Vizio OS TVs” for owners to complete onboarding and to use smart TV features."
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Some questions prospective buyers should ask:
1. Is "onboarding" necessary for this "Smart TV" to function as a "dumb screen"? i.e. Would a user need to get a Walmart account just to access video settings?
2. Does it inject ads or phone home to share screen captures from HDMI input?
3. Is not giving it access to WiFi sufficient, or does this thing have alternative ways of getting "updates"?
Is this a benefit in disguise? You refuse to create walmart account, and therefore your smart TV is rendered dumb and you can just use it like normal?
Dumb enough to show a splash screen that might last anywhere from an infuriating time to nigh infinity, I guess.
Recently I sourced two TVs for my elderly mom, who is never going to stream or use an app. I only looked at TVs which had their manuals online for review. I found two LGs which I could disable the app splash screen, and set to "select last input on power-up", which in her case is a cable box on HDMI-1. Don't know how long choices such as this will be available.
For the data harvesting, TVs should be free. Consumer value will revert when your humanoid can project shows on any home surface and retailers will rejoice that freed up flatscreen floorspace.
Buy an Nvidia shield and never look back
Have they finally fixed the frame rate matching issues?
And you connect that to what?
An airgapped TV I expect.
That's the point though. TVs like from TFA are preventing use when air gapped. As more manufacturers go this route, there will be fewer tvs that will allow that to work
Are they?
I skimmed TFA and what I consider "Smart TV features" are the things the Shield does: Apps, streaming, etc.
I see no indication that picture settings or HDMI features are disabled without an account.
I have a Samsung TV that is "smart" but I use a Shield and never touch my TV remote unless I need to adjust a picture setting.
And disable the telemetry and ads services.
Reminds me of the insta go 360 3s cam I bought recently, have to install a mobile app on your phone to activate it. At least you can uninstall the app after.
The hardware is amazing, the software could improve in terms of how it deals with motion blur and surfaces like gravel.
Now that you mention it, DJI action cameras required the same thing (installing an app to activate the camera). I bought one, discovered this during setup, and promptly returned it and got a GoPro instead.
I have a Hisense Roku TV with on a network with a pihole. It can't reach any of it's ad networks so the interface is always the default. The default isn't great, mind you, but it is ad-free.
Just out of curiosity: why add the TV to your network just to block it from the internet?
Perhaps you stream content to it locally?
I have both a PiHole and SmartTVs — the latter never even get WiFi access (just use them as displays for CCTV & PS4).
It's just easier and my motivation is blocking ads. We have a PS4 also, and the PS4 shows way more ads than just the neutered Roku.
I also don't connect PS4 — but if you have your DHCP server issue your PiHole's address for DNS, then you can probably block that ad server specifically (just like you could for Roku/Vizio).
Wondering when the TV manufacturers begin requiring an internet connection to u se, perhaps even hard-coding DNS-via-https addresses.
>It's just easier [to connect TV to WiFi]
why? What does it make easier for your setup?
I don't have to do anything extra. I have a pihole on my network blocking ads, I have a Roku TV that has the ability built-in to stream from streaming services. I connect the TV to Wifi and my goal of having a streaming TV without ads littering the interface was achieved.
Used to use Roku, but why anyone would use anything other than an AppleTV these days who knows.
It’s obvious that the TV manufacturers have no motivation to provide updates and now they are moving to steal your data.
at this point the TVs should be sold in ad and non-ad supported versions
Wouldn't be at all surprising for Amazon to do that with Fire TVs, it does with Kindles.
Ad version $£€599.00 No ads $£€7.99 Profit.
My Vizio TV stopped working when I put a pihole on our network
The best thing to do is just leave them as dumb TVs until a root exploit is available.
Any TV I buy that forces me to create an account will be returned as defective.
You sort of have to admire what a clever purchase Vizio was for Walmart.
This is a friendly reminder that your local e-waste collection site likely has no shortage of sufficiently dumb TVs available for the taking. (Check local regulations before taking anything without permission.)
This is why I have protonmail aliases, a burner second phone, and an x1 virtual cc. While I can't stop the enshittification, I can fight back by remaining pseudo anonymous and compartmentalize each service.
What you described is aliasing, not compartmentalization. To effectively compartmentalize requires a different email, phone, and CC for every service. By only having one alias of each, the ad networks that are sharing information about you with partners have no obstacles tying together your habits when they see the same proton email, etc across several vendors, even if you have a different name on your alternate products. After these have been matched enough times, there enough of a profile on you to effectively know who you are, even if it is just probable instead of proven. You mention proton, which allows several emails on a paid account, and there are several competitors offering a similar service with varying success, so this should be no problem to implement. There are also companies that offer anonymous CCs, although they are slowly not working. Privacy and Ironvest are two that used to work but I'm not sure if they still do. I'd be interested if you know of CC companies that still work most of the time at vendors. Regarding phones, there are several sources for this as well, depending on whether you want long term or just one time use numbers, but these likewise have been failing as security measures increase.
For now, we can vote with our wallets and avoid this crap. But, how long until the entire TV and display industry requires an account to tether you to each company in order to use their products?
I do that by never shopping at Walmart. I was bored one weekend, and went to a bunch of stores to compare prices. The Walmart near me did have somethings that were cheaper, but for the most part the prices were average with other stores. So I can honestly say for things I buy, Walmart is not worth it for me and it's not just the principle of not shopping at Walmart but it's a principal issue
The Onn TV sticks (Google TV based) are an incredible value (the middle of the line-up $25 version is the best deal currently) for a bloat/ad-free experience if you just install the free Projectivy launcher from the Play Store and uninstall any unused TV apps.
I just have Stremio, Jellyfin and VLC installed and remapped the free TV button on the remote to Stremio.
TV smart features are almost always underpowered spyware, so no Wi-Fi for the TV to use it as a dumb display and BYOSTV.
If one wanted arguably less/different spyware, there's the Fire TV Stick 4K Max* $35, Apple TV 4K* $149, or Nvidia Shield TV Pro** for $199.
* Shows ads
** Shows ads that can be disabled by stopping Google/Android services
I just got a LG G5 and I bought a $499 Mac Mini and a light up bluetooth keyboard with built in track pad. I never see the OS on my TV. Works fantastic.
(dupe) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47510800
In every Smart TV thread there are dozens or hundreds of comments that say people don't put connect their TV to their wireless.
I understand. I've been an EFF supporter for decades, at least when I can afford it. I get it.
The problem though is that you sometimes want to screencast a video or song from your phone. Your dirty dirty phone that has been out in the wild collecting malware. Or a guest does. And sure, what's one video?
And of course your TV doesn't have the latest updates.
It's a fucking perverse incentive that will lead to more regulation of the Internet and IoT when we get malware "leaks" and outbreaks.
The civil libertarians have been co-opted with game theory and smart knowledge of the tragedy of the commons in this case by the intelligence services.
Instead of just educating citizens and democratic debate.
I don't have the political power to sell that idea now, and I know it sounds crazy.
Oh well. I wonder what I can't sell next.
Never have I ever wanted to do that" The problem though is that you sometimes want to screencast a video or song from your phone."
Wishful thinking but I wish the EU would legislate this BS away.
From a security perspective... never connect your TV directly to the network. But artificially creating a Walmart dependency is total garbage.