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Comment by skizm | Hacker News Reader

I wonder if there is a market for dumb TVs. They basically don't exist today. Closest thing I could get was a Dell conference room monitor, which is $1200 for a 55 inch, and $4500 for a 75 inch. A far cry from the $700 I spent on my current 75 inch TV, but I'm strongly considering it.

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A smart TV can be a dumb TV if you never connect it to the internet and just plug in whatever you want to it via HDMI. I have a 'smart' TV myself and the only buttons I use on the remote are power and input select. It's never seen the internet since I've had it.

I'm sure it's only a matter of time before these TVs require 'activation' and frequent 'reactivation' before you can use them though. Alternatively they may perhaps start connecting to cellular networks, which would be a lot harder to evade.

> Alternatively they may perhaps start connecting to cellular networks, which would be a lot harder to evade.

Just wait until 5G is ubiquitous and new TVs come with embedded cellular modems in them. They they won't need to piggy-back on your standard internet connection anymore.

Feel free to vomit.

Unplug the modems. They connect to internal antennas don't they?

The always-online video game is already a thing. Single player campaigns that require an internet connection. I would not be surprised if we someday see TVs that won't work at all without a network connection.

TVs in China already got around this by displaying ads even when not internet connected.

The kindle is a bit like this but doesn’t even need power. I’d love to have my kindles keep their page open when not in use.

How?

I'd imagine any one of cell networks, mesh connections to nearby tvs, partnering with xfinity for wifi (or similar in China), jumping onto your neighbor's unsecured wifi, etc.

Preloaded in the firmware/hardware perhaps?

Also make sure you don't unknowingly enable Ethernet-over-HDMI (:

tell me, how log does your "dumb smart tv" take to boot ?

My nonintenernet connected tv takes probably 5ish seconds to boot. Which for a tv is crazy long but it's a low end westinghouse tv that I've never connected to my network. I use chromecast with it, so google can spy on me instead I suppose.

Around a minute after losing mains power. When resuming from standby it's instant, like every other TV.

It an offline smart tv then, not a dumb tv.

That is literally what the poster originally described.

No, he said it made it not a smart TV.

What exactly is the point of intentionally misinterpreting what someone said just to make a semantic and pedantic argument that adds nothing because everyone already knew what the person said?

I've got 3 dumb TVs in my house from the mini-stock up I did a few years ago when it looked like they were going away. They're all Samsungs, oddly enough. A 50", a 55", and a 60". My only hope is that they last long enough to come out the other side of the only-Smart-TVs tunnel.

Yeah, they're "only" 1080p, but then again, my movie collection is mostly standard definition anyway. I realized that I don't need higher than that if I'm enjoying a movie/TV show: I stop noticing the picture quality once the story quality surpasses it.

There are brands - such as Loewe and Bang&Olufsen - who respect the end-user, and make fantastic TVs. But people generally don’t want to pay the premium amount that they cost.

I believe both of those brands can only be bought/received in their relevant stores of which there are few (my local Bang & Olufsen is permanently closed and I'm lucky to have had a local one) or none (in the case of Loewe which is only in Europe).

You can find 30-60" 1080P "dumb" TVs for >$400 relatively easily, but 4K/8K/bigger panels are almost always "smart". These big modern panels are a commodity and the manufacturers snap them up to use in the fastest selling models.

Hopefully in the next 2-10 years we will see a renaissance of high quality affordable dumb TVs as people continue to learn about data collection/ads/etc

Copy pasting my comment from above: Someone in a previous thread mentioned Sceptre TVs. They are dumb. Incredibly low priced but quality models available (55" 4k HDR HDMI 2.0 for $300) [1]. They have 30yrs experience. Seems a good company. Have high-end models too.

[1] https://www.sceptre.com/TV/4K-UHD-TV/U550CV-UMRD-55-4K-UHD-T...

Anybody here have one?

I bought one brand 2 days ago. You need to look hard and not want the latest image quality/biggest size.

I got a Samsung N5000 43" LED [1], 1080p, dumb as hell, boots in less than a second. Got it for 330 CAD$ before taxes.

I try to be modest and consume less.

I prefer using a Chromecast.

[1] https://www.samsung.com/ca/tvs/fhdtv-n5000-global/

I am on an old Samsung must be at least a decade old and has zero internet connectivity. I really like my tv but lately the newer screens really just pop out the 1080 just doesn't cut it for me any more.

There's probably a market, but the question is how big? TV's have gotten so cheap because of the ads and data mining, so a TV that doesn't have that would be considerably more expensive.

People on HN might spend more for some privacy, but most average consumers definitely wouldn't.

I almost would like to see Apple release a television that has tvOS built in.

But isn’t that just the lie they tell us to justify it? Ads don’t bring in much money on a per individual basis. But if you sell the Tv with ads and tell people it’s the only way it is affordable, then you can double dip. Two revenue streams is always better than one. It also explains why no manufactures give you the option to buy a version without ads or to pay a onetime fee to disable the ads part of the software.

Thats unlikely to be true. Computer screens if comparable sizes (the ones that exist) have dipped in price in the same way, despite having no ads or apps or anything.

The prices are down because of process improvements and competition. Ads can make a $10-30 difference in final price.

Do you have a source for ads accounting for $10-30 of the final price? I'd be curious to learn more about this.

I don't off hand, that's what I remember from past reading. However, for comparison, Facebook - one of the two undisputed masters (and essentially only players) of online advertising makes < $30/person/year [0], so to assume that Samsung is (a) making $30 on ads over three years (standard depreciation period), and (b) giving all of that back in the TV cost to the buyer seems like a generous overestimate. (Yes, you can insert whatever fudge factor you want, but I think the order is right, and I remember reading it in some article).

It's possible ACR is worth more to them than ads -- becoming a new Nielsen; but I would be very surprised.

[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/234056/facebooks-average...

> but most average consumers definitely wouldn't.

This is the problem. We're so used to giving up privacy now that, slowly, they're chipping away at the small amount we have remaining. And it affects everyone.

But the cheapest TVs on the market are the super-no-brand models which aren't smart/ Clearly these are unsubsidized.

I've bought a few non-smart TVs from Wal-mart: Sceptre brand. They were cheap and functional. I use them with Fire TV sticks, XBox, and this NUC that I've got sitting around.

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