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Comment by baxtr | Hacker News Reader

I use an old Philips TV from 10 yrs ago. It works fine, has HDMI and all that. No WiFi and other shit of course.

I am totally worried about the day it will break down.

I bought a guitar, TV went unused, sold it, less gadget worry. Bought more guitars!

I’ve dramatically slashed my personal gadget footprint. Phone, watch cause I like the exercise data, a Linux box I barely touch, old iPad for movies and video chat.

I pickup the guitar rather than sit at the TV or computer. Learning an instrument connects both sides of the brain like no other skills based activity.

No ads, acoustic road trips easy enough, no worry about charging, smart speakers would hear some bad covers of Wonder Wall.

It’s a life changing experience.

So when the TV breaks, maybe consider replacing it with $500 digital piano to get weighted keys and decent built in sound instead of paying for an ad distribution device.

What were you saying? I was busy upgrading the firmware on my guitar amp.

Is anyone doing a smart guitar with ads already?

Kinda, its an app that trains people to tune guitars in different scenarios. The ads are mostly for pro versions of itself, its sibling apps and a far field mike array for adjusting tuning based on the room. The killer feature is artificial intelligence that learns how the person perceives sound and adjusts the tuning from "technically correct" to "perceptually correct." It is gamified with a blockchain verified leaderboard.

I'm not sure if you're joking. This seems like a reasonable feature to have but then you threw in blockchain and now I'm not sure anymore.

Cheating devalues games. Ambiguity heightens absurdity. Maybe I should have added that the IP has rock solid patents, is open source* and the startup is still in stealth while raising a series G.

* some restrictions apply, please agree to the terms of service to allow super cookies and review that the license SKU matching your service region to a stacked arbitration regime established in the People's Democratic Republic of Korea and Delaware

Relative counterpoint - I'm an online student, all of my classes require a PC, all of my homework requires a PC. My orchestra requires I listen to and play along with recordings (on a PC). The minimum 'personal gadget footprint' for me and many others is going to be quite high. Above a certain level, IoT is unavoidable.

The thing that drives me bonkers about "smart" TVs is how slow they can be. Cheap processor + lots of software to compute = sluggish user experience. It's not not only is it spying on me, it's letting me know that it cares more about making me wait to spy on me before adjusting the frikkin' volume.

"Smart" is just a marketing buzzwords. These days due to this smart tv thing I can't find any decent dumb TV.

Their is nothing smart in "Smart TV" they all should be labeled "Scam TV".

Sceptre makes dumb 4K TVs up to 75".

Like most other things, it's the good old "you get what you pay for". I got the LG CX OLED few months ago and that thing is lightning fast. Starts up nearly instantly, apps switch without any delay....I have no problems with it being "smart". Compared to my old Sony Bravia which literally took a minute to even start up, urgh.

Now you have to pay more for features that used to come standard, in addition to making tv ownership ad supported.

Nobody had a lighting fast or slow RF remote, the volume just went up and down when you clicked the button (after getting it pointed in the right direction)

Really? That’s strange, because I don’t remember my old TV supporting AirPlay. I also don’t remember ever seeing ads on my LG.

Same here. I have a plasma LG that I absolutely love. It has an amazing picture, but it's heavier than wet sand.

My friend recently got a new TV and I was appalled at the controls, picture (soap opera effect), "smart features" (how it instantly goes into this app like experience that you can't ever get out of). So many things bother me about modern TVs. If my TV ever dies, I don't know what I'll do.

Replace with a projector :) you don’t watch OTA channels, do you? So any other media source should be hookable to a projector. Sure you need a dark room to watch stuff, but that’s a plus as it’ll induce you to watch less tv ;)

Also - the soap opera thing can be turned off in decent newer TVs and as discussed in other HN threads you can just deny the TV an internet connection so it behaves dumbly. You might still need to contend with clunky UI but really - just select your video source and start watching, so the pain is minimal.

I replaced mine with a computer monitor. It's a bit more expensive, but that's the price of not being spied on.

I wouldn't be surprised that by the time I buy a projector, they're all "smart".

Soon all 'smart' TVs will just come with 5G connection. Will make it much harder (if even possible) to deny them internet connection.

As long as parent buys his new TVs before that happens, they should be good to roll for a few years.

I got myself a nice chunky laser projector with more than enough lumen output to overpower the sun. In fact I loved it so much I got a second one for basically the same price. Sure it's not 4K, but I get the screen size.

https://www.sceptre.com/ makes dumb, consumer TVs. As far as I can tell they are basically the only brand doing it.

Are they good, though? I, too, want a "dumb" TV, but I still want high color accuracy, refresh rate, viewing angles, etc. I don't necessarily want a Hotel/Office Waiting Room TV.

Also, taking a look at the site, and not a single 4K UHD TV is in stock at the moment. Yikes!

Can't vouch for the TVs, but I owned one of their 1080P monitors in the last 2000s/early 2010s. Upper-middle quality, very basic OSD, great customer service. Used the monitor for ~7 years before upgrading to a 4k, sold it still working with original cables & box.

Walmart has better stock of Sceptre TVs last time I checked. Unfortunately they only make dumb 4K TVs up to 75"

(I was looking for 85", so I just unplugged the WiFi module in the TV I bought before I turned it on the first time.)

Most TVs work fine without an internet connection. I recently got a new Samsung TV. It really wanted an internet connection but works just fine without it.

This. All I want out of a T.V. is a dumb monitor. If I want "smart" I'll just plug something in - that's why a TV has HDMI ports. Instead you get something you can't replace, can't fix and can't get rid of.

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