Or is there at least one where Smart mode can be turned off verifiably AND it doesn’t keep enticing you to turn it on by withholding ease of use or some convenience feature until you just give up?
Is there a proper term or category for a monitor meant for high end installations that has no branding on it (e.g., as one would put into a display at a museum)?
I refuse to buy something with a logo on the front of it.
You might want to search for "Public Display" monitors. Although these usually have some smart-ish software used to run digital signage and stuff, they probably don't spy on you.
That model has a logo on the stand. It's pretty small, but logos are generally fairly small on almost any current TV (since thin bezels are in style, which doesn't leave much room for a logo).
Have you considered concealing the logos? I ask because I haven't and I'd be interested to hear the thoughts of someone who has. I imagine there could be lots of ways to conceal logos attractively if know-how and slightly greater effort is on the table.
I've heard you can polish out logo's with a sugar cube. Never tried it myself but the idea is it's hard enough to scrub off a printed logo but soft enough as not to scratch the plastic.
if the logo is attached with adhesive, you can slip the floss under the plastic logo and floss it off without damaging the TV (which you may if you just try to pry it off)
I would imagine you could carefully remove the label with the right tools, or if the TV will be far away enough from people, some thin black tape over it.
Believe me though, I agree it's completely stupid you have to do that to avoid branding. But I doubt most companies would do that. Particularly for installations that have a ton more eyeballs on it than a family + their friends.
I buy laminate off eBay that’s consistent with my tv / monitor covers, matte / reflective black. It’s noticeable if you look but better than the alternative.
Samsung ‘the frame’ has branding on the side. It’s a shame the software on recent versions has a user hostile iptv component that doesn’t seem to have a disable function.
I bought a TV for a monitor. 55" 4K curved Samsung a few years ago for about $600. It went down in price and is probably discontinued now because curved TVs are stupid. Never connected it to the internet, so it's not too smart.
Also, a real "monitor" doesn't come with a TV tuner and this did.
Lack of TV antenna input can be a good thing if you live in a country that collects extra taxes for having a TV, like Austria, Ireland or Poland, as your screen is not a TV by law. IMHO there isn't much value in TV channels nowadays anyway.
I lived in the UK in the 80's and remember they had TV ads that showed a SWAT team stacking up and then bursting into an apartment, grabbing a guy watching TV on his couch, throwing him on the floor and handcuffing him and then a big banner:
"PAY YOUR TV LICENSE FEES. NOT DOING SO IS A CRIME."
Yeah, I was aware of these and while it’s pretty crazy, I also used to drive with a radar detector detector detector[1] so it’s not like electronic warfare with the police is an alien concept to me. I just thought Britain was too polite to literally threaten people with SWAT teams over unpaid TV licenses.
[1] A radar detector is used to detect police radars, which are used to catch speeders. Police responded with radar detector detectors, which detect radar detectors, which are legal but police don’t like them. The citizen countermeasure, built into your better radar detectors, is the radar detector detector detector, which detects radar detector detectors and can additionally protect your radar detector from itself being detected. I am not aware of the successful invention of a radar detector detector detector detector.
In Japan, you’re supposed to pay for NHK, so they send old people door to door whose job is to guilt you into paying. I pretended I didn’t speak Japanese and then went back inside for more of that great bilingual nightly news bwahaha
I don't mind these fees. It's better than collecting the same in taxes as it keeps the public broadcaster independent from political oversight, at least to a certain degree.
No, it's much worse than taxes. Taxes are (at least in theory) collected equitably. TV/radio feeds are collected equally from everyone (except a couple of exceptions). If you have a low income you still pay the full fees. If you fall into one of the exceptions it is up to you to convince the fee collectors of that. Don't do that in time and you have to pay the fee anyway.
Not to mention having a second set of taxes with second set of collectors is just wasteful.
And don't tell me that this is about the TV/radio stations being independent of the government - the government is the one that decides on this fee so that changes nothing about the TV/radio stations incentives to not rock the boat.
And not to mention that a lot of these fees are not even used for providing "unbiased" news (which is what is used to justify them) but are funneled into private companies via sports licensing and other questionable entertainment.
Pay per view would add exactly the kind of incentives that would be disastrous. It's important that public broadcasters are (comparatively) free from commercial and political pressures, that's the only way to execute the mission they have been created for.
As far as cable boxes go, what are they using for connections these days? I haven’t seen one in ages as everyone in my social circles (as a child of the early 80s) dropped cable years ago.
In my case, even with a couple of the 'smarter' (heh) TVs I have, I use HDHomeRun, which lets me pipe antenna TV through to all my devices and TVs pretty easy (and set up a central DVR if I need to).
I have a Sharp Aquos I got around 2014 and it's pretty good. I haven't used the smart functions on it since 2015 and nothing pops up to upsell me features... It also doesn't have any hidden cameras or microphones on it from what I can tell. If it fails me, I'll probably try to find a lightly used copy of the same model. Sharp TVs have always been reliable in my experience since I was a kid.
These days I only buy slightly older tech, and it costs less too. New tech has too many new features bent on betraying and upselling me, worst crime is that they make you pay extra for the deceitware and bloatware.
I really don't need 4k unless it's on my gaming PC monitor/
True, but that's the easy part, there are plenty of distros one download click away. Dumb TVs or large monitors, on the other hand, are not easy to come by and/or very expensive.
Yes that's true, the problem is that some smart TVs don't work at all or only partially if not connected... and it's not easy to know which model will suffer from this, since "works without wifi" is not a commonly advertised feature, unfortunately.
I have a Ryzen-based HTPC connected to an old "dumb" TV, when that one dies, I will have to either find a store where they let me test the TV in the showroom (so I can verify that that model works with wifi turned off), or I will have to spend more and get a large monitor instead.
Alternatively I could look at "digital signage" or "hospitality" TVs which are dumb by design. However those are not easy to come by in my local market (Sydney, Australia).
The often-given advice of "just don't connect it to the internet" is viable only sometimes. My TV shipped with some missing features that were enabled after a software update.
Perhaps plug it in, update the software, and then unplug it again.
Vizio has also apparently decided to ramp up it's ad growth [0] and Jump Ad [1] platform as well. It makes me real glad that I didn't drop the money on a P Series Quantum due to technical issues people experienced. I've stopped considering them completely since.
It's important to remember these reviews can become outdated with firmware, too. Even old TVs can suddenly start "benefiting viewers, content providers and advertisers" with "features" like ads playing as screensavers, and phoning the content of your screen back to Big Brother.
Here's a related Reddit thread from the Jump Ad announcement [2].
Another option if you have good control over your router is to put the TV and other smart devices on a special subnet or vlan and only occasionally give it internet access for updates, etc. Maybe there's a good DNS-based ad blocker you could run on its vlan and nuke all of its ad and spy traffic too.
This actually seems like a good market opportunity for yet another home device, a router with aggressive spyware and ad mitigation that's made to explicitly connect all your smart gadgets and untrusted devices that phone home.
Well, no - GP an isn’t exactly correct. They use DNS, they just won’t use your configured DNS. You can play NAT tricks to force all UDP dns queries to your pihole or other DNS based blocker, but they can just as easily use DOH.
>A white hat (or a white hat hacker) is an ethical security hacker.[1] Ethical hacking is a term meant to imply a broader category than just penetration testing.[2][3] Under the owner's consent, white hat hackers aim to identify any vulnerabilities the current system has. [...] There is a third kind of hacker known as a grey hat who hacks with good intentions but at times without permission.[6]
I use a Pi-hole for the network, but this doesn't block YouTube ads (sadly). Since I refuse to see ads of any stripe ever, I discovered that my Amazon Firestick can be put in developer mode and then install SmartTubeNext. Looks very similar to YouTube, but blocks all ads, sponsor content, and other nonsense. Pure videos.
I of course also use UBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, Decentraleyes, and Referer Block on the laptop in addition to the Pi-hole. I do the same at work, as they allowed me to use a Pi-hole since I'm IT and on my own portion of the network on a private VLAN.
Since some people use laptops in lieu of TVs, you can always use FreeTube, which blocks ads by default and can also be proxied in the settings so YouTube cannot see your location.
https://freetubeapp.io/
I just saw a TV labeled, "Android TV", and was curious. Wow. I won't be going forward and will probably just pay up for a commercial grade type set, or some combination of monitor / tuner.
So far, I've been lucky. After finally moving off of a CRT for primary TV viewing, I picked up a smart plasma from Samsung. Never put it online, and that TV is awesome! Gonna miss it one day. Looks like OLED is going to deliver nicely, and that's what I'm looking at in the future.
Did pick up two "Hi Sense" ROKU sets, and they are remarkably clean. Apparently, there are sets out there sans the AD spamming, and or I bought in just prior to this all very seriously escalating.
Roku gets you with ad targeting for ad supported programming. So, things with commercial breaks play ads based on what you watched on other channels. It's remarkably good at joining web browsing sessions from cookie-free web browsing sessions to my roku. I'm not sure what mechanism they use to join the accounts to web browsing sessions.
Ditto. And what's to stop someone from making a relay/chip/switch to turn the speakers into microphones when the TV is off-not-off, save Big Co LLC the microphone costs and get a big fat promotion? If it's possible, someone will do it. Remember when Goog "forgot" to mention the Nest microphone?
If I have to narrow down a specific definition of "smart feature" I would say voice input of any sort. So my take on OP's question is: can I buy a TV that has no built in microphones? Maybe OP meant something different but that is what I would want. Simplest though is to just not have a TV at all. If there is something important, it will be online.
Yes that would be a close enough definition of what I meant. But I am also not sure if some TVs come with built in cameras. I don’t want those either. I am not happy with, but willing to tolerate, the “what I am watching” tracking that comes with say Apple TV. The 42” LG monitor with remote and speakers suggested elsewhere sounds interesting.
Thanks all for the suggestions plus related discussions. The unrelated discussions are also very welcome. They are what give HN its “unique” flavor.
I ended up buying a cheap TCL brand TV a while ago. It still had all the smart features (which I didnt want) but at least it did have a physical switch to disable the microphone.
If the TV has no Internet connection, the mic is useless. I use an Amazon Firestick in developer mode connected to a network that uses a P-hole and other mitigation efforts to keep all the nasty tracking, beacons, etc. minimized. Nothing is 100%, but we can come close. What I'd like to see is a browser that doesn't allow scanning of fonts, etc. There has to be a way to perhaps fake what they can see and poison their data collection.
I’ve kept my Samsung offline since I purchased it in 2019. I’ve kept my LG offline since I purchased it in 2016. As long as you have an AppleTV or similar connected to service your need for “smarts” it won’t be hard to leave the TV offline.
(I recommend LG over Samsung - Samsung TV has native undismissable ads from 2019 still)
I've been doing the same; get an AppleTV or GoogleTV dongle and never, ever attach the LG or Samshung TV to the network.
Benefits of this strategy:
* So simple, even non-savvy folks can follow the rule
* Protects your privacy
* Eliminates an unnecessary, highly invasive, and parasitic advertising vector (ads directly from LG or Samsung)
* Protects your TV performance and functionality from surprise degradation due to "updates"
I don't see any significant downsides compared to the upsides :)
It's unfortunate the manufacturers are in a position where such perverse anti-customer incentives exist.
All we really need and want is a great product crafted with love. What we got was a creepy spy box that eventually gets so slow it becomes unusable and worthless e-waste.
these two things are at complete odds. appletv is only marginally better, but it is better. anything google is going to spy on you for its own benefit and those of its advertisers.
personally, i don't watch enough tv to have cable and use an appletv on a restricted vlan (no internet to the tv) to watch streaming services, but also will occasionally watch broadcast tv OTA. google is completely blocked at the firewall.
it's the least bad option right now (that still allows you to watch just about any content), not a great long-term one. as apple establishes itself more and more in the content business, i'm sure they'll eventually succumb to more invasive tracking and targeting for advertisers as well.
It's about having some control, rather than attaching the entire TV to the network and letting it run completely wild until it eventually "updates" to degraded functionality.
> Why can't we have a consumer organization that protects us from having to buy stuff that we don't want.
You don't have to buy stuff you don't want.
You just can't buy the stuff you do want without it being bundled with stuff you don't want - the manufacturers have decided there's no market for it.
Evidently it's more profitable to persuade a large fraction of people that they are “consumers”, whose lives are a series of branded commercial experiences, than it is to cater to the unlucrative number of people who object.
Being disappointed that stuff is degrading due to anti consumer for the sake of increased profits is not consumerism.
Depriving people of TVs, phones and computers is not the solution. Redirecting them to the FOSS alternatives which are more expensive, have less features and are harder to use is also not a solution.
No, please no committees of incompetent government stuffed shirts that raise the barrier to entry so high that only the established megacorps and their armies of lawyers can hope to compete. Instead, mandate that people must be allowed to opt-out of ads/tracking antifeatures, with private right of action so consumers don't have to rely on government agencies to enforce the standards.
"private right of action" -> means that private individuals can sue the corporations that break the rules, they don't have to rely on a government agency to bring charges. (I'm not against government agencies also bringing charges, but that shouldn't be the only enforcement mechanism)
> and never, ever attach the LG or Samshung TV to the network.
I recall seeing some pictures of models that eventually refuse to display content until they get a network connection to update (well, really, download new ads).
> refuse to display content until they get a network connection to updatw
If they refuse to run built-in apps (like netflix/hulu/etc), I can see that, makes sense. But if you dont use those TV apps anyway and just get all content on TV through Chromecast/AppleTV, that refusal doesn't matter at all.
Source: that's how I've been running my own setup for a while, zero issues. Tried with both a 5+ years old 4k Sony smart TV and a more modern LG C1.
> Protects your TV performance and functionality from surprise degradation due to "updates"
Instead, it will have its own upgrades which will degrade performance and/or UI.
A recent Android TV update on my Xiaomi Android TV brought ads covering a 1/4 of the screen from services I'm not subscribed to. Had to revert the upgrade and stop it from updating.
No ads on AppleTv. Or I don’t see them. Also used PS4 as a TV. But it wasn’t super convenient without a remote. But overall the TV dongle is the way forward IMO
I just added an old laptop behind the tv. I ripped everything from the laptop - screen, keyboard, fan - everything. What is left is the MB + SSD and USB port where I've added wi-fi and wireless keyboard usb. Also bought some oversized radiator and put it on the processor so I am fanless now.
The thing gets warm only when you play 4k youtube video.
If you go this route, you will want to stick to older technology for audio and content peripherals. Otherwise you will have to connect it to the internet for bugfixes.
For example, imagine you want to keep a smart TV offline but you also want the latest greatest eARC features over HDMI 2.1; or you want that new Dolby tech to work with your PlayStation 5. That's stuff that came out in the last couple years. Assume it will take the TVs five years to work seemlessly. In the meantime you're gonna need firmware updates. It won't work out of the box. Or maybe it will, but with a noticeable lag.
Whatever smart TV model you're considering, read the patch notes and visit the fan reddits so you know what you're getting into.
An alternative is to get a gaming monitor; however these rarely reach TV screen sizes so if you're looking for 45"+ you're stuck with smart TVs
As a practical matter, I'm not especially concerned about ToS updates since my TVs are never online. The only way to exfiltrate data is to log it all and then upload as a chunk when I next do an update, or to log into a public wifi network and send data that way. But the former is not likely, and if they can do the latter I'm already defeated.
I also don't care about tiles on the home screen, because I literally never see the home screen. I always have a device plugged in (and have never connected a TV to the internet for software or other updates, thankfully).
My 2019 Samsung does a fine job at eARC using its factory firmware, but I’m fine with PCM stereo audio.
My 2016 OLED LG model had a firmware update that supposedly would halve the max backlight to the point where the TV was unusable. Since I never connected the TV, I was safe from this but as you said I might miss out on some features.
Frankly, as I get older I can appreciate that statement.
I can see it still, but I don't care. And thinking about it, I quit caring at 1080i. (Growing up with CRT video, interlace isn't something that bothers me)
I super appreciated 1080p :)
And that's all I really need. What I've noticed is that my appreciation of the material doesn't improve with the resolution beyond 1080p. And I really like glowing phosphors in tubes, first the CRT, then a pretty great plasma that I plan on camping on, until whatever OLED thing makes sense at some point in the future.
That set will probably run well beyond 1080p. I won't care, might even run it at 1080p anyway.
Extreme detail seems to take me out of the production sometimes, or I see artifacts that I would not see at a lower resolution. Think people call it the "soap opera" effect.
Resolution isn't the only thing that is is improving. If anything, resolution has pretty much flatlined with 4K at least for now (yes, there are 8K screens if you have too much money but the pay off just not there). Contrast and colors however are much more easily noticeable. Evene someome with bad eyes can notice the ugly grey that pre-OLED monitors call "black".
I think they mean more saturated colours? Though I suppose the current OLED TVs already support DCI-P3 and there is no bigger colourspace available for video content.
Edit: Actually, one thing that LG do is that they have a white pixel (RGBW layout) for the really high brightnesses required for HDR. This means colours get paler when the white pixel is used. This could be what they meant.
Really? I thought LG was pretty good. I'd have bought one already but I'm thinking about moving house and I don't want to have to deal with a fragile 55 or 65" TV. Also, I need the money for a downpayment.
I currently have a 32" LG LCD which I'm also pretty happy about. It's obviously no OLED and it's not 4K but for a cheap LCD it's pretty decent. I also love the serial control options (over USB) and I'm working to integrate it with Home assistant (so my screen will dim also when I dim the lights in the room).
Not to derail the overall discussion but LG OLED is still the best blacks and the best option if you can control room lighting. The latest Samsung QLED has gotten closer on blacks (though the latest LG have gotten closer on brights too…) and is still the brightest but neither “beat” the other, it depends on if you want the blackest blacks or the brightest brights. Also of note is the QLED only goes to 65”, LG goes to 83” Check out comparisons on rtings.
Ok for me I'd want the blackest blacks for sure, I would often use my screen in the pitch black. It's because I live in Spain and in the summer I live with the windows wide open and that means that at night I can't have lights on or my house will be swarming with bugs (the creepy crawly kind, not the regular HN kind :P ) You can use netting etc but in my place this is really difficult.
So yeah that would be super important. Thanks for the comparison!
> The AppleTV he recommended to use in its place has ads too I believe, through sponsored app placements
This really is the most nitpicking anti-Apple comments I’ve seen in a while. A friend of mine had a TV that would randomly interrupt films and programs he was watching (even in the middle of an action sequence) and show an ad that was inserted by the TV software. Luckily only happened for about 6 months - I’m guessing viewer reaction was too much for this ‘feature’ to survive.
To see the ‘ad’ you’re referring to, you’d have to go into the Apple AppStore, search for an app, go to the result screen and maybe see a small section at the top of that view with a sponsored application.
Pick your poison. Doesn't have to be Apple TV, you could use anything from a Roku to a kodi stick to plugging a computer into the TV and playing things locally. What you're criticizing isn't the point.
Feel free to substitute a computer running GNU/Linux as the “smarts” here. This can be quite ergonomic with a wireless trackpad-keyboard combo. I’m quite happy with an Apple TV running Emby though.
Maybe I'm being a bit cynical but given that there are data channels provided by some HDMI cables/endpoints - do we know that for example the Apple TV cannot support an Ethernet-over-HDMI connection or that if it could support it, it's configured by default not to route traffic to/from this port?
I think this feature was a commercial failure so hopefully it's universally unsupported.
This will work for now, but device manufacturers are working towards building out mesh networks. You may not have connected your TV to the internet, but your neighbor did, and your TV can piggy back on your neighbors connection.
I can see that coming - examples are Amazon's sidewalk project and Apple airtags.
At present, connecting your device is an opt-in since you have to give it wifi creds. In the future, devices will be connected by default and you'll have to opt out if you want to disconnect. Even if you're one of the few people who opt out, devices are going to have fine print that they can always receive "critical" updates via mesh.
Eventually many devices simply assume they are always connected, it's baked into their operation. They'll delegate key features to the cloud and opt-out won't even make sense.
Tv warranties are only a year so that’s not much to worry about. I bought a top of the line Samsung many years ago. The warranty lasted only a year and some capacitors burned out it took lots of phone calls to get them to repair as it’s a design defect.
> As long as you have an AppleTV or similar connected to service your need for “smarts” it won’t be hard to leave the TV offline.
Do these TVs start up and boot directly into the selected input for something like an Apple TV, or do you have to go to extra hoops when it starts up to switch to your desired input? I'd actually be perfectly happy with a smart TV that's disconnected if it never throws its UI in my face when I'm trying to just use an input for something.
My "smart" Vizio TV and LG projectors just go directly to the last active input (in my case a Google TV). I never even remember they have their own built-in smart OSes because I never see them.
However, these days, most of the streaming sticks have their own shitty recommendations and ads anyway, so unless you're doing a self-hosted Plex box or something, expect ads. And then of course there are the actual streaming service ads.
The Apple TV menu only shows preview cards for apps in the top row. Most apps show what you're currently watching, but other apps (Prime Video, ATV+, Twitch) will show promos instead. Best to move these apps to the right end of the top row, or down into the 2nd or 3rd row.
> CEC (Consumer Electronics Control) allows for HDMI devices to be controlled with one remote control.
> If you try to cast to a CEC supported TV while on a different source input (local TV channel, Cable, USB), source input will automatically switch to the HDMI port where the Chromecast is connected. Certain TVs will also power on (when powered off) when trying to cast to the Chromecast.
I have a relatively new smart TV that I’ve never connected to anything and when I turn on my Apple TV with the remote it goes straight to Apple’s interface
+1 one day I got tired of my Vizio tv's "smarts" being the school dunce. Some of it was on the app developers (Eg Amazon app ran terribly on my TV), so I bought a chromecast google tv thing and it's completely revitalized my tv .
make sure you don't use a Roku to make your TV "smart", because it is phoning home constantly 24/7, especially when you're interacting with the remote or anything in the OS. If it can't phone home for a while and it's aggressively blocked, the OS will interfere with other apps, preventing them from running until the Roku stick can phone home.
Amazon FireTV also phones home quite a bit , but since it runs android you can sideload a firewall like Netguard to try and contain some of the telemetry and usage data being siphoned off the device
Another Sony+Apple TV user here. Have had a couple of different Sony TVs, and if you keep them offline and never specifically request the smart TV UI (button on remote), they act almost indistinguishably from dumb TVs.
They also run near-stock Android TV so even if I decided to use the built in smarts, the experience probably wouldn't be too bad. They do come with a content ID daemon preinstalled, but that's easy enough to remove with a laptop connected via USB with ADB.
Additionally, Sony has been great about supporting firmware updates via USB flash drive, so you're not missing out on fixes and improvements by opting to keep it offline.
I did this with my LG TV as well. What ads do you refer to on Samsung though? I dont recall any ads on my Samsung. I have my Samsung hooked up to the internet until I buy a second Apple TV device.
It's hard to find definitive information on this, but from what I can recall I don't think Samsung actually rolled out the current ad platform until mid-2019, and only in certain regions. So you might have been spared if you never updated your firmware or were in a region with no Samsung ad sales channel.
I have a Samsung Device from 2021 and an LG one from like 2016 or so the LG I never hooked up to the internet, but the Samsung I keep online due to not having a streaming device for it, and maybe I'm just not noticing any but I have no ads. I also keep it plenty up to date.
I’m thinking of buying a TV, haven’t had one for a very long time (was using projectors).
When researching, what blew my mind is that the HDMI spec now includes Ethernet-over-HDMI (called HEC - HDMI Ethernet Channel). The end devices just need to support it.
That got me thinking that perhaps we might see popular set top boxes like AppleTV transparently start giving internet to the connected smart TVs, perhaps against our wishes and with no way to turn it off.
I know them as 'digital signage' or 'hospitality tvs' and they do work for their intended use. But they're usually a lot more expensive than their consumer counterparts? My guess is they are either heavily subsidized and/or built to be powered ON 24/7?
DS displays are built better, yes (usually, they get the top yield of panels with the target resolution and in outdoor cases also stronger background lighting). The real difference however is the explicit guarantee that there will be support and spare parts available for anything from 5-10 years or that there will be at least a mounting-compatible successor model.
Since noise is usually not a factor to be considered, they are also usually built with much bigger temperature profiles in mind than your consumer indoor TV (e.g. by using cooling fans or heating elements) so they can work just as well in -20 °C in the winter or at 80 °C in the summer heat.
Also, some of these offer features that consumer displays do not offer:
- YUV or SDI inputs
- RS232 remote control / status monitoring
- especially in zero-bezel modules: support for grid processing. Basically you have a HDMI/DVI/SDI input and a loop output, and you daisy-chain the whole bunch of displays. Then you tell each of them to slice and upscale just a specific part of the picture.
My concern with these is that for commercial use, they're generally designed to be brighter and more eye-catching, so it's hard to get that "picture frame" look like the Samsung Frame has when it's in standby mode (I still honestly don't know how they do it because I've experimented with all the backlight/contrast/other settings on other displays and it doesn't look anywhere near as good, whereas with the Frame, people are often legitimately surprised that it's a TV). I'd also assume that commercial applications also aren't interested in low power consumption. Some of the "digital signage" displays I look at are like 200W where the Frame claims a 0.5W standby.
It's not that they make more on selling ads than the end user pays for the TV. It's that the manufacturer makes more on the ads than their tiny share of the price that the user pays. A mfr might only make single digit $$ of margin on a TV sold at retail in the US (I'm talking about low-end and mid-tier TVs, not > $1,000 units.)
This wasn't a business model that was a factor in the launch of 1080p high def TVs or the subsequent fall in prices.
I don't even recall it being much of a factor in the launch of 4K TVs which launched at typically very high prices and begun falling in price without ads becoming a big thing.
TVs today are an absolute hellscape. It’s crazy that my 15 year-old samsung is superior to today’s market in every way except resolution; no network connection/random updates/ads/screenshot hashes being send, a simple and instantaneous remote, and it doesn’t take a full minute to turn on or change the input.
Nobody wants this garbage if they actually understand what is happening. The only “solution” I know is to never set up the network, and use appletv or similar set top box (which will still have unobtrusive content placement ads and likely tracking). A VLAN might work to support casting but is a administrative headache.
I’d pay primo money for a dumb samsung that just ran their 2008 firmware. LG now has TVs with cameras built in, the stuff of nightmares. Idiocracy is real.
More important to me than lack of “smart” features (as long as it is functional without using them or connecting to the internet) is responsiveness to user input. I just want a TV I can quickly turn on/off and change volume and input.
My current Vizio is extremely sluggish for some reason.
It’s correlated with input latency of the TV. Your tv may have a “gaming” setup option, that will decrease latency to a reasonable level. rtings.com has a lot of make/model-specific docs on this.
From the website of the display's successor model...
> Accepts Intel® Smart Display Module Small or Large allowing for sleek all-in-one intelligence and interoperability in a small form factor setting by accepting Intel processor-based products and other peripherals directly into the displays
> Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 allows for future proof expansion and NEC Mediaplayer support (Q2 2021)
TIL about a new standard (Smart Display Module + Open Pluggable Spec). This is the real killer solution to bad smart tv's. This would be a killer way to control a smart tv, and allow replacing the smarts inside it without needing a bunch of HDMI dongles. Get the benefit of integration, without the commitment.
I just reviewed a newer model (MA551-MPi4E) with the CM4, and it is a breath of fresh air after a couple app-ridden ones I've used in the past 5 years.
My review is on my website (link in profile), or on my YouTube channel.
I just recently donated an older Sharp-NEC display that I got for $20 at a recycler.
Absolutely worth the two years that it spent on my console as a Chromecast target. They're probably one of the best displays I've ever owned, and the fact that there's an API to go along with it is even better.
Oh this is really interesting. I had no idea this was a thing. Does the compute module need to run anything special or does it just behave as an input separate from any HDMI or whatever other inputs on the back?
This sounds right up my street. My crappy smart TV is the worse. I went searching and this warning stood out:
> Legal Disclaimer To California Residents
>WARNING: This product can expose you to chemicals including Styrene and Formaldehyde (gas), which are known to the State of California to cause cancer, and Lead, which is known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm. For more information go to www.p65warnings.ca.gov
> Maybe you can use the search to find those similar questions.
But the answers are probably out of date by now.
E.g., my answer about buying a cheapo Spectre from Walmart-- that one has been out of stock for at least two of the several times this topic has been brought up now.
Walmart stocks them during November for shopping season. The sceptre tvs are my go to for large viewing needs. If you are into perfect picture quality, it takes some settings tweaking to get to tolerable but in my opinion is ideal for just normal TV watching and video games.
It's as dumb as can be. There is no hardware for networking; caveat on this is I haven't cracked it open but my network is monitored and I have not seen a peep from it in 4 years. It can read media files from a USB or external drive which is nice. If you have a lot of devices to connect, you'd be best suited to get a nice hmdi switch, but I only have three so a nice universal remote and some cable management works just fine.
-edited for spelling
This is why large monitors are so expensive, because they aren't subsidized by the ads large TVs force upon their users for the most basic usage.
But if you can afford it, there are 40+" 4k and 8k monitors to which you can plug AppleTV/Chromecast/a small PC with a budget discrete graphics card. Or you can get a conference projector if no monitor on the market meets your size needs.
That's a myth, even if subsidies do exist. Monitors were always more expensive than similar size TVs because they have better specs, more features, and longer warranty.
The technical advantages of monitors are valid reasons for higher cost (refresh rate, response time, color accuracy, gsync/freesync), but as mentioned in the video itself, TVs do have enough tech that monitors don't to offset those differences (size+resolution, brightness uniformity, OLED/curved/thinness options), so it should be a wash.
However, the video you linked doesn't really address the advertisement subsidy point at all (I searched the transcript for any references to make sure), so it isn't really an argument that the ad-subsidy is a myth. Plenty of reporting and discussion and evidence that traditional TV advertising industry (untargeted cable/broadcast ads) is declining in revenue, but the overall TV ad industry revenue is growing (share taken up by smart TV and streaming service ads) is going up. Streaming services absolutely use platform data where they can access it (ie smart TVs). A 1997 article sounds like it would have no context whatsoever about the 2020 smart TV advertising landscape (very very different from traditional TV advertising).
Ad revshare is just so lucrative, especially for ~$0 cost/unit for the manufacturer that it pays for every smart feature and onboard computer and then some. The difference in cost for net-comparable features is still apparent — the cheapest monitor at size-resolution combo X with worst refresh rate/response time/color accuracy is still more expensive than the cheapest smart TV at X (roughly comparable features).
The point of the 1997 article was to show that even before Smart TVs and advertising revenue existed monitors were still more expensive than TVs, so nothing changed.
Your parent post implied that if advertising revenue wouldn't exist, TVs would not be much cheaper than monitors.
There are cheap no-name TV producers in China which sell ultra cheap TVs without them making any advertising revenue.
I don't deny that ad revshare is very lucrative, but it's not the reason TVs are cheap. You can have them both, sell TVs at tiny margin above production cost and get extra ad revshare.
In 1997, monitors and TVs were much more different technologically than they are today. Today TVs and monitors are much closer in underlying technology/capability (discrete pixels, same video signal standards, similar illumination and color tech). LCD monitors were available in the 90s (13" was fine for a monitor, not for a TV) and were understandably many times more expensive than the hitherto strictly CRT TV tech.
Even between CRT TVs and CRT monitors, they weren't even signal compatible with each other. Maybe with a discrete graphics card that could convert pixels to NTSC/PAL outputs? Was that ever a thing in the 90s? Modems to convert cable signals to VGA output? TVs had scanlines because the signal they received represented horizontal lines as modulated analog signals (+ an analog audio signal) which were displayed back as lines after demod, rather than mpeg-bits received via modulated digital signals which were displayed as pixels. All of this meant that other than sharing the presence of a cathode ray tube, monitors and TVs were quite technically distinct. So yeah, in 1997 there were very good reasons why monitors were more expensive, which have since disappeared as the media world converged on digital transmission + output. TVs and monitors are more colinear in the fundamental tech and protocols today, end-to-end, with the differences mostly being auxiliary or in specs.
IIRC where I grew up, the price differences were even more ridiculous in the 90s but because market conditions amplified the technical differences — a TV was a mainstream household appliance, and anything PC-related was enthusiast/technologist hardware.
There are several no-name monitor manufacturers from China too, and their ultra-cheap monitors are similar in price to the ultra cheap non-ad-revenue-TVs (with similar low quality tech specs usually), or price differences more obviously explained by feature differences.
>But if you can afford it, there are 40+" 4k and 8k monitors to which you can plug AppleTV/Chromecast/a small PC with a budget discrete graphics card. Or you can get a conference projector if no monitor on the market meets your size needs.
Buying a smart TV but not connecting it to wifi seems preferable to both of these. It's cheaper in price (than buying a professional monitor), and has superior picture quality (compared to projectors).
How did TV manufacturers do this before they created "smart" TVs that forced advertising on us? I still have a dumb TV that was cheaper than contemporary monitors that couldn't force adverts on me.
That's just a straight up lie. The current best Insignia TV (the F50 line) has a crappy 60hz panel with no local dimming, no real hdr, bad gradient handling, a bad scalar, mediocre colours, and low hz PWM dimming. It's honestly a shit TV that will give people headaches due to the low 240hz PWM frequency (ideally you wouldn't use PWM dimming at all). It also lacks variable refresh rate support (which modern consoles have), and can't do 4:4:4 chroma in case you ever wanted to use it with a computer. It is most definitely not a high end panel.
They're cheap, and that's about the only thing they have going for them.
Re: Samsung, they only makes a few TVs that are decent these days. They've ruined their brand by removing features from mid tier models and soured enthusiasts due to their terrible laggy ad-ridden interface, the cheating in benchmarks, the downgrading of panels in high end models to low contrast IPS panels, and the lack of Dolby Vision because they want people to use their own HDR10+ standard (not to be confused with HDR10).
Bought a LG C1 last year, every-time I got the option to say "NO" to any agreement I said no. So far I haven't seen a single advert in the past year. The voice commands don't work. But who really wants to talk to their tv lol.
I mainly use it for Plex and my Xbox, everything works really well for those purposes, so I appreciate LG at-least giving me the option to not use all of its "smart" features.
Just don't ever give it the wifi password. Drive the TV from a PS4/PS4, xbox series X or home theatre PC. Use the youtube/netflix/amazon video/whatever client software on those platforms.
I have a thousand times more confidence that microsoft or sony will keep their operating system patched and free from zero days than some random OS on a TV. And at least they're big enough that their telemetry and data collection practices are documented.
Yes, it's true you can't get much use out of an xbox series x without an internet connection, but at least you know what you're getting yourself into in advance.
Unfortunately, that won't stop it from using (local or drive-by) open networks if it wants to, nor will it signal to manufacturers that some of us don't want internet-connected TVs.
If stuck with a smart TV, I would remove or disable the radio module. If buying new, I would look at computer/gaming monitors, commercial displays, a few lesser-known models/brands (e.g. Sceptre), and projectors.
It's going to come to hardware hacks and Faraday caging our houses to maintain personal control over the devices we purchase. Houses will have to behave like firewalls and you whitelist the device types you want to communicate with by explicitly piping them in, rather than the poor attempt at managing networks in software we have at the moment.
Honestly, a Faraday caged house doesn't sound like a bad idea. Sure, you'll have to install a solution for mobile phone coverage (assuming you want it), but it would help solve a lot of issues like congestion and unwanted parties attacking to your wifi. Even if it's not a perfect cage, if it damped the majority of wireless signals it would probably be enough.
They're going to get more aggressive about putting LTE/5G SIMs into the devices, maybe as eSIMs. That will make it a lot harder to disable their remote monitoring functions.
Already happening. I bought a new excavator, and it has hidden GPS/LTE modem in it. The only way I knew is that the dealer told me to disconnect the battery when parking it, or it'll eventually drain due to the modem. Of course, they only told me after I bought it. It's the new norm. I guess if I miss a payment they'll remotely shut it off?
As a Canadian, I'm wondering what would happen if I popped across the border and bought a TV in the US. Would it still connect? Are they paying roaming charges or do they have a plan that covers all of NA?
IoT type data plans are not super expensive and they can include roaming.
I’d expect manufacturers to split it by continents so their NA model has roaming in Can, US, Mex. And their EU model has roaming all over the EU because otherwise it’s a stocking nightmare if you can only sell one device in one country.
the equipment will be glued shut too, so if you want to remove the antenna you'll have to take a dremel to the back of the casing and cut out a rectangle in a specific spot so you can snip the small 50 ohm coax going to the LTE antenna too... it'll happen.
Its literally not. Sidewalk is based off LoRa, which has serious bandwidth and duty cycle constraints. Its effectively limited to sub-dialup speeds, which will heavily limit its ability to get OTAs over it, never mind download 4k video ads.
It probably could be used for very limited telemetry, however.
If you read the paper, the goal of Sidewalk is to handle "how do I unlock my smart door" when your power/internet has gone sideways. It's intended for super low bandwidth "please pass this note to this device" type situations.
The paper is written by Amazon. Of course they're going to present it as a benefit to the end user.
But I'm personally sure that "keeping visibility on a device the user doesn't want to be connected" is also a goal. I could be wrong but Amazon is just as focused on data collection everywhere as Google.
Perhaps Amazon simply doesn't understand some of us want all our devices to not be connected to their hive all the time. But I'm sure the reason they want this is for their benefit, not ours.
thinking that amazon and its partners won't inevitably abuse having a backdoor network path for low data rate/telemetry in and out of consumer electronics without your consent (possibly feeding off a neighbor's sidewalk-enabled AP or similar) is a very naive view.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the next iteration of TVs will take ads over a data signal over OTA deals with TV stations and display localized ads in programming and in their apps.
It's possible but it would be one way in most locations. But yeah I'm sure it'll be possible. I have it on my list to look for ways to block Amazon sidewalk by the way.
Personally I don't even have cable TV. I never watch live TV anymore. I get all my news from the web (I never liked watching TV for it) and shows I just download or stream.
You may need to explicitly opt out somehow or connect the tv to a dummy network that blocks all traffic. I am having trouble finding the source on google again but I remember reading about some tv manufacturers automatically scanning for and connecting to open internet connections to update and upload telemetry data even when no Wi-Fi network was provided.
>I am having trouble finding the source on google again but I remember reading about some tv manufacturers automatically scanning for and connecting to open internet connections to update and upload telemetry data even when no Wi-Fi network was provided.
To my knowledge I can't find any reliable first-hand accounts of this happening. It's all pseudonymous internet commenters claiming it's happening, or tech news websites reposting said claims. For a phenomena that should be so easy to reproduce (all you need is a smart TV plus a laptop with wireshark), the absence of reliable evidence should be used as evidence against its existence. It's in the same category as "facebook is secretly eavesdroping on your conversations".
During the 90s I remember there was this big fuss when Gateway 2000 was introducing the first "smart/PC" TV to the market.
Steve Jobs went on record as saying something along the lines of "Not only will it not work out, it shouldn't, because TV is the place where people head to at the end of the day to shut their brains off, not figure out even more ways to interact with tech."
It made sense then and like Steve Jobs said, the Gateway smart/PC TV turned out to be a major flop at the time despite tech mags raving about its introduction.
It would seem, unfortunately, that the approach manufacturers seem to have taken in modern times is one of "WRONG! We'll MAKE it work by shoving the approach down consumers' throats by making sure ALL TVs insist on spending over a half hour pushing buttons before people can sit down to watch something and relax."
I believe so – there's this little-known, oldie-but-goodie brand called, "Torrents+External Drive®" in the West, and China has their own approach to "I can't even anymore" called "TikTok" ... perfect for just sitting down for a while and just watching shit instead of rolling out a project management spreadsheet to figure out what to watch and how to set things up so you can actually watch it.
Buy a TCL panel and never connect it to the internet. They are technically marketed as Smart TVs but there is no requirement that you connect them, and there are zero prompts or limits if you don’t. I’ve been using them for years and love them, primarily for the stupidly simple remotes and UI.
there's often a reason TCLs are very cheap, however, the 55" 4K for sale at costco for $280 right now is fine if you only ever use it in a dark room, but even when cranked up to 100% brightness is near unusable in a sunny room when a samsung at 70% brightness is just fine.
I’ve got a 55” 4k set and I definitely don’t have that problem - I live in the Oregon high desert, where we get a ton of sun, and with my set located about 8’ from a 9’ x 16’ picture window I have never had trouble seeing even dark movies, a la Blade Runner, midday.
I was in the market for a TV a few years ago and after doing some research I concluded that quite a few of the best/bang models were from TCL. Of course, they weren't the bottom of the barrel models, and you have to do your homework ahead of time.
If you haven’t yet, try turning on (or up) the micro contrast feature in the picture/display settings. Won’t solve everything, but can make a lot of dark scenes in a bright room a lot clearer to watch.
Jeff Geerling just did a video on a commercial tv that even has a pi in it. Maybe look into digital signage stuff or even a large computer monitor or projector.
Technically, they didn't pay... but they did send the display, speakers, stand, and Pi kit for review (I'm going to be integrating it into a new studio build—if I can get that to happen!).
I have an older 65" NEC with a Pi3 in it. It's pretty cool, I like using the 4-way split screen feature with Twitch streams and I have a Steam PC daisy chained off the TV's network switch.
TL;DR: It's a $1500 55" 4K commercial display. Yes it fits the definition, but there's a huge premium on it. But monitors have always had a premium over TVs, even when targeted at TV use. I recall back in the '80s people doing the same thing, though not because of ads, just to get rid of the tuners.
There are TVs, here most are Chinese white label brands, that instead of using Android TV just have a microcontroller running Android on it. In fact I've installed Android on a Raspberry pi and the experience was literally the same. There's no smart features unless you select the input to Smart TV (which i assume is some internal HDMI interface renamed to Smart TV on the UI)
I want a dumb tv but with one smart feature: the ability to download software emulations of these terrible hdmi sticks so I don’t have to spend $35+ on each one. Imagine a tv with no ports but the ability to pull the souls of these roku, fire, google tv, apple tv and probably a microsoft one soon.
I want the tv to manage all of my bluetooth connections and hot swap to the appropriate “OS” when i reach for each bluetooth remote/controller.
This minimizes the role of the tv itself to a thin layer of sensor/peripheral management and routing the video feed to the oppropriate OS
All of those devices are another useless layer to select an "app" that serves as a client for various streaming services. There is no utility to be had from visualizing multiple entire OS to run their respective nearly identical apps and a unique but useless settings and app switcher gui.
You can experience an actual decrease in complexity simply by getting a device that supports the streaming services desired and reducing the "smart" TV to the dumb duty of displaying the content that comes in via the device's input.
I agree with what you are saying, but I think it is futile to force all of these distribution platforms to disappear. You will never get everything you want on a single platform. Something will always be missing. The only way to get it all is to have access to all the operating systems.
Therefore, as a user, I just want good hardware that respects what all of these players are trying to do but makes my life as easy as possible. In my view, this is what hardware should do. Having a TV trying to stick it’s own ugly UI in front of all these other ugly UIs is just making the problem worse, not better. I would rather it not even have it’s own remote. It’s like everyone promises their remote will be the one you will use, but in reality you just added another remote to the living room. You didn’t solve it you just made it worse. The best TV right now actually subtracts, not adds.
It's one of the things that doesn't make sense anymore, like cars with manual transmission. Smarts in smart TV might cost $25 per unit, but OEMs get paid for streaming service placements on remote / home screen and a cut of revenue if users sign up. Even without streaming functionality, TV would still need some smarts to display tuner/inputs/settings UI and it's cheaper to develop Android apps than go custom route. Plus even users who don't use smart functionality much like software updates and launching Netflix directly from TV remote.
So just get a TV based on features and don't connect to WiFi if you are not interested in smart functionality. Think of all the money you are saving by buying a high volume consumer product rather than a commercial display that goes for at least twice more.
> It's one of the things that doesn't make sense anymore, like cars with manual transmission.
Smart TVs don't make sense when televisions both have inputs, and there exist multiple off the shelf solutions like chromecast, appletv, roku, etc. (I'm lame, I just use an Intel NUC with a full operating system.) Smart TVs are TV/VCR combos at best, and at worst a vector for your network to be attacked after the company moves on from updating them (or existing.)
So what's wrong with a TV/VCR combo? It's convenient when getting started with a new house, you can always just not use the VCR, you can always buy a DVD player when technology moves on. An average consumer just wants minimum hassle.
Like it or not, it is true. As reliability and performance of automatics gets better and the gas mileage is now also on par and the cost to produce an automatic is reduced by economies of scale, manual transmissions are going by way of horse and buggies. It’s not everywhere but it will be.
Also consider that EVs have different requirements for their transmissions than ICE vehicles and there are no EVs with manual transmissions as far as I know at all.
That is indeed pretty cool. I don’t think that it’s impossible to have a manual transmissions with an EV by any means. Just that most don’t see to include it.
I really enjoy shifting gears on my bike. But if motorcycles didn’t come with manual transmissions I don’t think it would be the worst thing.
Manual is fun to operate hen the roads are clear, well designed and maintained. If you're in heavy traffic in crazy third world roads like I usually am, not so much.
Excuse me, but I think I and I alone am the principle and indeed sole authority on what I enjoy.
I drive my manuals daily in all kinds of traffic and weather. I live in NJ where neither the weather nor the traffic nor the roads are ideal. On the worst day, on the worst road, in the worst traffic, I still prefer to operate my vehicle rather than be carried by it. It's primarily a feeling of being involved and engaged in the activity.
I don't try to tell you that you must therefor also prefer that.
As someone who grew up in a country like that I don’t disagree at all. But also automatics of 20 years ago were pretty decent and ones from 10 years ago are great.
I think manual is safer on mountain roads (automatic is scary there) and possibly for 4WD. I drove an EV only in city roads (a car sharing company) and it had great acceleration and it was silent at traffic lights. No gears, of course.
For goodness sake, please don't do this! Our only point of control in this matter is at the cash register, and every time you validate their consumer-unfriendly choices, we lose.
Here's how it's already playing out:
- The dumb TVs start to disappear or become very expensive.
- The smart TV manufacturers identify those who get around their tracking and advertising as "cheaters", and work to plug up those holes.
Soon enough you really won't have any option. You don't think they won't start making all the monitors, all commercial displays, every available screen mesh-connected advertising stations once they've proven that you'll lie down and accept it?
Cmon, hacker newserites - you're supposedly all champions of the free and unregulated market. Buy a dumb TV while you can. Let them know there's still a market. If you're reading this site there's a good chance you can afford it.
So long as lots of people care about manual transmission, there will be a niche market, but don't expect every car maker / model to be available. Don't see that happening for removal of smart functionality that nobody has to use.
Users would see a tv without streaming capability as defective these days. They would buy a TV and assume it has these features. Ultimately even hacker news users _want_ these features, just not the downsides that happen to come bundled in.
I simply have NEVER connected the TV directly to the Internet - I have HDMI from other devices I trust more connected but that's it. I don't really watch any broadcast TV - instead it's either my own tape/DVD content or internet content available from other devices.
There are enough ethical violations by Samsung to NEVER trust them when it comes to internet anything. So just omit the connection.
Basically treat any TV today as a monitor and nothing more. Never make a buying decision based on any feature that isn't specifically monitor-related (e.g. only resolution matters; no other whiz-bang features should enter into the decision).
Unfortunately most if not all of the displays I see here don't meet the minimum baseline at any price. I don't see any OLED options, and none of them appears to advertise support for Dolby Vision HDR. HDR probably has no point for advertising purposes, and OLED might actually be a negative if it reduces the light output capability of the screen. You can't use the full contrast range in a brightly let room anyway.
These days you can get a 65 inch LG OLED TV for under $1500. Sure, you can infer that it's $500 cheaper than it "should" be because of their expected advertising earnings over the lifetime of the device (although that seems really high), but I see no "dumb display" options even in the $3000 range.
Yeah, these are commercial signage displays. Compared to average retail models, these tend to have thicker, sturdier (and much heavier) housings, higher brightness, more resistance to burn-in, better heat dissipation and a dizzying array of inputs. Most of which is entirely superfluous for home use, but they can actually be worth the money. They're also typically sold without stands but will have VESA mount points.
Many displays made for this market have atrocious picture quality and no video processing features because their target customers don't care about them, they only care about brightness and longevity.
I don't know what "consumer features" means but many commercial signage displays lack any kind of video processing, like de-interlace, pull-down, noise reduction, sharpen, etc.
New LG's commercial line (Hospitality) is mostly a smart TV with no apps visible (no option to launch it). They just disable apps on the cheaper version.
My non-smart LG commercial TV has an Ethernet port. As a curious person, I connected to the network. It started pinging LG servers. I was able to launch Youtube on the TV from the network. Once the app is open, I could use remote to control it.
If Software Freedom Conservancy win their lawsuit against Vizio for GPL violations in their TVs, you will probably be able to install open source Linux distros with Kodi on any Vizio TV and soon afterwards lots of other smart TV vendors will be similar. There is nothing wrong with a smart TV, the problem is allowing the vendor operating system to remain on the device after you purchase it.
I have this Sony TV and it can be used cleanly without any Smart features or connecting it to the Internet. I turn it on, use the "input" button on remote control to switch between different HDMI ports and that's it. Haven't been exposed to any Smart features, nags, etc. for as long as I remember.
My roku remote finally died after consuming an obscene amount of batteries over the years. RCA has a roku compatible universal remote. Doesn't have the headphone jack or voice assist but I have yet to replace the batteries so it's a net win.
TCL + Roku TVs (and probably other models?) have one physical button that you can use to turn on and off and change inputs. It's well-hidden, under the center logo.
- Sceptre brand dumb TV (lower-end displays, available through Walmart)
- "Monitor" as intended for computers (usually not that large, but this is changing)
- "Commercial display" as intended for restaurants or hotels (often still have some smart features but more controllable; usually fairly expensive). Example https://www.lg.com/us/business/commercial-displays
Second this. I bought a 65" Sceptre TV a year or two ago for this exact reason, it works great, picture quality is awesome, and it was less than $600-700 IIRC. I plug in a chromecast for netflix etc but it's nice to know I can unplug it any time and just use HDMI if I want to.
My webOS TV has been online the whole time and it has just sat there in silent service without any stupidity at all. Hardly seems worth the trouble of jailbreaking it.
If you want this feature, NEVER use a smart TV. Especially VIZIO. (Can take screen shots of any screen tied to their network)
LG pipes all visual data back to south korea.
Philips is just incompetent...
So the answer is, decline all TOS agreements, do not ever connect the TV to internet, use HDMI inout from external devices (not USB)...
---
And even still, this can't be trusted...
But the fact is, that all the externals (the Rokus, Gbits, fire, who cares) -- they are all doing the same tracking.
The benefit though is that all the externals ONLY have access (AFAIK at this point) to the stream data/account.
In the case of VIZIO, they are actually watching your literal video screen and monitoring the fingerprint of the RGB layout of the image on screen in a grid and comparing it to the DB they build and ingest against their lib... and if they dont recognize it, they can still take offline screenshots and compare those to channels they ingest for content outside of cable streams...
Basically at the end of the day, you TV is as much as a source as is anything else...
A TV is just a monitor with a TV tuner. Right now, TV tuners and smart features are almost universally found together. But if you are using an external video source (especially if it's not OTA tv in the first place, so you don't need a tuner), you can just use a monitor (or “commercial display”), instead of a “TV”.
I bought a low end RCA 4K tv from Wal-Mart at the start of the pandemic that has no smart features. It does have a USB port but doesn't appear to be able to do anything with it. There's nothing online. The on screen menus are sluggish but if you don't change settings often, that's not much of an issue.
It's expensive, but if you get an AppleTV with the new remotes you can control the power/volume from that. Get any TV you like and never set it up, switch it to an HDMI input, and put the remote in a drawer.
You could also do the same with FireTV, Chrome, or Roku, but those all have ads.
Some BenQ projectors, including the just-released X3000i I recently picked up, consign the "smart" portion to an Android TV HDMI+USB stick that plugs in inside the body of the projector. I just never plugged mine in and the projector works fine.
I'm in the process of looking for a good 4k TV. I'm not worried about the smart features in the TV. I plan on using an outboard device to control the TV. In my case, a Chromecast. If I don't put the smart TV on my network, it can't phone home. Of course Google knows what I watch. But if I were more paranoid, I could put a DVD player and OTA antenna on the TV and still not network it.
Because many users will hook up their smart TV, the makers of those sets get subsidized, in the same way bloatware end up on Windows laptops and non-Pixel Androids. I'll take the w re the price.
My panasonic non-android (something based on firefox-os I think) has a setting to not load related online-data when switch to a channel until explicity pushing a button to do so. That option was added in the most recent update.
However, it also has some built-in netflix/prime/youtube/... apps. And I have seen at least some network traffic that seemed realated to those, even though I never started them. Maybe just loading updates, maybe leaking data. I don't know. I didn't check since the last update though.
It's not perfect, but seems much less bad than most others.
Panasonic OLEDs are it i think. I have a FZ800 (there are more recent updates of this model) and it’s perfect. No ads anywhere. Turns on (everything ready to use) within 5 seconds, picture is amazing because OLED, has no bezel so no branding. It is technically a smart tv because it has Netflix and other downloadable apps but it works perfectly fine without internet or using any of these apps: for the features that matter it behaves like a regular non smart tv without any obnoxious interface, just plain blue text on grey boxes.
Once maximum customer penetration from WiFi is reached (not all consumers will add TVs to the network), these companies will bake in cheap cellular transceivers and contract directly with wireless carriers without any ability to opt out. They probably won't be used for actual content - just low bandwidth spying and ads.
It's what the early kindles used (called "whispernet"). Soon a lot of products may bake little radios in to spy on us.
Consumer spy tech will start to resemble cold war techniques.
I've just started shopping for a dumb TV/monitor that's 4K, HDR, maybe 35-55 inches, built-in good-enough speakers (like my 2009 Sony Bravia TV), power switch on&off based on HDMI from PS4/PS5 (for simplicity).
It'd be nice to find genuine, well-informed reviews of dumb-TVs, and an up-to-date holistic look at the current options. (Most of what I've found so far are sketchy SEO sites, farming random Amazon Affiliate kickbacks with low-cost content.)
I happened to be in a in- construction facility being built for a F100 company and saw they were using Samsung "digital signage" TVs for the meeting rooms and lobbies. Fairly certain these TVs will never connect to the internet outside the company firewall so they must be designed for that.
Philips Momentum series, technically game monitors, but do come in 55 inch. Note these do not have any DVB tuner, so you’ll always need a separate mediabox to watch TV.
I have a sony bravia one. It is currently unplugged from the network and solely connected through my playstation. Admittedly i just passed the buck to sony through another device, but i’m quite happy using the ps5 (and previously ps4) as a media centre, it has netflix and all the others, plus plex, and that connects to my pi plex server + NAS drive, through which you can put on any content you like
If your budget permits, I recommend getting an LG OLED in your desired size and a good AV receiver. Connect your preferred streaming box (we like the AppleTV) to the receiver and use the streaming box remote to control everything.
We have this setup and the LG has never been connected to the internet and its remote went back in the box after initial calibration and setup.
I recently purchased a Sony A90J after owning a “dumb” TV for over a decade. I was pleased to see that there was a “TV only” option that did not require me to use any of the “Smart” TV features.
In fact, given I can control the TV through my Apple 4k device I never have to experience any of the televisions interface (apart from settings and inputs)
I forgot to mention, there is no sounds, no jingle, no logo when operating the television — which is refreshing given that my LG and Samsung appliances are constantly jingling for my attention and engagement.
I have a Samsung TV with “smart” features but only connect it to the Internet when using a streaming app. I still use cable for TV so I don’t use builtin apps often.
Most of the time the TV is set to unconfigured WiFi so it can’t reach the Internet. I temporarily switch it to Ethernet when I need Internet connectivity.
How do you then get the software update, to fix buffer overflows while decoding the video stream?
(ok, most TV vendors won't bother to fix and most video sources ate somewhat trusatable not to exploit ... especially as an exploit can't do much unless it is connected to a network)
If you are using them at dumb displays, you aren't decoding video on them, you are sending them HDMI signals that were already decoded by your other thing.
> One would think this would have been more obvious.
Devices can refuse to function without a network connection, and the profits to be made from simply including a cellular connection of some sort for ad refresh + tracking are too high to be ignored forever.
I have to think that far less than 1% of STV owners don't connect them. Adding hardware to capture whatever % of them it actually is seems extremely financially dubious to me, especially given how unlikely they are to have positive ad conversions.
Although it is only 31" and appears to be back-ordered just about everywhere, the Sony BVM-HX310 is a straight monitor with top-notch rendition. It is about $30k, however.
For about $14k, the 32" Sony PVM-X3200 is perhaps more realistic.
Is there a TV on the market that is easy to convert into a dumb TV?
For example; I am happy to use just Apple TV. Is there a low-risk way to cripple my TCL so all it does is allow for input via Apple TV and not run other process?
When I received my TV I took it out of it's box removed 12 screws on the back and unplugged the wifi module. Now I just have it connected to my old laptop running linux with a bluetooth keyboard.
For instance there is this from LG [0] or this from Dell [1]. Just do a search for “large 4K monitor” and you’ll find more.
[0] - https://www.bestbuy.com/site/lg-43-ultrafine-4k-uhd-monitor-...
[1] - https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/dell-55-4k-conference-r...