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Comment by elyobo | Hacker News Reader

I'm annoyed that smart TVs are a thing; it's like having a smart monitor, it just doesn't make sense. I'd rather have a beautiful dumb display that I can plug in to the smart part, allowing the (relatively cheap) smart part to be upgraded without having to upgrade the (relatively expensive) display part.

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Yeah, but it's pretty much impossible to find not-smart TVs. :(

At least you can still use TV's without a network connected. For now.

It comes up nearly every time this topic is discussed here, but commercial series displays are what you are looking for. Prepare to pay more, but in exchange get a display that just functions as a display.

Paying more for fewer features doesn't make sense though. I'm also guessing the commercial displays also are tuned more for endurance and less for quality.

My Android TV has more features, like the feature where I have to wait a full second for it to respond to pushing the volume up button.

(or, there's benefits to having a non-"smart" tv)

The pricing makes sense. Demand dictates price, not features. Products catering to a smaller market tend to cost more, especially if you are buying individual units from a supplier who usually sells in bulk.

LG's IT line[1] is not unreasonable in terms of pricing, especially if the purchaser is also paying the electric bill, demands long-lasting color accuracy or otherwise wants a purpose-built solution. I have not used one and I don't know if budget display manufacturers like TCL and Vizio have comparable products.

1. https://www.lg.com/us/business/commercial-display/it-product...

> The pricing makes sense. Demand dictates price, not features.

Sure, but lower demand would usually mean lower price, unless the consumers are willing to pay extra for something that other products are missing. In this case, I'm not sure what the other products are missing in comparison, but I'm also not familiar with these TV's.

Ads are not a feature

It does when you don’t get adverts built in.

It's not for everyone, but projectors are mostly bereft of "smart" features. You plug in input sources, and that's it.

All I want is a 65-75" 4K panel with 1 HDMI in and that's it. I'll handle the sources and switching and audio myself.

We've had Sony, Samsung, and LG Smart TVs over the last few years and all were slow, annoying, and all round shitty experiences. I barely use my TV now because I hate waiting for it to "start up" (Sony with Android TV.. "Please Wait" for what seems like forever before you can do ANYTHING on it).

So just ignore the "smart" features and use it as a dumb display? The additional cost is likely negligible if you're buying a $500+ TV.

That said, I would also boycott manufacturers/products that behave badly like Samsung mentioned in the above comment.

It's hard to ignore because the "smart" features tend to make the TV slow to start and the menus more sluggish and cluttered.

Problem is, you're not the general consumer. Most consumers would much rather have a smart tv that has all the simple stuff built in so they dont have to know how to configure anything complicaated

Or Best Buy or Walmart want to differentiate commoditized products to consumers who can't tell the difference between two big black screens that look the same.

It's more about feature checklist pissing contests than any real benefit to the average consumer.

I disagree. A powerful smart TV is more practical for the average consumer than a more sophisticated system.

A big problem for entertainment lovers is that there are too many things to control, thus creating the all-in-one market. On the other hand, power users will insist on highly functional subcomponents that each bring a specific and glorious benefit.

And there you have it, all-in-one vs. subcomponents. Which does the average consumer belong?

Right. The classic problem is having 4 different remotes and 4 different incantations to change inputs to the right "box". Having everything integrated into the same UI is a great step up.

Of course, if that UI is crap and then doesn't get upgraded, it negates all the advantages...

I wish HDMI-CEC worked better for everyone since it could theoretically solve the problem. It actually works well on our 7-year old TV. I don't even know where our AppleTV remote is (that one with the touch pad everyone keeps complaining about), we just use the TV's remote over HDMI-CEC.

i don't know, voice control for a TV sounds pretty cool. I generally hate voice control, but there's a few very specific tasks where I find it more useful than any other UI - namely setting an alarm or creating a calendar event. Changing the input on a TV could be one of those things, if only because every TV i've ever had has been so painful to change the inputs on.

You realize that unless you press a button, none of the smart stuff is visible? You can disable everything else.

On higher end TVs this isn’t the case, on LG WebOS for example the input selection is stored in the Smart Menu which is jammed full of ads.

No internet connection, no ads.

I'm pretty sure my Samsung smart TV that I never gave my wifi password has gotten internet access via the attached Roku.

How would that work?

Ethernet over HDMI is a standard, but I'm not aware of it being in use for something like that.

I have a C7P and I can't see where an ad might display in the input selection menu. Also the remote has an input select button and it also automatically switches between inputs if they support CEC, so you don't have to even pull up the menu.

That being said, I have only ever connected it to the Internet twice via Ethernet to update firmware. Otherwise it remains offline.

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