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Comment by nostromo | Hacker News Reader

1. Turn off your Samsung TV's internet connection

2. Connect Apple TV via HDMI

Not only does this improve your privacy, but it improves the UI and remote of your TV.

The skinny, slippery, round cornered, black AppleTV remote seems to be designed to be as easily lost as possible. Weeks often go by without finding it, during which we use other streaming devices instead.

The Amazon FireTV remote is quite easy to lose, but I stocked up on spares when it was on sale for $15.

The TiVo remote is not only too big to lose, it has a remote-finder feature where you can induce it to play a tune. Genius.

Heads up, I got these for my Apple TV remotes and haven’t lost one since.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LXI592F/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_fab_...

If you have an iPhone, it can function as an Apple TV remote.

They don't even have an Android app? wtf.

There are dozens of apps on Android which can act as a remote for an AppleTV.

You can also use any bog standard universal remote control, if you have an old one of those kicking around somewhere. (I use a cheap old Logitech Harmony remote, for example)

You can even use your TV’s remote. It should forward the button commands via HDMI. (Try left, right, up, down, etc)

Physical buttons > touchscreens when you don’t need a screen.

Cannot up vote this enough.

If you do that, you will immediately lose your iPhone, as the curse is transferable.

Tie it to a stick, like those gas station bathroom keys

> Not only does this improve your privacy, but it improves the UI and remote of your TV.

Two out of three anyhow... the Apple TV remote is pretty mediocre. Gets rid of a lot of junk I never use, and a bunch of stuff I really miss (the mute button for starters).

It's weird, I've had 1/3 Apple remotes work well.

But in the settings you can connect any remote to the AppleTV and program the buttons. That works really well!

I prefer using a Logitech Harmony 665, program it once and good to go for all devices.

Using your phone as a remote is awesome. If your HDMI has CEC/ARC you can switch the TV in just by pulling down the remote widget and pressing the screen. And you can fill password and search fields. And anyone can use it once they’ve paired

Most of the time the Apple remote is just fine... mostly it's the fact that it's easily reversible and lacks a mute button that bugs me.

This one is well worth a try: https://www.amazon.com/Remote-Control-Alternative-Replacemen...

Samsung can still try to connect to open WiFi networks. Not accepting the EULA makes this irrelevant.

Ugh are you telling me that these TVs are aggressively trying to find and connect to unsecured Wi-Fi to upload data I don’t want them to have over an unsecure connection I don’t control?

Gross.

Time for some HN user to break one of these TVs open and physically remove the antenna or wifi card.

This is not only possible, but actually very easy. For most TVs I've seen, you can do it in a half hour using only a screwdriver.

I wrote a blog post about pulling the WiFi card out of my TCL R625, which should be pretty similar to the process for most other smart TVs: https://spencermichaels.net/posts/2020-03-16-smart-tv-loboto...

Would it work to set up an ESP32 as a WiFi access point that doesn’t route traffic? I wonder if the Samsung would detect that it’s an unhelpful internet connection and keep looking, or lock onto the bad network the user supplied.

There is nothing difficult about this. Modern TVs can be opened from the back to be repaired and are very modular. You can disconnect wifi antennas if you need to.

$20 says they already have a deal with Verizon/Spectrum/whatever to use those customer login protected open wifi APs as backhaul when an internet connection is not otherwise available. Considering how much they're leaning on customer PII to subsidize the cost of TVs, I wouldn't be surprised if they start putting 5G radios in them too.

This is the obvious next step, together with not showing the output if there is no net connection

Yes, Samsung TVs do that: https://www.reddit.com/r/security/comments/bpjky4/worried_ab...

Can you create a honeypot open Wi-Fi network that isn’t actually connected to the internet?

Is this hypothetical or documented?

Yes, Samsung TVs will try to connect to any open wifi network without your interaction: https://www.reddit.com/r/security/comments/bpjky4/worried_ab...

Wow.

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