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Comment by hanklazard | Hacker News Reader

Someone on HN recently floated the idea of a company that would make quality, non-smart electronics and appliances that would also be easily serviceable. I wish this existed and would pay significantly more for products like this.

To address your question, I think they’re all “smart” now. I ended up getting a low-end Samsung 4K a few months ago and it’s been good so far. It starts up very quickly, maybe 1-2 seconds. We use it exclusively with an AppleTV because of privacy / advertising concerns that have been raised. I’m just waiting for the day when all TVs require a working internet connection and we have to start hacking their hardware and software to protect our data.

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Specifically for TVs, you can get a new display driver board for whatever panel is in there. Eats HDMI/DP, spits out eDP or VBO or whatever the panel format is. Often these are pretty basic, with a minimal OSD pasted in by the Shenzhen seller who configures the thing to your order.

Personally I'm trying to get my hands on the SDK for the software that runs in the driver chip (does the OSD and the scaling and everything else), because I think there's a lot of potential there. But boy it's like pulling teeth.

Similarly, the Exploiteers (née GTVHacker) have done quite a bit of reverse-engineering of the stock boards, so you can just fix the broken-ass firmware they ship with.

Ultimately I'm picturing something like the WRT54G, a single modem that the community coalesces around, to the point that a decade later, third-party firmwares have become such a force that manufacturers build hardware specifically to run it.

> Specifically for TVs, you can get a new display driver board for whatever panel is in there.

Is this something that is practical and commonly done, or only theoretically possible?

I have an older model Sony 4K TV (pre-Android) that is so slow now after its recent firmware updates that it responds to button presses only after 2-3 seconds. It's unbearable!

I'd love to be able to just pop in a new driver board and refresh the TV, but I've never heard of anyone doing this kind of thing before.

Get the part number of the panel (some reviews will mention this, if you don't want to open the case), and search for it on Panelook and Aliexpress.

Right now I'm working on a project with some M315DJJ-K30 and MV238QUM-N20 panels, but parts are still in shipping so I don't have anything to show for it yet.

> you can get a new display driver board for whatever panel is in there. Eats HDMI/DP, spits out eDP or VBO or whatever the panel format is

Do these boards support HDCP?

HDCP strippers are a thing now, so this shouldn’t be a concern.

For 4K? And are they legal?

Nice. Do any of those support 100+Hz frame rate or Freesync?

Any pointers to forums/projects or sellers of these? Sounds like a bit of a rabbit hole, tbh :-)

These guys are doing it somewhat commercially: http://zisworks.com/

I've stumbled into a pile of panels and I have several orders of different driver boards on their way to me from Shenzhen, but nothing in-hand to say if they work yet.

I found this for the Realtek rtd2556 chip which there are plenty of boards for on ebay when you search for edp+hdmi+converter: https://github.com/ghent360/RTD-2660-Programmer

Never add your WiFi credentials you your TV. It doesn’t let you remove them so you’re only option is to create a “dummy” network (ex: phone as a hotspot) and switch to it.

Also, watch out for clueless^helpful friends and relatives who try to “fix” your TV’s WiFi.

This is why you segment out your WiFi, I have 4 SSID's

1. Normal Traffic

2. Guest

3. Security Devices (Camera's, and other Home Automation)

4. Media Devices (Roku, FireTV, Smart TV's, etc)

media devices only have access to my home Plex server and the internet nothing else

Yeah, VLANs work for a TV that is only trying to connect to your network, but doesn't deal with the case of a TV that will connect to any open SSID (a case that at least one other commenter in this thread claims is already occurring). It wouldn't be difficult to have the TV check different open networks if it's not able to reach a server due to a firewall config on the home network. For anyone living in a relatively dense city, this could be a problem.

I just have a GLiNet travel router I picked up for $20 that is open and not connected to anything. Any "smart" devices get connected to that so they can talk to each other but not the internet.

IIUC, you're saying there's no obvious way to make the TV stop using the Wifi network once you tell it the SSID + password.

Couldn't you just change the wifi password?

It will continue trying to connect to your SSID. Failing of course, but it will still pollute your channel with garbage packets.

I really wish I could just remove the wifi chip. I'm tempted to take the rear panel off just to see if it's reasonably accessible.

Or just snip the antenna

<fantasy> Or just keep hitting company officers with a tire iron until they fix it. </fantasy>

Put it in a faraday cage.

(ot: should that be clueless^Whelpful, or is there some new convention I'm not aware of? ^ still means "ctrl" right?)

It's an old Unix convention: ^W (Ctrl-w) would remove a word using the Emacs keybindings. So in place of striking out a word, you'd put ^W and the replacement, as you would when typing it out ("clueless...err, no, wait...ctrl-W...HELPFUL").

Gp missed "w".

The parent is using it to mean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_conjunction

If true, that would be logical and fair.

It’s not. I’m not that clever.

Not quite, as i doubt exclusive or is meant here.

^ probably means super-script format in this context.

I'd probably say ~helpful~clueless instead though

I had this problem with a Vizio 40" 4K TV once, and was able to solve it using the factory reset function in the menu.

> It doesn’t let you remove them

What about factory reset?

My wife connected it to our wifi the other day ... I almost lost it.

A factory reset should fix that TV right up.

Also be aware that some smart TV's have been found to just connect to any open wifi, so even if you don't enter one and think your tv isn't spying, you could be wrong.

> I’m just waiting for the day when all TVs require a working internet connection and we have to start hacking their hardware and software to protect our data.

These days won't come. What will happen instead is TVs will start coming with embedded SIM cards for cellular data connection (prepaid or otherwise negotiated between TV vendors and telcos), and then we won't have any choice in the matter as consumers, short of opening the box up and snipping the antenna (and losing warranty in the process).

The cheaper route they'll go through first is connecting to any open wifi network (many do this now), refusing to work without a connection (some do this), and pulling a connection over HDMI (will be more common with future devices; presumably next gen consoles).

> These days won't come.

These days are already here. My TCL bootloops if it doesn't have an internet connection to download ads from, and if you call support, they'll happily walk you through getting it connected to the network.

What happens if you tell them that you don’t have an internet connection?

I meant (almost) all TVs, as GP, not a few of them.

In the US that won't affect your warranty for SIM-unrelated issues. And most other rich countries have stricter consumer protection laws.

> I’m just waiting for the day when all TVs require a working internet connection

We're not there yet, but we're on our way. My Philips Ambilight TV pops up a warning every few weeks to remind me that I should connect the TV to the network to benefit from all the smart apps it has bundled. Immensely frustrating.

With ethernet over HDMI being a thing, I've heard reports of TVs tunneling out through a media box without asking first.

That would require 2 Devices supporting Ethernet-over-HDMI, and one of needs to have routing/bridging enabled.

I have -up2now- not seen 1 device, where the combination of HW/SW was capable of offering ethernet to the Device OS.

AFAIK, no (mainstream) PC/Embedded/Mobile graphics chip/firmware/driver combination supports this. Please do indicate a counter-example, if you know of one.

I consider that unlikely to change too, since Ethernet is limited to 100Mbit over HDMI. Gigabit (Wifi) ate that lunch.

Outside of "Device-Collections" from e.g. B&O, that might use that comm-channel to have a "guaranteed communication backend" available, I see no real (commercially) interesting reason for implement it.

Having said that, I'd be very happy, if GFX-card/TV vendors started implementing the optional parts of the HDMI spec, like CEC,ARC, and Ethernet. I'd find use for it.

Ethernet-over-HDMI is so poorly supported in consumer devices that in HDMI 2.1 they dropped in completely and reused the pins for eARC audio.

My TCL bootloops if it doesn't have an internet connection. It also shows ads on its screensaver. Coincidence? Dunno, but it's sure making TCL money and making me miserable.

Can you factory reset it? I have a TCL Roku TV which I've never connected to the Internet and it shows a pretty standard 'logo bouncing around the edges of the screen' screensaver.

I sure can. I can even select a screensaver other than the "city with ads" one. Then it starts to bootloop until I reset it to defaults and connect it to the internet. Yes, I need to do both, or it starts bootlooping again. Support is all too happy to walk me through the process.

I believe a lot of television manufacturers already offer the equivalent of that as "commercial TVs" or "digital signage" they are marketed toward businesses. I think they're typically more expensive because they don't collect and sell data to subsidize cost, but that might be what you're looking for. Here's an example of a Samsung digital signage TV https://www.samsung.com/us/business/products/displays/4k-uhd...

They are more expensive because they generally have higher quality components and are not made to be disposable, and commercial applications have a higher price tolerance than consumers.

Despite the common trope, "selling data" doesn't lower the price of consumer devices. You only see price-less-than-cost plays when companies are trying to buy market share (think Alexa, Google Home, early Kindle, etc).

Umm, no - this is not just a 'common trope'. The CTO of Vizio has stated in multiple interviews that removing the data collection capabilities of their TVs would increase the prices. Direct quote:

"The greater strategy is I really don't need to make money off of the TV. I need to cover my cost."

and

"It's not just about data collection. It's about post-purchase monetization of the TV."

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/7/18172397/airplay-2-homekit...

[2]https://www.businessinsider.com/smart-tv-data-collection-adv...

Right, but the value of the data pulled from a single TV is probably around $10/yr (how could it be higher?). Over 10 years that’s $100 - sure - but do people keep Vizio TVs around that long?

From what I've found it looks like you're right. The commercial TVs come with different port sets, and are built to be more durable, brighter, and allow cooling in more orientations. https://image-us.samsung.com/SamsungUS/b2b/resource/2016/07/...

> Someone on HN recently floated the idea of a company that would make quality, non-smart electronics and appliances that would also be easily serviceable. I wish this existed and would pay significantly more for products like this.

You know, I've wanted something like this as well for a while. I know next to nothing about startups or companies, but I wonder how hard it would be to create a hardware startup around this. On one hand, you arent really designing anything new, you're more or less creating a version of an existing product, with existing technologies, except removing undesirable parts. On the other hand, I have mo idea how someone could get started without previous experience in TV design / manufacturing.

I've thought about this, too. I don't know if you could sustain a company on this idea. The profit margins on consumer tech are miniscule, and if you do it well, you will have very few repeat customers. But I think it could do well as a one-off Kickstarter thing, if you have the knowledge & reputation to back up your claims, or in small, infrequent batches. Buy a bunch of flat panel displays, slap 10 HDMI ports on the back; an optical audio out; and TV tuner; write up some extremely fast and barebones software to switch inputs. Market it to gamers and tech nerds like us. Hell, open-source the software and make it easily upgradable. I dunno. I think it could work.

You might do better with a modular system. A single port on the display, a separate box that handles rapid switching and HDCP. HDMI switch boxes exist, but they seem to forward HDCP responsibility to the display, so switching is still slow. A broadcast quality switch/crossfade box would rock.

Doubt it would work. Hardware is commoditized and low margin. That's why TVs are embedding internet advertising, to make fat stacks from their otherwise barely profitable products.

Not all hardware is commoditized.

I do not understand why so many other markets have a number of luxury/craftsman brands and in computers we only have Apple. Cars have tons. Even woodworking has 2 built-to-last brands and 2 others that like to flirt with that moniker.

You will have to pay though, if you want the company to stick around. If you buy something that lasts 3x as long then they get less revenue from you, and the smaller volume means every sale includes paying off the initial R & D.

I recall when Lian Li first came onto the scene and the notch-up in ergonomics of computer cases that followed. Maybe we need something like that for consumer electronics.

The problem is that people like small and clean, which is where Apple excels (to the exclusion of accessibility), so I wonder what bomb-proof consumer electronics built for modification would look like.

> I wonder what bomb-proof consumer electronics built for modification would look like.

Starfleet technology. Sleek and sturdy, but opens up when pressed the right way, and generally can be completely disassembled with ease, have pieces of it replaced, and then put back together.

It's fictional, but it shows the way.

Wouldn’t that work in _favor_ of the startup idea?

If the hardware is a commodity and the market is for a bare-bones, self-serviceable “just a TV”, then the startup should have significantly lower engineering costs and benefit from the low component costs. Given that people on this thread are stating that they would pay a premium for such a product makes it seem even more viable.

Maybe other people have different “serviceability” definitions, but I once replaced the main board of a broken Vizio smart TV —- there were only two components —- a power board and the main electronics board. The hardest part was tracking down a replacement board, but $35 and a few screws later and I had a working TV again. That met my definition of self-service.

* They're not going to buy it for the most part. They just like saying "I would buy it". Ultimately, price will determine almost all. You can see this when the already committed market for open source phones just didn't materialize when the device arrived. Turns out when people say "I want an OSS phone" they mean "I want a phone that is exactly like this top of the line phone but the software should all be OSS and it should not be a penny more expensive". In this case, you can judge by the fact that these already exist and when people say "significantly more" they mean "5% more" because they don't actually buy the thing.

* You can't compete on price because the TV guys are selling access to the data they collect for ad targeting / attribution.

But don't let anyone stop you from doing it. None of us thinks this is worthwhile, so you might be on to a Thiel Truth.

Maybe. There can be a problem with the size of that premium.

Suppose end consumers think fixing this is worth $50 but not worth $100. If the outfit selling a "SmartTV" gets $80 lifetime value from the "SmartTV" features like forced advertising and margins are slim you probably find you can't offer this "dumb TV" for $50 extra without losing money, and you have no customers and go out of business.

On the other hand, it could go pretty well. We know advertisers see people who buy premium products (which such a "dumb TV" would be since it costs extra) as more valuable in a lot of categories, so maybe you charge $50 extra for the dumb TV and - as it takes off - that undercuts the advertising income of the existing products, so they have to raise prices to remain profitable and that actually improves your affordability compared to the market. Or else they make advertising even more intrusive and pervasive to keep the revenue up, and it makes your $50 premium appear a bargain by comparison for those sick of advertising.

What people on HN say they would pay for, and what people actually pay for, are very different.

There's both a time lag and the influence of manipulative product offerings. "Revealed preference" is just code for exploitation of vice.

I'd think that a fancy looking website for a group-buy, where you manage a relationship with a manufacturer to build to your spec & you build (or get them to build) the software behind it would give it what you want. Kind of like https://www.weargustin.com/ or a Massdrop?

In my perfect world, controller cards have a standardized physical interface, which SBC makers can target as a repair/customization option.

In practice I suspect many of these systems barely function, each is a special snowflake, and that any bad input from controller could result in fire or water damage to your house.

So maybe TVs and fridges are a good place to start and we should give washing machines a while to figure it out.

> I wish this existed and would pay significantly more for products like this.

But the average person wouldn't, and "fickle hacker news user" is not a wide open market.

Maybe some day we'll invent the technology to address small markets without being told we're doing something wrong.

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