I love my not-smart TV | Hacker News Reader

I love my not-smart TV

ericwbailey.design

50 pointstagawa48 comments

We aren't at peak TV-as-spy-device yet. I was able to get a flagship 2020 model TV and all basic functions work without a internet connection. It actually can be connected for firmware updates but as long as the ToS isn't accepted all 'smart' features are disabled.

If you want dumb-dumb, a good projector is a much better option. There's no need to sacrifice quality in pursuit of privacy... yet.

Except one day you'll connect it just for a firmware or security update, and get a bricked TV, or accepting the ToS will no longer matter. And rolling back will be impossible.

Another day after that you'll have learned your lesson and never connected it to your wifi, but the manufacturer included a SIM that connnects to the internet on its own. You want to remove it but the TV asks you to put it back and won't boot into a usable state until it is connected to the mothership. Also please open an account on Samsun MySmartTV and login to it otherwise it's black screen for you.

Manufacturers are already looking into the first part and HP has implemented the second part with their newest print service (https://medium.com/@amandam_95165/what-you-dont-know-about-h...)

Not a good example: You can use a HP printer just fine without an account. You just need to buy ink cartridges for it, instead of using the optional subscription service.

If you’re not using the so-called “smart” features do you even need a firmware update?

I wish TVs could compete on Picture quality, how quickly it turns on and off, how sleek and minimalistic UI it has for picture settings.

But sadly this is not the world we live in.

Most of them seem to compete on picture quality but I’m not sure that we have a consensus on what “quality” means in this case. Buyers often prefer screens where the contrast and saturation are artificially enhanced so that is the default setting for many TVs.

There are ways to measure picture quality in unbiased way.

I think this put it nicely: "However, it is important to emphasize that with calibration we use industry standards as goals. When a TV is told to reproduce a certain shade of purple, it must produce exactly this color. Nothing else. It is not up to the manufacturer to interpret or “improve”, which unfortunately is a common misconception about picture reproduction."

From: https://www.flatpanelshd.com/focus.php?subaction=showfull&id...

I've heard of a brand called swedx that makes dumb TVs, I don't know if they're expensive or how well they work since I've never bought a new TV in my life, but here's the website (kinda iffy) if someone is interested in checking them out, probably EU only.

https://www.swedx.se/index.php?cPath=133_12800038

It'd be nice if I could check shipping costs/ability before entering a bunch of personal info, but I guess that's life.

But yeah, doesn't look like they ship to the US; no options come up for shipping methods (and clicking Continue anyway just loops back to the shipping method selection page without any sort of error message).

I mean, get used to filling in bogus information in a temporary Firefox container if you just want to check something. We're slowly progressing towards 1984!

> But yeah, doesn't look like they ship to the US; no options come up for shipping methods (and clicking Continue anyway just loops back to the shipping method selection page without any sort of error message).

Business opportunity!

Shipping forwarding services exist.

BTW, it's a Free Software issue. "Smartness" of the TV is not the problem. It's the fact that it forces on you software with anti-features, and you can't do anything about it.

Sure but a free smart TV would just be a TV with a built-in PC and that's a bit silly. There's something attractive about the abusive software in devices like these.

There's nothing silly about it. Chipsets these days are so cheap and common, that it'd be really hard to find one that can't be a "PC". Modern HDMI with HDR/Dolby/compression is already pretty complex and requires quite a bit of software/firmware. Even if most of the processing was done with DSPs, I assume it'd be hard to manage all of that without any CPU.

And if you wanted anything nicer, like streaming media straight from a NAS, "casting" to the TV, or Bluetooth speakers, then it'd need a non-trivial OS anyway (and there's nothing wrong with such features when they're not used as an excuse for DRM and surveillance).

Tivoization and Free Software are orthogonal issues. Having full system sources means nothing when the TV most likely locks out any third party OSes.

> Tivoization and Free Software are orthogonal issues.

Not really. Tivoization actively hinders software freedom, namely because...

> Having full system sources means nothing when the TV most likely locks out any third party OSes.

...of this exact reason.

Buying from a narrow list of supported hardware to use open source software has been a common thing for ages.

To me software freedom is a bigger issue than minutiae of GPL v2 vs v3. The overall problem is still that you don't have the ability to control the software that your TV runs, regardless of how this realized technically and legally.

You could run a (hypothetical) proprietary third party full-stack TV implementation on non-Tivoized hardware just as well as a corresponding open-source implementation, because the TV just wouldn't care what's running on it. That's why I said they are orthogonal.

For those looking for the model, the author posted it here: https://twitter.com/ericwbailey/status/1379980899090071554

For those looking for the model and can't access Twitter for some reason (like in my case; I had to pull up a device that wasn't on my work VPN ;) ):

> It's a Sceptre 43" X435BV-FSRCC

I wonder if there would be a market for high quality dumb TVs. I would personally love to have the option but I suppose it would be hard to pitch a TV with less features that’s more expensive than the smart TVs from recognizable brands

Can anyone recommend a decent streaming client to make a dumb TV or a Beamer "smart"? I have an ancient PS3, but it's kinda noisy and I am afraid it will stop working for Netflix, considering Sony will soon shut down the PS3 Store. Also, there is no Disney+ on the PS3.

  * AppleTV is really long in the tooth right now
  * Amazon hardware is probably slow
  * Google knows too much about me, anyways
  * Raspberry PI/Kodi is probably fiddly

(btw. I am in Germany, so not all hardware might be available here).

Using LibreELEC myself. It's designed to be less fiddly than RPi/Kodi.

I'm also in Germany but not using Netflix so no idea how well it is supported.

My favourite thing is my tiny little device: Cubox i4pro. Bought it five years ago and still humming along well. Though support is kind of suffering. But the list of hardware that LibreELEC supports well looks interesting.

Have a look at the OSMC Vero 4k.

That seems to be geared towards the UK market (the AC adaptor has a british plug and it is not available on the german Amazon store). Am I overlooking something?

Well I'm in the UK, so probably I'm missing something. I'm sure you could get a different plug.

I have the latest Fire Stick 4K and it works great. Zero lag or sluggishness, and I got it for like $30.

How about the user interface? I recently read somewhere that it is being filled with ads more and more.

There aren't any traditional ads, but it will recommend shows to watch which you may consider annoying or not. Basically looks exactly like this – https://www.cordcuttersnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/A...

Nvidia Shield TV Pro is probably the "best" (read: least worst) option.

However it runs Android so you can't escape Google if you go that route. In terms of functionality and quality is it the best option available though, their "AI" powered upscaling is pretty damn impressive.

At the risk of stating the obvious: you can always set up an alt Google account without a phone number or credit card...

Any purchases can be paid for with gift cards.

Or not log into a Google account at all and use F-Droid/side load any applications you need.

If only that were a practical solution. The open-source community doesn't have everything, sadly, and some of the best applications are only available in the Play Store, behind a pay wall.

I like drawing and note-taking with my S-Pen enabled tablet. There's no good open-source alternative to Artflow or Nebo (both paid apps).

Sure, you could pirate it... even with morality aside, I'd rather trust Google than random APKs acquired from the dark corners of the Internet.

And with this setup, Google doesn't really have much information about my person, so I don't care if they have info on the device (assuming you take proper steps to keep the device anonymous).

It is occasionally realistic, depending on your use case. The open source situation on Android is not nearly as lamentable these past couple of years compared to earlier. In the context of specialist paid software and hardware, it's of course less likely to be possible.

It also comes with a pretty hefty price tag.

I just bought a new Roku Premiere, I've got no complaints with it so far. It's cheap, easy to use, and supports all the streaming services I use.

Hm, apparently it does not support Amazon Prime Video in germany.

If you want a new stylish TV, i can recommend Samsung "The Frame". It is a 4K TV which you can hang on the wall and it looks like a painting.

Note that you absolutely must not connect it to the internet nor accept any agreements or policies. It then becomes a "dumb" TV which displays art when turned off.

Then connect Apple TV to make use of it.

An Apple TV can't be used without an Apple ID, which requires a phone number to create, and transmits the unchangeable Apple TV hardware serial number to Apple like a supercookie you can never delete.

It's just trading one type of tracking for another. At least your smart TV isn't demanding your phone number (which is a simple data broker API lookup to name, address, purchase history, income level, et c...).

I don't think tracking is the concern here, it's advertisement that a lot of these smart TVs have been adding to their menu systems. Apple TV or smart TV, those services you hook into like Netflix are tracking your behavior anyway; that's a given. Your behavior is also tracked on Hackernews or any website you visit. Advertisement on the other hand, is a new thing with smart TVs that people try and avoid through the dumb TV.

If I had infinite time, I’d build a firmware that was optimized for stupid use. Like OpenWRT.

Don’t connect it to the internet and your fine. Sure if you are Edward Snowden or some famous person I get it, people are out to get you.

You are not going to change the world, just buy the cheep tv and use it as a dumb tv.

> Don’t connect it to the internet and your fine.

Assuming the TV won't connect anyway, e.g. by actively wardriving for unsecured wi-fi or by shipping with a cellular modem.

You mean you haven't lead lined your home yet?

Please read the article. There are lots of points made about smart TVs that go beyond internet access.

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