Reposting this from here from 2023, after I stumbled across it tonight and it hits hard.
The text in the image:
I love my smart TV. I love the way it takes a long time to boot up because it’s trying to refresh the advertisements on the home screen. I delight in the way it randomly restarts because it’s downloaded an update without asking me, each of which makes the TV slower and slower with every subsequent install. I adore the way it buries the apps that I want to use, and that I use without fail every single time, below the apps that it’s being paid to promote and which I have never touched in my life and would never use without the cold metal of a glock pressed hard against my sweating temple. I am infinitely thrilled by the way the interface lags constantly, due to the need to have one thousand unnecessary animations rendered on hardware ripped wholesale from a ten year old phone. I feel myself borne aloft on wings of pure joy when I am notified that my data will be collected and analysed to determine my usage patterns. Even now I am writing this from a field of beautiful flowers and soft luscious grass as I lie and look up happily at the bright blue sky, smiling happily to know that this is the future of technology
How about using computer for all the smart stuff and leaving all the visual stuff to the display? Besides, you can run Firefox and ublock origin to watch YT without ads, so what do you need a smart TV for?
I have a cheap N100 mini-PC with Lubuntu on it with Kodi alongside a wireless remote as my TV box, and use my TV as a dumb screen.
Mind you, you can do it even more easily with LibreELEC instead of Lubuntu and more cheaply with one of its supported cheap SBCs plus a box instead of a mini PC.
That said, even the simplest solution is beyond the ability of most people to set up, and once you go up to the next level of easiness to setup - a dedicated Android TV Box - you’re hit with enshittification (at the very least preconfigured apps like Netflix with matching buttons in your remote) even if you avoid big brands.
Things are really bad nowadays unless you’re a well informed tech expert with the patience to dive into those things when you’re home.
There’s no HDR on Linux solutions. And I do like the HDR.
You can at least swap out the launcher and remap the buttons on the nVidia Shield Pro if you’re that way inclined. It’s not perfect, but there’s fewer compromises.
You get the full fat versions of paid streaming services as well, although I mostly use Jellyfin now.
The only MiniPC solution that does everything right now is going to involve Windows 11…
Last time I was looking for a TV I couldn’t find a single dumb TV unless I wanted to roll back to standard definition, which makes the text in a lot of modern video games unreadable.
That’s what I did, hence only finding standard def. :( I assumed that was the only option, actually. If someone is even making new ones, I’d probably have better luck there.
The smart part isn’t what makes those TVs bad. It is the internet connection that sends you ads, scrapes your data, causes lags and reboots because of updates, and makes your network less secure.
Just connect an other device over HDMI like you would a dumb TV, and never connect it to the internet like you would a dumb TV.
That’s true. I was even more tech illiterate back then than I am now and couldn’t figure out how to switch inputs without going through the menu, which I couldn’t get to without connecting to the internet and going through the whole setup process.
No going back now since I mostly cast from my phone these days since it’s the laziest way for me to watch without ads.
The “smart part” absolutely makes those TVs bad. The meme even addresses this with the line about hardware being ripped wholesale from an old smart phone. Smart TV hardware barely functions when it’s brand new. Fuck everything about smart TVs.
What if I just want the screen to turn on, displaying the last output I used? No, we gotta boot Android and then select the output through a menu for no reason
Is there any indication that they won’t implement this shit at some point?
Also, should we be trying to come up with the most insane “features” in this vein that we can imagine (knowing full well that some corporation will come up with them eventually), and then patent them to protect humanity from them?
Is there any organization that collects patents just to block them (in the consumer’s favor)? A kind of white-hat patent troll? And, if not, should we create one?
The smart ones are sold at cost or at a loss, and your privacy is then sold to subsidize the profits. A dumb tv costs more money up front (since it’s not subsidized by your privacy), but it costs far less in overall value. It’s a tradeoff that the consumer needs to make. The lovely thing, is that (for now, at least) it is still a choice we can make.
Well that’s not true. They have been in business for 40 years. They sell TVs for people who don’t want anything except video in. Mainly commercial places like offices, stadiums, etc.
Not all tvs allow you to do that. Some require you to be online. Some took it a step further and are equipped with 4/5G modems to bypass your network restrictions.
Both of these were in the USA. The first was with a friend’s purchase, the latter was an article he sent me. It’s been a little while, but I know one was Samsung, but can’t remember the other brand or which was which.
I wouldn’t put it past Samsung to try and force you to have internet access enabled so they can spy on you.
However having additional hardware to directly access the internet via cellular is a bit much. That might have been an Aprils fools article by some IT site.
When Sony tried to install root kits on PCs of folks just trying to watch a movie on a legit purchased DVD there was a quite large shitstorm.
A set of torx screwdrivers and an exacto knife will take care of that. Pretty hard for a cellular modem to transmit data when the traces to the antenna are cut.
Keep in mind that these are low-end TVs with, according to reviewers, generally subpar picture and sound quality, with quality issues that make them worse to look at than even old TVs. If you just need “a TV” and your only concerns are that the device is flat, the image in color and some sort of noise is escaping the speaker holes, they’ll do, but don’t expect anything more than that. To me at least, it makes more sense to not connect a smart TV to the network and use a separate streaming device attached to it.
I would even buy a slightly older used dumb TV from a reputable manufacturer over one of these sketchy things, since it’s not like LCD TVs are finicky technology - they tend to last for an incredibly long time in my experience, easily 15 years or more. On my parents’ 2008ish Toshiba (1080p and every analog and digital input in the known universe, which, in combination with an excellent analog upscaler, makes it awesome for old games consoles - but it’s of course no looker in terms of colors by modern standards), the only thing that has broken so far is the spring of the power button, so I bent a wire press it in and a switch at the plug to be able to turn it off completely.
This is getting a bit off-topic, but a relative of mine replaced her flatscreen TV from 2002 (!) just two years ago - and it was still working fine, but since it only had an analog tuner and SD resolution, she was looking for an upgrade. I got her a small 4K OLED from Samsung (since discontinued) and she’s very happy with it (even the “smart” features are quite inoffensive), although I did have to get her a soundbar as well, because if there’s one thing that has regressed on TVs, it’s sound quality, in part due to how ever thinner and lighter designs have reduced speakers to little more than phone speakers on some devices.
I don’t know why you’re being so argumentative. They mentioned that they’re hard to get. You countered with one store in one country that has them. They then pointed out that actually, no, it’s still not easy to get. It’s a pretty damn common interaction between Americans assuming everyone has the same experience as them, and the rest of the world whose experience is very different.
best thing is to never hook 'em up to the internet. provided the manufacturers don’t all start requiring internet to ‘set up’ a tv.
next best thing would be a revert of firmware or a full ‘reset’ of settings; if possible. to return it to an ‘out of box’ state–then above, never connect it to the internet.
replacing a cheap streaming device is a hell of a lot cheaper than replacing the tv once the software gets obsoleted for whatever reason.
my coworker (and boss, technically) just casually mentioned that her inlaws ‘updated’ their tvs when they were visting over the holidays. i cringed so fucking hard because i have the same model, just smaller–so i know what happens.
they had just recently hooked-up wireline internet and could actually stream stuff now… so i had just given them a new streaming stick to use instead of connecting their now 3 year old tv to the wifi.
You’d still have the TVs default OS running on a potato. I’m thinking more along the lines of replacing that with a bare bones old school OS that was responsive.
True, but a 3 year old TV with original firmware would have been pre-adpocalypse. My never-connected LG boots pretty quick when it was last on an HDMI port before turning off.
Wifi doesn’t have default credentials any more… These days, there’s legislation (at least in California) that requires default passwords to be randomly generated, but it’s recommended to have no default password at all and instead prompt the user for a password when setting up the device.
That’s why some access points have the default password either printed on the box or on the bottom of the device.
i wonder if they were dumb enough to just use algorithms based on mac or the default ssid or something… so if you knew the scheme and knew the password composition (characters used, or wordlist, whatever), you could come up with the ‘default’ password for a wifi point.
Companies are probably doing the easiest thing, and it seems easier to make it completely random. I can imagine something very basic like a giant spreadsheet of all the devices being produced, and running some formula to enter a random value into every cell in a particular column.
but then they have to keep that data–and you just know they keep all those passwords. (support call… q:i dunno what the password is/can’t read the sticker. a:gimme x or y off your unit, and i’ll look it up for you).
but if they do it programmatically, all they’d need is the code to recreate any password if given the constant used to create it (the ssid or mac or sn, for instance).
hopefully they would use something that can’t be obtained off the wifi broadcast, like the sn on the unit.
I have mine disconnected from the network, but a certain non-techie member of my household (who doesn’t understand this stuff) keeps re-connecting it when they want Netflix to work, even though I’ve shown them how to do this without connecting the TV to the network.
I connected it once, then set it in the router as „enable child protection -> disable internet access“, gave it a static IP address and also blacklisted that address on my pi hole so that DNS won’t work for it. Then I immediately disconnected it. The router recognizes the TV with its MAC address when it gets reconnected and immediately bans internet access when it gets reconnected.
I’ve set up mine to automatically start on a specific HDMI port, that fixed the issue for confused family members.
To find the feature though was not easy. Had to look up how to access the hotel mode hidden menu.
Apparently LG has extra features it only wants hotels to be able to use.
Apparently LG has extra features it only wants hotels to be able to use.
It’s more that hotels will buy in bulk if a TV has the features they want - and those “hotel mode” controls being hidden from typical hotel guests is one of those features.
Which brand is this? So I never have to go near it…
I have a Samsung TV from a few years ago, never connected it to the TV, so when I turn it on it just goes to the last used input (HDMI1 in my case). The bootup isn’t even that slow , maybe 5 seconds or so. Not great, but not terrible…
These fucking televisions have less ram than my fucking 8 year old phone
At some point it’s just better to factory reset this bitch and paste an RPI in the back with my own android TV so it can actually run with 8gb ram 256gb space
We have a Samsung “smart” TV, hooked up to an AppleTV box. The TV’s original remote is in a drawer somewhere, forever unused.
I have the apps that I need, the tiny Siri Remote turns on the TV and handles volume, and, apart from the aggressively, insanely, mind-blowingly horrible on-screen “keyboard” / text input (we don’t have Apple phones we can use to mitigate this, sadly. Also, what the fucking fuck, Apple?!) we’re happy. For now. I trust Apple to make the experience incrementally worse as a fact of life.
Not perfect, but leagues better than dealing with Samsung’s interface.
Can you give a recommendation? I too looked for big displays and found commercial ones to be used as digital billboards but the specs weren’t all that good (no oled, no hdr).
I can’t, unfortunately. I still have an old Smart TV that isn’t too offensive and doesn’t show me ads. If it starts showing me ads sometime, then it’s gone. But I’m not really a videophile and I’ll watch shows on anything so I haven’t really looked at what’s better, only at what’s cheapest. I do hear it can be tricky because the commercial displays are meant to be brighter than TVs and maybe it can be hard to get them dialed in the way you want.
Apparently some manufacturers makes internet mandatory at first boot and even if you block or disconnect it later it will nag you for firmware update every now and then.
The only possibility I have found for an EU customer at the moment is Sony Bravia. Yup Sony sucks but apparently Bravia’s let you choose to refuse the terms of service and not use the smart things, thus making them dumb tv.
But maybe I’m wrong, maybe it’s not the case anymore or maybe they will decide to change that.
That sucks, if any of you knows about a commercial display/computer monitor/dumb tv in oled 4K hdr 55’ available in Europe, I might fall a little bit in love with you.
I recently got the Bravia XR-55A95L probably going through the same thought process as you. You can indeed just skip all the TOS and set it up as a Basic TV.
However: The software is crap. Complete garbage. Random reboots - I already had to reset it once completely because it no longer showed a picture (and then set it up again). Every day it will show you a notification that it’s not connected to the internet DESPITE having networking disabled completely.
I tried to update the TV from USB and it failed every time. I eventually gave in and connected it to the internet to update it only to see that I‘m already on the newest version (which I assume is also why updating from USB failed with a generic error).
I never had this much trouble with a device that costs as much as a MacBook or a high end gaming PC and I would’ve already returned if the competition wasn’t even worse.
Thanks for the feedback, it is greatly appreciated as those things are expensive.
I guess we are fucked until the EU make a new pro-consumer law. But that would take years (if they ever make it).
Another possibility would be to use a projector (it is only for homelab NAS movies afterall). I have a xgimi in my bedroom and it is somewhat great once connected to the free AppleTV my ISP gave me. Otherwise the default google tv OS on it is pure shit.
The competition doesn’t sound worse to me. My smart tv from 2019 is rock solid.
Sony is just known for amazing picture quality and abysmal software, so that’s just par for the course. If you want a stable TV return it and get some of the other models using the same panel (IIRC a QD OLED from Samsung Display).
AFAIK, LG still do not require internet access on first startup.
At least on their medium/high end lines (C and G series).
This was a hard requirement for me. Mine has never been on the internet.
I love having a projector in the living room.
I won’t lie, it gets used far less than I’d like.
But it cost me almost nothing, and it’s just fun to have a massive wall of video.
I’m sure they exist (though at what price point?) but I have a hard time imagining a projector (and a surface to project on), that can reach anything close to the black levels of a modern OLED panel.
Again, I’m sure they exist, but at comparable prices?
Is that true? Because I was under the impression that even the darkest “blacks” from a projector, are still made from the light coming from the device. Which is not necessarily the same thing as a pixel on an OLED TV being set to “off”.
But I am far from an expert. Also, as I said, I’m sure some really amazing projectors are out there, I just imagine they’re cost prohibitive for most people.
Is that true? Because I was under the impression that even the darkest “blacks” from a projector, are still made from the light coming from the device
You’re probably thinking of contrast, which is the ability of the projector to avoid bleeding light into areas that shouldn’t have any. But as far as the darkness of the black levels, that’s down to room treatment (and the screen surface, to a lesser extent). After all, a projector emits light, and darkness is simply the absence of light. You can’t “make” darkness, you can only remove light.
I recently got a TCL TV that has Google TV on it. The reason I chose it, even tho it’s not the highest quality 4K capable TV, is that on first boot it gives you the option to choose dumb TV or smart TV modes. Have never connected it to the internet. Maybe you would have some luck looking into that!
I also recently got a tcl with google, and haven’t hooked it to the internet.
The OS on it isn’t very good (seriously too many menus in too many places), it sets full brightness and then reduces to setpoint when you change inputs, and I haven’t figured out why it boots up my ps4 every time I turn on the tv, but beyond that I’ve been pretty happy with it.
You can get an HD Homerun. It’s a network tuner so you plug the antenna in it and then, you can watch tv on pretty much any device through the app (pc, google tv, android, iOS, etc). You can even record, pause live tv, etc…
Well that’s way beyond the original question, sorry to derail the thread ;)
I never understood why people hated smart TVs until one day mine decided to install an update that presents me with advertisements and a hub screen when I turn it on. If I don’t select something in time, the screen disappears, which locks all of the controls, and I can only reset it by turning it off and on again. Why??? Just why?!?!
It works, but it needs a bit of work. In particular, you need a router capable of redirecting all DNS call to the DNS you specify (Asus routers can do that, for instance). Moreover, one should also use a blocklist to forbid the connection to most common DoT/DoH public servers, such as
I went from pihole, to Adguard Home to (finally) ControlD. I chose to eventually outsource the DNS because I was letting all family without connection when playing with my miniserver :-P
Rented a house over the holidays that had a Samsung Smart TV.
The UI is mind-bogglingly bad and slow.
The remote is also absolutely terrible and unintuitive. The keys that feel like they should be the arrow keys… aren’t. So even simple navigation through menus is painful.
I was dumb enough to get a random Samsung phone for a while. The ROM was on the SoC so it wasn’t possible to change short of getting out an atomic force microscope.
Sounds like smart TVs usually have older hardware, though, which could actually be a saving grace.
Yeah, it’s bound to happen eventually, although they’ll probably never be exactly as good or cheap as the ones for the sucker mass-market. Think Fairphone.
In the meanwhile, we just have to keep kludging in old solutions or alternate solutions, like a monitor. Or you could personally launch an enterprise if you’re so positioned, I guess.
I’m surprised I’ve yet to hear of a homebrew industry of completely cutting out the microcontrollers and soldering in a Pi or something to drive the raw display. I don’t predict it to be easy, but it doesn’t seem completely unobtainable?
Flashing a custom bootloader would be even better, but I assume that hasn’t been done because they got that shit cryptographically locked down at the chip level.
There’s definitely custom ROMs; I run one on my current phone. You should too, if your model makes it possible - they tend to be OSS Android forks and can do whatever the stock one can, but better. (DivestOS being my personal choice, for the Google-freeness)
I suppose I could have cut out the SoC and replaced it with the same SoC but not locked already. I didn’t think of that, lol! Maybe I still could - it’s still relatively new, but selling the thing feels like letting a great evil back into the world. I have no idea how hard the particular one is to pull apart in a controlled manner.
Using a different chip would be pretty hard. You said microcontroller, but a phone is closer in function to a desktop PC than a dishwasher. There’s high-bandwidth things going on and you’re going to need a lot of bespoke circuitry and software to kludge it. Forget about the end product having the same form factor, too.
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How about using computer for all the smart stuff and leaving all the visual stuff to the display? Besides, you can run Firefox and ublock origin to watch YT without ads, so what do you need a smart TV for?
I have a cheap N100 mini-PC with Lubuntu on it with Kodi alongside a wireless remote as my TV box, and use my TV as a dumb screen.
Mind you, you can do it even more easily with LibreELEC instead of Lubuntu and more cheaply with one of its supported cheap SBCs plus a box instead of a mini PC.
That said, even the simplest solution is beyond the ability of most people to set up, and once you go up to the next level of easiness to setup - a dedicated Android TV Box - you’re hit with enshittification (at the very least preconfigured apps like Netflix with matching buttons in your remote) even if you avoid big brands.
Things are really bad nowadays unless you’re a well informed tech expert with the patience to dive into those things when you’re home.
There’s no HDR on Linux solutions. And I do like the HDR.
You can at least swap out the launcher and remap the buttons on the nVidia Shield Pro if you’re that way inclined. It’s not perfect, but there’s fewer compromises.
You get the full fat versions of paid streaming services as well, although I mostly use Jellyfin now.
The only MiniPC solution that does everything right now is going to involve Windows 11…
Because it’s “convenient” and people are lazy.
Last time I was looking for a TV I couldn’t find a single dumb TV unless I wanted to roll back to standard definition, which makes the text in a lot of modern video games unreadable.
Yeah… I got a Sony OLED as my most recent TV and the picture is incredible. Best I’ve ever seen.
Even if I could find “dumb” TVs, I doubt they reach that level of quality.
From my experience, it’s best to just buy a used dumb screen. Check if it’s working properly and doesn’t have any screen problems and you’re golden.
That’s what I did, hence only finding standard def. :( I assumed that was the only option, actually. If someone is even making new ones, I’d probably have better luck there.
But you don’t need a dumb TV.
The smart part isn’t what makes those TVs bad. It is the internet connection that sends you ads, scrapes your data, causes lags and reboots because of updates, and makes your network less secure.
Just connect an other device over HDMI like you would a dumb TV, and never connect it to the internet like you would a dumb TV.
That’s true. I was even more tech illiterate back then than I am now and couldn’t figure out how to switch inputs without going through the menu, which I couldn’t get to without connecting to the internet and going through the whole setup process.
No going back now since I mostly cast from my phone these days since it’s the laziest way for me to watch without ads.
Wrong
The “smart part” absolutely makes those TVs bad. The meme even addresses this with the line about hardware being ripped wholesale from an old smart phone. Smart TV hardware barely functions when it’s brand new. Fuck everything about smart TVs.
Except some models won’t let you do anything until you “activate” your smart TV, which requires an internet connection.
What if I just want the screen to turn on, displaying the last output I used? No, we gotta boot Android and then select the output through a menu for no reason
My TV boots to the last input selected. It’s a smart tv.
Mine too, just takes a while to go through all the google, android, TLC screens before it gets there.
Good thing that is only at the start.
Because finding dumb screens is actually difficult and smart TVs are cheaper.
People don’t hate ads enough to go through the trouble of using better options. Once you’ve lived without ads for a while, there’s no going back.
Its only a matter of time.
Insert verification can copy pasta
Sir, yes sir!
Is Sony actually a good guy for holding this patent so that no one else can go and do this shit either?
Is there any indication that they won’t implement this shit at some point?
Also, should we be trying to come up with the most insane “features” in this vein that we can imagine (knowing full well that some corporation will come up with them eventually), and then patent them to protect humanity from them?
Is there any organization that collects patents just to block them (in the consumer’s favor)? A kind of white-hat patent troll? And, if not, should we create one?
As if they’d ever let you skip adverts, even by dancing for them like a monkey.
There is a brand that makes dumb TVs.
https://www.sceptre.com/TV/4K-UHD-TV-category1category73.html
At only double the price of an equivalently priced smart one! Bargain /s
The smart ones are sold at cost or at a loss, and your privacy is then sold to subsidize the profits. A dumb tv costs more money up front (since it’s not subsidized by your privacy), but it costs far less in overall value. It’s a tradeoff that the consumer needs to make. The lovely thing, is that (for now, at least) it is still a choice we can make.
Which is an entirely fair compromise for people who use Lemmy, but means precisely nothing to the majority.
Well that’s not true. They have been in business for 40 years. They sell TVs for people who don’t want anything except video in. Mainly commercial places like offices, stadiums, etc.
Yes because the majority own/buy TV’s commercial places like offices and stadiums.
I’m not understanding what the point is that you’re trying to make? I’m sorry.
I said that the privacy concerns being worth the cost of a “smart”-free TV means nothing to the majority of people.
You said that this isn’t true, and that their main customer is commercial places.
I suggested, in response to this, that the majority of people don’t own such commercial places.
What part are you not understanding?
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Or you could just block the Spyware TV from accessing the internet.
Not all tvs allow you to do that. Some require you to be online. Some took it a step further and are equipped with 4/5G modems to bypass your network restrictions.
I’d take it back to the store as broken. Never heard of that though.
Never heard of this either and it would raise a massive stink in the EU. Can you share an example?
Both of these were in the USA. The first was with a friend’s purchase, the latter was an article he sent me. It’s been a little while, but I know one was Samsung, but can’t remember the other brand or which was which.
I wouldn’t put it past Samsung to try and force you to have internet access enabled so they can spy on you.
However having additional hardware to directly access the internet via cellular is a bit much. That might have been an Aprils fools article by some IT site.
When Sony tried to install root kits on PCs of folks just trying to watch a movie on a legit purchased DVD there was a quite large shitstorm.
A set of torx screwdrivers and an exacto knife will take care of that. Pretty hard for a cellular modem to transmit data when the traces to the antenna are cut.
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Good to know about, thanks a lot!
Keep in mind that these are low-end TVs with, according to reviewers, generally subpar picture and sound quality, with quality issues that make them worse to look at than even old TVs. If you just need “a TV” and your only concerns are that the device is flat, the image in color and some sort of noise is escaping the speaker holes, they’ll do, but don’t expect anything more than that. To me at least, it makes more sense to not connect a smart TV to the network and use a separate streaming device attached to it.
I would even buy a slightly older used dumb TV from a reputable manufacturer over one of these sketchy things, since it’s not like LCD TVs are finicky technology - they tend to last for an incredibly long time in my experience, easily 15 years or more. On my parents’ 2008ish Toshiba (1080p and every analog and digital input in the known universe, which, in combination with an excellent analog upscaler, makes it awesome for old games consoles - but it’s of course no looker in terms of colors by modern standards), the only thing that has broken so far is the spring of the power button, so I bent a wire press it in and a switch at the plug to be able to turn it off completely.
This is getting a bit off-topic, but a relative of mine replaced her flatscreen TV from 2002 (!) just two years ago - and it was still working fine, but since it only had an analog tuner and SD resolution, she was looking for an upgrade. I got her a small 4K OLED from Samsung (since discontinued) and she’s very happy with it (even the “smart” features are quite inoffensive), although I did have to get her a soundbar as well, because if there’s one thing that has regressed on TVs, it’s sound quality, in part due to how ever thinner and lighter designs have reduced speakers to little more than phone speakers on some devices.
Good luck finding them though, we’ve never found a place either offline or online that sells them.
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That assumes we are in the US, whomp.
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I don’t know why you’re being so argumentative. They mentioned that they’re hard to get. You countered with one store in one country that has them. They then pointed out that actually, no, it’s still not easy to get. It’s a pretty damn common interaction between Americans assuming everyone has the same experience as them, and the rest of the world whose experience is very different.
I will remove comments, sorry for offending you.
Not really, apologies we came off that way.
We just haven’t seen them where we live, online or offline, though we would really like to.
Thank you, hope you have a great week!
Hey no worries fellow human, context and tone are hard on internet text chat. I probably came off as a snarky bastard. Enjoy your month! ;)
None of us are a guy, thank you though. We appreciate it!
I honestly wonder how hard it would be to do a full lobotomy on a smart TV and if there would be a big enough market for that kind of service.
best thing is to never hook 'em up to the internet. provided the manufacturers don’t all start requiring internet to ‘set up’ a tv.
next best thing would be a revert of firmware or a full ‘reset’ of settings; if possible. to return it to an ‘out of box’ state–then above, never connect it to the internet.
replacing a cheap streaming device is a hell of a lot cheaper than replacing the tv once the software gets obsoleted for whatever reason.
my coworker (and boss, technically) just casually mentioned that her inlaws ‘updated’ their tvs when they were visting over the holidays. i cringed so fucking hard because i have the same model, just smaller–so i know what happens.
they had just recently hooked-up wireline internet and could actually stream stuff now… so i had just given them a new streaming stick to use instead of connecting their now 3 year old tv to the wifi.
You’d still have the TVs default OS running on a potato. I’m thinking more along the lines of replacing that with a bare bones old school OS that was responsive.
True, but a 3 year old TV with original firmware would have been pre-adpocalypse. My never-connected LG boots pretty quick when it was last on an HDMI port before turning off.
I have heard that some TVs attempt to connect to every WiFi they can find using default credentials even if you never connect it yourself
Wifi doesn’t have default credentials any more… These days, there’s legislation (at least in California) that requires default passwords to be randomly generated, but it’s recommended to have no default password at all and instead prompt the user for a password when setting up the device.
That’s why some access points have the default password either printed on the box or on the bottom of the device.
They’ll just connect via yourneighbors’ smart tv
Oh yeah, that makes sense, thanks!
i wonder if they were dumb enough to just use algorithms based on mac or the default ssid or something… so if you knew the scheme and knew the password composition (characters used, or wordlist, whatever), you could come up with the ‘default’ password for a wifi point.
Companies are probably doing the easiest thing, and it seems easier to make it completely random. I can imagine something very basic like a giant spreadsheet of all the devices being produced, and running some formula to enter a random value into every cell in a particular column.
but then they have to keep that data–and you just know they keep all those passwords. (support call… q:i dunno what the password is/can’t read the sticker. a:gimme x or y off your unit, and i’ll look it up for you).
but if they do it programmatically, all they’d need is the code to recreate any password if given the constant used to create it (the ssid or mac or sn, for instance).
hopefully they would use something that can’t be obtained off the wifi broadcast, like the sn on the unit.
Hmm, yeah, good point. It could be based off a hash of the serial number or something similar.
That’s an important caveat. And it appears that increasingly manufacturers are adding that requirement.
Yup. I bought a roku tv last Nov for a spare bedroom. Thing would not operate without a wifi connection and roku account.
I have mine disconnected from the network, but a certain non-techie member of my household (who doesn’t understand this stuff) keeps re-connecting it when they want Netflix to work, even though I’ve shown them how to do this without connecting the TV to the network.
I connected it once, then set it in the router as „enable child protection -> disable internet access“, gave it a static IP address and also blacklisted that address on my pi hole so that DNS won’t work for it. Then I immediately disconnected it. The router recognizes the TV with its MAC address when it gets reconnected and immediately bans internet access when it gets reconnected.
I’ve set up mine to automatically start on a specific HDMI port, that fixed the issue for confused family members.
To find the feature though was not easy. Had to look up how to access the hotel mode hidden menu. Apparently LG has extra features it only wants hotels to be able to use.
It’s more that hotels will buy in bulk if a TV has the features they want - and those “hotel mode” controls being hidden from typical hotel guests is one of those features.
Connect the TV to wifi, then go into your router’s settings and block it. It’s usually under “Access Control” or “Security”.
I have simply blocked internet access (but not local network access) for mine. I only use it for jellyfin and Nintendo Switch tho.
And it won’t stay on the selected input. No signal? Gotta go back to the screen with ads.
Which brand is this? So I never have to go near it…
I have a Samsung TV from a few years ago, never connected it to the TV, so when I turn it on it just goes to the last used input (HDMI1 in my case). The bootup isn’t even that slow , maybe 5 seconds or so. Not great, but not terrible…
Vizio.
Same here, Samsung from 2019.
Actual Post
Thanks!
These fucking televisions have less ram than my fucking 8 year old phone
At some point it’s just better to factory reset this bitch and paste an RPI in the back with my own android TV so it can actually run with 8gb ram 256gb space
Last I looked, we could still buy commercial displays. They’re dumb TVs. They cost more, of course.
We have a Samsung “smart” TV, hooked up to an AppleTV box. The TV’s original remote is in a drawer somewhere, forever unused.
I have the apps that I need, the tiny Siri Remote turns on the TV and handles volume, and, apart from the aggressively, insanely, mind-blowingly horrible on-screen “keyboard” / text input (we don’t have Apple phones we can use to mitigate this, sadly. Also, what the fucking fuck, Apple?!) we’re happy. For now. I trust Apple to make the experience incrementally worse as a fact of life.
Not perfect, but leagues better than dealing with Samsung’s interface.
Can you give a recommendation? I too looked for big displays and found commercial ones to be used as digital billboards but the specs weren’t all that good (no oled, no hdr).
https://www.techforless.com/products/NEC/40-44_Inch_Monitors/M431.html?id=7nvNn3Vc This one is HDR.
OK, but it’s edge-lit and extremely tiny. You can get much better Smart TVs for less money, and then just never connect it to the internet
I can’t, unfortunately. I still have an old Smart TV that isn’t too offensive and doesn’t show me ads. If it starts showing me ads sometime, then it’s gone. But I’m not really a videophile and I’ll watch shows on anything so I haven’t really looked at what’s better, only at what’s cheapest. I do hear it can be tricky because the commercial displays are meant to be brighter than TVs and maybe it can be hard to get them dialed in the way you want.
Ah! I was reading that post yesterday https://lemmy.world/post/22309068 as I am looking for a 55’ 4K oled dumb display.
So far no joy.
Apparently some manufacturers makes internet mandatory at first boot and even if you block or disconnect it later it will nag you for firmware update every now and then.
The only possibility I have found for an EU customer at the moment is Sony Bravia. Yup Sony sucks but apparently Bravia’s let you choose to refuse the terms of service and not use the smart things, thus making them dumb tv.
But maybe I’m wrong, maybe it’s not the case anymore or maybe they will decide to change that.
That sucks, if any of you knows about a commercial display/computer monitor/dumb tv in oled 4K hdr 55’ available in Europe, I might fall a little bit in love with you.
I recently got the Bravia XR-55A95L probably going through the same thought process as you. You can indeed just skip all the TOS and set it up as a Basic TV.
However: The software is crap. Complete garbage. Random reboots - I already had to reset it once completely because it no longer showed a picture (and then set it up again). Every day it will show you a notification that it’s not connected to the internet DESPITE having networking disabled completely.
I tried to update the TV from USB and it failed every time. I eventually gave in and connected it to the internet to update it only to see that I‘m already on the newest version (which I assume is also why updating from USB failed with a generic error).
I never had this much trouble with a device that costs as much as a MacBook or a high end gaming PC and I would’ve already returned if the competition wasn’t even worse.
Ah shit.
Thanks for the feedback, it is greatly appreciated as those things are expensive.
I guess we are fucked until the EU make a new pro-consumer law. But that would take years (if they ever make it).
Another possibility would be to use a projector (it is only for homelab NAS movies afterall). I have a xgimi in my bedroom and it is somewhat great once connected to the free AppleTV my ISP gave me. Otherwise the default google tv OS on it is pure shit.
The competition doesn’t sound worse to me. My smart tv from 2019 is rock solid.
Sony is just known for amazing picture quality and abysmal software, so that’s just par for the course. If you want a stable TV return it and get some of the other models using the same panel (IIRC a QD OLED from Samsung Display).
AFAIK, LG still do not require internet access on first startup.
At least on their medium/high end lines (C and G series).
This was a hard requirement for me. Mine has never been on the internet.
That’s good to know, thanks.
But after my message this morning I decided to try out my xgimi projector in the living room instead of the bedroom.
It is perfect like that and I will give the tv (old LG 1080p). A bedroom is not a home cinema anyway, because you don’t want crumbs in the bed 🙄
I love having a projector in the living room.
I won’t lie, it gets used far less than I’d like.
But it cost me almost nothing, and it’s just fun to have a massive wall of video.
I’m sure they exist (though at what price point?) but I have a hard time imagining a projector (and a surface to project on), that can reach anything close to the black levels of a modern OLED panel.
Again, I’m sure they exist, but at comparable prices?
That’s a room treatment issue. You need to control light and reflections, because your “black” is just however dark the projector screen is.
Is that true? Because I was under the impression that even the darkest “blacks” from a projector, are still made from the light coming from the device. Which is not necessarily the same thing as a pixel on an OLED TV being set to “off”.
But I am far from an expert. Also, as I said, I’m sure some really amazing projectors are out there, I just imagine they’re cost prohibitive for most people.
You’re probably thinking of contrast, which is the ability of the projector to avoid bleeding light into areas that shouldn’t have any. But as far as the darkness of the black levels, that’s down to room treatment (and the screen surface, to a lesser extent). After all, a projector emits light, and darkness is simply the absence of light. You can’t “make” darkness, you can only remove light.
Does Sony suck? I mean, their “SmartTV” software is garbage, but so is every other brand.
The picture on my Sony Bravia OLED is better than anything I’ve seen, including relatives’ LG OLED panels.
But yeah, the software side is trash.
I recently got a TCL TV that has Google TV on it. The reason I chose it, even tho it’s not the highest quality 4K capable TV, is that on first boot it gives you the option to choose dumb TV or smart TV modes. Have never connected it to the internet. Maybe you would have some luck looking into that!
I also recently got a tcl with google, and haven’t hooked it to the internet.
The OS on it isn’t very good (seriously too many menus in too many places), it sets full brightness and then reduces to setpoint when you change inputs, and I haven’t figured out why it boots up my ps4 every time I turn on the tv, but beyond that I’ve been pretty happy with it.
It’s a very decent dumb tv.
Same. TCL is pretty good at being a dumb TV.
Wouldn’t trust it if it is connected to the internet though.
My LG so far doesn’t nag about no internet. If you have all AI features disabled at least.
i haven’t even turned on my tv in over a year because of that bullshit. i’ve just been using a monitor + laptop + 2.1 pc speakers.
Same, but I go the other route. Laptop to wall sized tv and sound system.
We still watch free, over-the-air TV, so need the tuner. Free PBS and NHK for the win.
You can get an HD Homerun. It’s a network tuner so you plug the antenna in it and then, you can watch tv on pretty much any device through the app (pc, google tv, android, iOS, etc). You can even record, pause live tv, etc…
Well that’s way beyond the original question, sorry to derail the thread ;)
Never heard of that option so thanks for the info! That could be the missing piece if I ever get a non-Smart TV.
I never understood why people hated smart TVs until one day mine decided to install an update that presents me with advertisements and a hub screen when I turn it on. If I don’t select something in time, the screen disappears, which locks all of the controls, and I can only reset it by turning it off and on again. Why??? Just why?!?!
You know why.
99.9% of all these “problems” can be solved by using an ablocker DNS and a couple of adb commands (on Android).
Too bad adv commands are blocked on firetvs 😢
Well, yeah, though luck… Amazon (the store) is entirely banned from my house.
I thought this doesn’t work cause AndroidTV forces its own DNS server, specifically 8.8.8.8, Googles own.
It works, but it needs a bit of work. In particular, you need a router capable of redirecting all DNS call to the DNS you specify (Asus routers can do that, for instance). Moreover, one should also use a blocklist to forbid the connection to most common DoT/DoH public servers, such as
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists/main/adblock/doh-vpn-proxy-bypass.txt
tl;dr It can be done and it’s relatively easy, but one has to learn how to do it and choose proper tools (HW and SW).
I’d be setting up a pihole if I had a smart tv
I went from pihole, to Adguard Home to (finally) ControlD. I chose to eventually outsource the DNS because I was letting all family without connection when playing with my miniserver :-P
I have a Samsung smart TV and the operating system on it is so annoying. It’s so slow, has dumb ads, and I can’t cast to it like at all.
I’m even more pissed that they just disabled the Steam Link app for essentially no reason; it worked great for streaming games from my PC.
I’ve been thinking it would be cool to flash a different OS onto it, but I’m not sure if that’s actually possible.
Rented a house over the holidays that had a Samsung Smart TV.
The UI is mind-bogglingly bad and slow.
The remote is also absolutely terrible and unintuitive. The keys that feel like they should be the arrow keys… aren’t. So even simple navigation through menus is painful.
I was dumb enough to get a random Samsung phone for a while. The ROM was on the SoC so it wasn’t possible to change short of getting out an atomic force microscope.
Sounds like smart TVs usually have older hardware, though, which could actually be a saving grace.
Meanwhile, the marketing department reading this: “Boss! It’s working! The people are actually enjoying it!!”
“Also, can someone get the engineering team on the phone to figure out that glock thing?”
Don’t worry, silicon valley is already making headway into government (where all the big guns and the monopoly on force is).
Sounds like an obvious spot in the market for a bullshit-free smart TV. You’d just have to get the UX right.
Yeah, it’s bound to happen eventually, although they’ll probably never be exactly as good or cheap as the ones for the sucker mass-market. Think Fairphone.
In the meanwhile, we just have to keep kludging in old solutions or alternate solutions, like a monitor. Or you could personally launch an enterprise if you’re so positioned, I guess.
I’m surprised I’ve yet to hear of a homebrew industry of completely cutting out the microcontrollers and soldering in a Pi or something to drive the raw display. I don’t predict it to be easy, but it doesn’t seem completely unobtainable?
Flashing a custom bootloader would be even better, but I assume that hasn’t been done because they got that shit cryptographically locked down at the chip level.
There’s definitely custom ROMs; I run one on my current phone. You should too, if your model makes it possible - they tend to be OSS Android forks and can do whatever the stock one can, but better. (DivestOS being my personal choice, for the Google-freeness)I suppose I could have cut out the SoC and replaced it with the same SoC but not locked already. I didn’t think of that, lol! Maybe I still could - it’s still relatively new, but selling the thing feels like letting a great evil back into the world. I have no idea how hard the particular one is to pull apart in a controlled manner.Using a different chip would be pretty hard. You said microcontroller, but a phone is closer in function to a desktop PC than a dishwasher. There’s high-bandwidth things going on and you’re going to need a lot of bespoke circuitry and software to kludge it. Forget about the end product having the same form factor, too.What?
This is a discussion about televisions.
Fuck, wrong thread.
Somewhere else I was talking about a phone I bought expecting I could flash it, but that I couldn’t. I read this as a reply to that.
Yeah, it seems like it should be doable. Actually, it’s weird that big monitors cost so much considering it’s the same size of display.