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Comment by save_ferris | Hacker News Reader

I recently started looking for a new TV since my old “dumb” TV is starting to have image issues and they all seem to be “smart” these days. Seems like manufacturers have slashed prices by adding adware to the GUI of TV’s.

Needless to say, I’ve been incredibly frustrated with my search.

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I can't speak for their latest and greatest but the LG TVs I've used running webOS (Oled and LCD) work fine without ever being connected to a network. I have a C7P panel I've connected via Ethernet a couple times to update the firmware and it has continued to work offline just fine.

They also support CEC so if the devices you're plugging into them support CEC you can just put the TV remove into a drawer and not worry about ever accidentally triggering the SMART features.

> I have a C7P panel I've connected via Ethernet a couple times to update the firmware and it has continued to work offline just fine.

You may want to be careful with this. On Amazon Kindles when you connect to WiFi it downloads ads and will keep showing those same ones forever if you never reconnect and let it fetch newer ads. Seems the TV doesn't do it yet, but it could be added in a firmware update.

Unrelated, what do you even need firmware updates for on what is effectively a dumb TV?

In my LG OLED there's actually an option to turn off ads in the GUI. It is off by default, amazingly. I've done a GDPR data request and unless they are hiding some of what they collect (which I doubt) they don't really collect anything crazy. The netflix client does a lot of phoning home though but I have blocked everything I don't want to connect.

To fix some issues with a Roku Premiere Plus and switching refresh rates causing screen blanking because if those stupid Netflix Autoplay trailers.

Luckily I bought an RCA 55" 4K TV for like 400 CAD, it's 100% dumb, HDMI and other inputs only. Got this two years ago it's probably not like this anymore.

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