Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse | Hacker News Reader

Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse

news.samsung.com

579 pointsbarbacoa694 comments

I bought one of Samsung's smart televisions a couple years ago. I think I paid $1500 for it. Anyway, it started showing me ads and the TV eventually became sluggish less than a month after owning it. Returned it as defective. Ever since that experience, I swore of all smart televisions and will never buy another Samsung television or smartphone again if I can help it.

I recently bought a TCL TV specifically because I trust Roku to maintain their software more than someone like Samsung. The ads drive me insane, even if they're relatively unobtrusive. At least in that case the TV was much cheaper (~$500 for a 55" TV)

I read some other thread on here some time ago that talked about the option of using a Pi-hole (or so?) to block smart TV ads.

Some TV manufacturers have gotten wise to this (sigh) and started hard-coding their DNS lookup IPs.

I remember having to set up a firewall rule to drop or reroute all DNS queries through my PiHole. What a pain in the ass to have to jump through hoops for a device I paid over $1k for.

> Some TV manufacturers have gotten wise to this (sigh) and started hard-coding their DNS lookup IPs.

Is there a list of such manufactures? Don't want to accidentally buy one of their products.

Well that's easy enough to filter - just nat all outgoing traffic to UDP/53 to your preferred device.

Of course google and other spy companies are pushing DNS over HTTPS, so once that becomes popular in these devices, you're screwed - you simply have to block all traffic (in which case you won't be able to watch netflix/disney/whatever using that device. For a TV that's fine, as you have a PC plugged into it, for now)

Not only the DNS lookup IPs are getting hardcoded, even the ads themselves may be shipped on the device, in case it cannot update the ads (e.g. no internet connection).

Roku watches what you are watching and shares that data with their trusted partners. Same as Android TV (whatever it's called now) and Amazon Fire.

AFAIK, the only mainstream streaming device that doesn't do this is Apple TV.

That doesn't surprise me at all. I just also know Roku has been around forever, so I trust that if a new service is added, it will be there. I don't know that I can say the same about other manufacturers (not that they _don't_, I just don't have the same level of trust there).

Eventually it should be there. For example, it took a long time for HBOMax to make it to Roku because they couldn't agree on how much of a cut of the subscription fees Roku should get.

This is called ACR and you can disable it in settings. The FTC sued Vizio when they added it to their TVs without a way to turn it off.

You can block them talking back to the mothership using Pi-Hole or PFBlockerNG.

I got screwed by Sony for a smart TV that was abandoned within a year. Then none of the streaming sticks worked on it due to HDCP compability issues.

In the end I bought a broken Samsung 32" 1080p mostly dumb TV on ebay for £0.99, fixed it (power supply capacitor problem) and steal all my content and ship it on USB sticks to the TV which will quite happily play h264 / mp3 encoded stuff.

Fuck the whole industry.

This can be disabled in the setup/settings

I once had a so called "Radio Roku" where the main service has been discontinued (the website where you could put in your favorite stations etc.), so basically the answer is don't trust no one.

I think the answer is "don't rely upon an external service".

BTW, Roku supported the Radio Roku service for 10 years after the SoundBridge was discontinued, plus the device isn't locked down -- there are community-based efforts which still let you use an old SoundBridge, with a little effort. However, I'd argue that SoundBridge-era Roku is a VERY different company than streaming video-era Roku.

The issue is that it's hard to find any not-too-smart TVs with up to date technology (4k, OLED, HDR etc). Unless you spend a fortune on a luxury brand like Bang and Olufsen.

One alternative is the Gigabyte AORUS FO48U 48" 4K OLED. This essentially an LG OLED, minus the smart TV stuff, plus better inputs. It seems to have a ~15% price premium over the TV.

That could be a nice alternative! In that case you do need a separate tuner though and something like a Chromecast if you want to watch Netflix. And you might not have easy access to extended channel offerings such as watching older episodes on demand etc.

I have literally not used a built-in TV tuner at home for 15 years. It used to be a set-top box for cable/satellite providers, now mostly an AppleTV for streaming services (including for public broadcast like the BBC iPlayer). If/when I replace my TV it'll almost certainly be closer to a TV-sized display with decent built-in speakers.

It would be interesting to see some metrics on the number of people that use tuners on TVs now days.

Gigabyte does not do business in good faith. I am extremely leery of anything related to them now; they are not a safe brand.

https://www.windowscentral.com/gigabyte-allows-returns-or-ex...

Hm, don't want to side with with Gigabyte here, but drawing a conclusion from a test of a PSU enduring 120% load for an extended period of time failing would not make me dismiss all their products.

Not to mention said test is in a general purpose computer and we're talking about a monitor here, with a fixed load.

>from a test of a PSU enduring 120% load for an extended period of time failing

That's from gigabyte's response, not the accusations levied against them. In GN's testing, they found that the PSU failed at 60% load after 72 hours: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aACtT_rzToI&t=1427s

Well, that is definetly not okay. Would never consider buying something else than a motherboard from gigabyte, but i prefer Asus anyway.

They're fucking shit. I've had to replace once twice here and it's less than 50% of the stated load.

There's a Be Quiet unit in there now like the rest of the PCs in my place.

Have been happy with their Aorus GPU, a 1080TI Xtreme, however their software suite turned into a pile of shit.

I will not buy another Gigabyte / Aorus card for that reason.

The cheap gigabyte cards are fine. I’ve got a bottom end 1660 and it has been good. But I only use the stock nvidia drivers with it.

Just the power supplies are dog crap.

The card is fine, but if you want to control the oh so annoying lighting...

Fortunately Afterburner will let you take control of the fan etc with a custom profile.

I had a problem with the lighting in my Logitech mouse. I desoldered all the LEDs :)

The max brightness on the FO48U is 385 nits, the LG CX 48 has a max brightness of ~740. That'll really impact the sort of high level HDR features you expect at that price point while paying a premium to use the same Apple TV or Shield Pro as your smart portion.

Why isn't the alternative to keep your TV off the network?

For now, that works.

It's easy to imagine a time when the TV includes it's own 5G modem or that Samsung would make a deal with Amazon or Comcast for access to their wifi mesh networks so the TV can get online without user intervention.

This distopyan deal is surely coming soon. And unfortunately may apply to far more type of stuff we take home.

I once moved across the ocean and newly purchased LG TV refused to work because I am now in the wrong region. Off it went to a landfill, this perfect piece of hardware :-(

How did it know?

I guess it picked up my ip address.

Might have picked it up from the SSID.

Refused to work on what way?

There was a dialog window with a error message and a [Continue] button which did nothing.

Unbelievable. Not even as a monitor?

Wow, that's terrible.

I only know about LGs but they have a service remote that you can use to change the region. Maybe Samsung has a similar thing?

Amazon sidewalk [1] has entered the chat. The article focuses on "neighbors" but I'm pretty sure the main use case is to enable smart TVs and other IOT to phone home despite being disallowed.

[1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/05/amazon-devices-will-...

Thanks for posting that. I was trying to remember what it was called and couldn't.

> I'm pretty sure the main use case is to enable smart TVs and other IOT to phone home despite being disallowed.

I highly doubt that. Rolling out this network is a lot of work and I'm nearly 100% certain this is to reduce claims of non-working devices caused by bad WiFi, plus maybe the option to sell network access on a wide range of devices.

Avoiding blocked network for TVs and other "smart" appliances is surely a nice benefit, but I doubt even 1% of people actually block network access (hell, most probably want it!). There's no way Amazon would pour that amount of effort into extracting that minuscule piece of tracking data.

Or segregate it from the network (e.g. using a VLAN). Some folk might need the freeview/on-demand TV apps (if they're trying to avoid having other smart devices for these things (e.g. fire sticks and Apple TVs et al) and these require at least working outbound internet access.

That's the problem of current consumers. The modern TVs have an equivalent no smart same spec screen but only available to corporate users with all the modern inputs just without the smart. If only we could get access to that market.

> If only we could get access to that market.

You often have access to it, it's just a higher price (sometimes double) because it isn't subsidized by advertising.

The subsidies from advertising don't cause thousands of dollars of difference. It's maybe a few dozen, or few hundred at the most. Facebook's yearly revenue per user is about 33 USD, and they probably have a way better grip on your eyeballs. A TV lives about 5 to 7 years.

The way larger component is due to effects of scale which punishes products that run in small batches, and the effect that the "business" version of something is usually more expensive, but available with higher quality, than the consumer version.

You can shop for bare display panels at https://panelook.com

Building the TV receiver part shouldn't be too difficult. Perhaps someone could write a blog about it.

Then you're very welcome to write it if it's that easy /s

I have looked in to fixing a new but broken pc monitor that way but it would end up the same cost as a new monitor, at least in my case.

I bought a high-end Samsung 4K tv in 2015 or so for about $3000. I picked it after a week of research that showed it had the highest quality panel.

After taking delivery of the TV, we noticed it had bright lower left and right corners that we later found out were due to new packaging that pinched the TV and caused most of the TVs in that batch to be ruined. Samsung claimed that the corners were "in spec" and refused to replace the TV. Thankfully the retailer replaced the TV.

I vowed that I'd never purchase another Samsung product. I've stuck to that, but a house I just bought has all Samsung appliances, which I'm not looking forward to.

Samsung's appliances have a pretty bad reputation in general, especially the refrigerators and side loading washing machines.

Anecdotal but I've had very good experience with Samsung front loading washing machine, might depend on regions of the world though, I've had one in Asia and one in Europe.

That's crazy because I've had terrible experience with Samsung front loader washing machines. I own a few rental properties, so I tend to go through appliances a lot and I've had more Samsung washers and dryers fail than anything else.

The dryers are the worst. They use a plastic tensioner pulley for the belt, but the pulley doesn't have a bearing...it just rides on a metal sleeve. This eventually wears out and causes the belt to fly off.

The washers have this issue I think due to incompatible metals (aluminum mounting to the stainless drum maybe) that causes them to break after about 5 years.

> This eventually wears out and causes the belt to fly off.

On my dryer it took less than a year before it tossed the belt.

Seems like LG makes better appliance than Samsung in general... but I guess mileage varies between model and customer.

Samsung and LG are so big that I would not expect to be able to make an objective statement on either's quality relative to another, not even for a specific product line, much less company wide.

Doesn’t a larger sample size reduce the noise?

I think the issue is that both companies make very cheap and very expensive products in various places around the globe. So, we could be reading series of negative comments from people that got an inexpensive model made in Mexico versus people that got an expensive one made in Korea, or something like that.

that's a good point regarding price points... but I didn't realize the price went up to $8000 for a fridge.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEDxRY4xcCI

Life is Good indeed.

My experience has been fine after I learned that ankle socks and masks will cause the machine to jam. Now I just hand wash small items and the machine works perfectly /sarcasm>

Edit: I’m getting downvoted. Is this a well known thing not to wash small items? (I’ve been using washing machines for 20 years, without a problem until this one.)

> Is this a well known thing not to wash small items

Front loaders specifically - though usually to protect the objects being washed, not the machine itself. The joint around the door tends to pinch small objects. I put masks in a mesh bag meant for washing "delicates"

My Samsung front-loader failed the first time in less than a year. Right after that, the Samsung dryer I bought with it also failed.

My Samsung refrigerator had the display fail after two years, and the replacement display started failing in a month. I no longer bother buying replacement displays because everyone else agrees they never last more than a few months.

No more Samsung appliances for me, ever. And CR's credibility took a major hit in my eyes because I bought the washer & dryer on their recommendation, even after I already knew that Samsung refrigerators were garbage.

Try to stay away from pricy Bosh washers, and dishwashers.

I can offer this with a Bosh. If you get a E13 error it's the pump.

It's a pretty easy fix. You can get a generic pump for $50.

Most disguarded Bosh washers are due to a pump. The computer is second on the list. It's not worth fixing if it's the board.

I've been meaning to put a fan on my washer's computer board. There us definitely room in there for a computer fan.

It’s Bosch fyi

Frequently with an E13 it's just an item stuck in the pump outlet plumbing.

Australia had a spate of house fires caused by Samsung washing machines whose electronics weren't properly waterproofed, shorted, and then burned.

I have avoided Samsung products since then.

Trouble with this way of deciding is that it's biased by the number of individual products a brand has. Samsung has a lot so they're exposed to more risk of some bad ones even if they're safer on average than their competitors.

You used to see this with car brands back when everybody worried about reliability. Somebody would hear a bad story and go round saying "Don't buy BMWs because their fuel injectors fail". Fortunately, most people have goldfish memory, so people still buy Ford cars despite the Ford Pinto's fuel tank fires and they still buy Toyota despite the Prius's uncontrolled acceleration or whatever.

I had a Samsung front loader and it's a great washer.

Was it the one that sings a Schubert tune every time the wash is done?

That cracks me up.

It's a Korean version, I am not familiar with the tune it was playing.

Never again will I buy anything Samsung.

They have steadfastly refused to fix my fridge's ice maker even though they have admitted it's a design fault, and retailers will not take it back as faulty because the ice maker is not considered vital to the functioning of the refrigerator in general.

Ice makers are notoriously flimsy. Serious race to the bottom by the manufacturers. The good news is that they're easy to replace (undo a couple of bolts and unplug a cable and they usually come right out), bad news is the replacements are ridiculously expensive, like $100 each and come with all of the same design flaws the original had. There is also surprisingly little standardization which makes the replacements even more expensive as there are hundreds of mostly but not quite compatible models to stock and you have to be very careful when ordering replacements.

The thing that gets me is that for commercial operations it seems to be a solved problem. They break and require maintenance like anything else but if they’re not outright broken they are super reliable where fridge ice dispensers even when they’re working suck.

Standalone ice machines in particular infuriates me as 90% of the machines on Amazon are copies of the same broken design: it rotates a plastic water container by firing a motor on one side only for a number of seconds without any sensor to stop it. As a result, if you use them heavily, it reliably develops stress fractures after a year or so.

It took me four broken machines to find a model without that exact same design flaw...

It seems a lot of the problems with these kind of products is that most customers use them quite little, and so they don't see a major fallout even for problems that'd be trivial to fix (many of the ice maker models in question has a switch to stop rotation too far in the opposite direction) and so it just gets ignored.

Most were up to a few years ago, but the big players went out of their way to make dependable ice makers--I thought.

The last two refrigerators I bought had dependable ice makers.

I just overheard an installer talking to a neighbor while installing his refrigerator.

The tech said most modern refrigerations only last 10 years at best though.

10 years is actually quite good for major appliances. If you're warrantied for 3 and manage to get 10 years out if it you've exceeded the design parameters. Environmentally, replacing a broken fridge is usually the only time someone will even research something more energy efficient.

I thought fridges should last 15-20 years at least. 3 years is a joke.

Meanwhile my Grandmother still uses her fridge from the 60s. It still has the kind of handles where you can get locked inside and almost die if you are on a very special episode of any 80's kid show.

Wow. So the idea is that we want them to wear out more quickly so that they buy a new product that's more energy efficient? That strikes me as terribly wasteful. What about the impacts of a discarded appliance?

The compressor is almost certainly the most expensive part of the fridge. It's also one of 2 moving parts on fridge (the other the being the fan, which is cheap), making it the most likely to fail.

I checked some list prices, and they're a substantial price of the fridge itself. Some site said $200-$450 to replace one, another said the part itself is $100-$500 without even including labor. At those prices, I can see why people might just buy new. It's also something most people would want to hire a professional for; refrigerants are not good to inhale, and this needs to be air-tight.

I would also hope that most of them get refurbished. It's pretty hard to just "discard" a fridge. You have to call someone at the city (or GoodWill), and I presume they sell those to refurbisher. They're worth some money.

So I think in reality, it goes to a refurbisher who fixes it, then sells it to someone else who replaces and even older fridge. So the fridge that actually ends up in a landfill might be a 1960s deep freeze. The same idea as used cars.

Unofortunately some manufacturers are now implementing DRM to control your use of the ice maker function.

See: https://www.vice.com/en/article/jgxpjy/hacker-bypasses-ges-r... and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22129801

I have never heard about anyone having trouble with an ice maker until I read this.

My ice maker has been working fine for over 15 years. My mother's ice maker has been working fine for about 25 years.

You have old ones from before the manufacturers stopped caring. It seems like ones made in the past 5 years have gone precipitously downhill, especially the GE ones.

The Icemaker in my Frigidaire refrigerator has never worked since I bought the house, the problem is that the coils keep freezing over (the icemaker is in the refrigerator compartment so has its own freezer coil to make it cold)

I spent a weekend pulling it out, thawing everything out, and then replacing the defroster coil, thinking that would fix it. It didn't -- it worked for about a week afterwards until freezing over again.

I won't buy appliances anywhere other than Costco for this reason. No-questions-asked returns for 90 days on appliances, and a year on most other items. Extended warranty for several years for free if you use their credit card, too.

Yeah but good luck getting them delivered in the first place. My understanding is that Costco owns Innovel now and they are a truly terrible logistics company. Buyer beware!

Me neither! I got their fridge, and in my case the deicing functionality is faulty. There is a little metal tab behind the back panel that heats up an ice dam to keep the condensation flowing out, that happens to be too short by about 2cm. They skimped on 2cm of aluminum and now I will never buy anything Samsung ever again.

So in short, it seems that they can neither make a proper ice maker nor ice un-maker :-)

Hey I had that same issue with my old fridge, a guy on YouTube helped me solve it! Take a short piece of the copper ground wire from a length of Romex and wrap it around the heating element, then have it point down into the drip area. It should conduct enough heat to keep the fins from icing up. It's not ideal but it saved me from replacing the (I think) evaporator fan for a third or fourth time, plus all the ruined food. Also had to replace the mainboard on the pile of junk fridge. So glad I don't own it anymore.

When I worked delivery at a national big box home improvement store, Samsung and LG refrigerators that we brought back due to ice maker not working went to the recycle trailer and was sold for scrap once the trailer filled up.

New Zealand has a bit of legislation called the Consumer Guarantees Act, and it specifies something to the effect of ‘the thing should have a lifespan commensurate with the price, free of defects or faults’. It’s really great - the downside is that we pay more for things than people overseas do. I vastly prefer that we have it.

Would be glad to pay a bit more to ensure quality. My persistent fear when buying something is - if it fails, how do I get it serviced/replaced, or barring that - how will I dispose of it. Because dumping it feels completely unsustainable.

It's prevented me from buying to replace a lot of my stuff.

I got my samsung plasma TV repaired after 4 years of ownership because the Consumer Guarantees Act says that appliances have to last as long as a 'reasonably expected' lifetime, that repair options have to be available and that the warranty period for major defects is that 'reasonably expected' lifetime.

It's still working now, ten years post-purchase.

Would be interesting to know if big manufacturers then only sell their most dependable models in the NZ market, in order to avoid the costs that they can avoid in more business-friendly markets like the US.

It would be a good way to decide which products to buy. Is this (equivalent) model sold in New Zealand? If so, it's probably known by the manufacturer to be solid. If not, avoid it at all costs.

It's probably cheaper to insure and replace garbage Hardware.

A lot of consumers probably don't know or care so they might get away with the same products and just take the hit from the few returns. I'm in NZ and never knew about that reasonable lifetime bit. I just have a vague awareness that most appliances come with a card saying they have a 1 or 2 year warranty and beyond that, assume it's on me. There's usually some language like "in addition to your rights under the CGA" but who knows what those rights are. Also, below some price, it's just too much hassle to have figure out how returning it works and weighing the risk that I might get charged for the repair if it turns out to be due to mistreatment, not a defect.

What happens is that big companies try to trick consumers (as most consumers are not aware of their legal rights). Common tactics are:

* It will cost x to fix this, as a gesture we will share the inflated repair cost with you 50/50.

* We don't make this model anymore but we have an identical model with a different serial number, we can offer you that at a "discount".

* We found the item had water damage and this is not covered in our warranty, even when we advertised these items being used in water.

* We are happy to repair the item but first we need to have the item inspected by a repair agent to see how the fault occurred. Please be aware if we find the fault is caused by you, then you agree to pay x dollar value amount even if we do not repair item (because you were at fault)

* Item spends many weeks being assessed for repair. Doesn't get repaired, sent back. Repeat.

.. and many more.

Only when you stand firm and start spouting the legal requirements do they suddenly resolve the situation VERY quickly.

I dealt with dodgy Samsung fridges and they tried to "share" the repair cost with me. I politely declined, then sent them an email citing my legal rights. Samsung then repaired the fridge promptly and no longer tried to talk with me about sharing costs of repair.

Most consumers fall for the tricks above or give up and buy a new item.

I don't think international companies care too much, they are adept selling to the masses. Those that cite the rules to get a repair are likely to be a tiny minority.

There is another aspect of the law which is less known. It is not actually Samsung or large manufacturer on the hook for consumer guarantee. It is the retailer. The retailer has to remedy the situation. If Samsung packs up operations, the retailer still needs to stand by the product it sold. This means that the retailer has an incentive to work with more reliable manufacturers and suppliers and will promptly ditch troublesome suppliers.

> have a lifespan commensurate with the price

> we pay more for things than people overseas do

This sounds wonderfully cyclical. "Why do I expect my washer to last an extra year? Because it cost 10% more than the one sold in America, which is expected to last a decade".

" the downside is that we pay more for things than people overseas do"

Isn't that they just force you to buy extended warranty on everything?

A warranty that's legally enforced, though. Part of the reason there are so many jokes about extended warranties is that it's very hard to make the seller actually honour them.

A practical example is the an Apple extended warranty is basically in effect on every Apple product in New Zealand. There are some things you don’t get, but if you notify them after 3 years that your phone is not not working (no drop damage or water damage though), they will replace it.

Australia has the same thing. Amazing to have an actual law to protect consumers a bit from multinationals.

Wonder how long until our politicians take it away.

What country do you live in?

Same. Samsung has had a bad reputation for a while. I remember having issues with their CRT monitors back in mid 2000s. I bought one of their smart TVs back in 2011 and it's had issues with the panel ever since with randomly showing purple & pink lines. Their cell phones have also been crap in my personal experience.

I've never had a good experience with a Samsung device. Their TV screens are too blue for me, their appliances fail too quickly and are not user repair friendly, their phones have too much bloat.

Admittedly, this is all down to personal experience and taste but I am decidedly anti-samsung. I've had a few decent computer monitors from them but otherwise everything I've owned from them has become e-waste with far too much rapidity for the price paid.

If you can find a good stylus, I won't need a Note anymore. The Note is the last Samsung device that I buy, but only because there is absolutely no competition. I don't even use all the fancy S-Pen software, I just use the stylus for the same functionality that every Android device has.

Moto has a stylus phone out now.

Thank you, I'll take a look at that!

We bought a 1.5k refrigerator which died after 2 years (warranty expires exactly at that time in Europe). We had extended repair, it died again after another year.

Never again!

Worth noting that in UK under the Consumer Rights Act there is no specific time limit for poor engineering causing a problem that the _seller_ must fix. The limitation is 2 years or how long I've would normally expect such a product to last. A fridge should easily last a decade and so in theory there's a 10 year "warranty" period. The seller can have things repaired, replace them, or offer a refund (refunds can be reduced to account for the use you did get from the product).

We need to use legislation and taxation to push for every longer-lived appliances.

Same in Australia

I had heard of exploding Samsung laundry machines. And the house I bought has one. I dread the day it decides to do its thing.

https://money.cnn.com/2016/11/04/news/companies/samsung-expl...

Front loading washing machines just seem like an all around more fragile design that is also less usable.

I have an HE top loader. It uses just as little water, but it can wash a lot more clothes when needed. I can push a button and it stops being HE and can fill its tub up to wash blankets and comforters.

Also front loaders just can't clean synthetic fabrics that water beads off of. I've seen fabrics come out of a front loader almost completely dry because the tiny bit of water that is used can't even penetrate the outer layer of fabric. Mostly my Ikea comforters, I put one in a front loader I used to have and after a complete wash cycle it wasn't even damp, and it was still very dirty.

Finally, front loaders are mechanically more complex. For one, if that seal fails, well, it leaks. The simplicity of a Top loaders means they can last longer, and in the very least top loaders don't get all gunked up around the door seal. I have seen so many front loaders that smell awful because no one ever cleans the crud out of the seal, ick!

Aside from space savings, I really don't get the point of a front loader at all. Maybe the tumbling action is better at some types of cleaning?

I've literally never ever seen a washing machine that isn't a 'front loader' here in the UK either in someones house or in a store, I didn't know you could still buy other ones!

UK yeah, you all have those washer/dryer combos that wash tiny loads, and almost set clothes on fire to dry them. (In my experience they also take forever to dry the clothes!) Can't be very good for synthetics, I have clothing that has gotten scorch marks from my American dryer's "medium heat" setting, I can't imagine what would have happened in a UK machine!

It should be noted that in many places in the US that hanging clothes outside is either not allowed, or impractical. Also I've had some really bad nights (baby) where I needed to wash and dry all my bedding twice over, so having a, rather fast, dryer was nice.

Seriously though, if you need to wash a large comforter, what do you do? I haven't seen a front loader large enough to fit a proper comforter in. Something like http://canyon-sports.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/91YEVCAn...

In America, you can buy top loaders or front loaders. Front loaders are popular in condos and apartments because you can stack them with a dryer.

My washing machine can fit in one of those 'comforters' (duvet as It would seem to other UK folk!) easily with more to boot. Maybe our front loaders are larger than the ones available in the US?

The front loaders in the US tend to be of the High Efficiency variety, which means they spray just a little bit of water on the clothing and then "tumble" it around to get the clothes clean.

If the machine is stuffed full this doesn't work, the water gets caught in some fold of the clothing and you end up with 1 damp spot and an otherwise dry duvet.

I Air BnB'd my way around the UK, the washing machines in the places I stayed were generally tiny, like smaller than anything I've even seen in the US, but that could've just been an artifact of me staying in Air BnBs.

They all did share the trait of getting the clothing seemingly scorching hot to dry it though. :/

American top loading machines are generally huge. Now days they have sensors to detect how much water they really need to use, so they aren't going through LMAOWTFBBQ gallons of water like they did when I was a kid.

Definitely a symptom of AirBNB. Every single one I've stayed in has the cheapest most laughably small washing machine. Considerably smaller than the ones most people would purchase for their own home.

Depends on each one's habits, but around here washing such a big comforter would be a "special cleaning day" type of thing, to happen just once in a year or couple of years (or even more, if it has been kept clean). So e.g. after the winter finishes, before putting the heavy clothing away in a closet for the summer, you might bring it to a laundry shop for cleaning, which usually has huge front loaders: https://previews.123rf.com/images/toonpang/toonpang2008/toon...

I’ve seen one of those combo things in my entire life. They’re awful but certainly not common. The front loading machines allow you to have the machine inset under a kitchen counter which is a common place for them in the UK. Separate “laundry rooms” aren’t common and neither are basements so the machine needs to fit in other use environments. I used top loading machines for a while when living in Canada and had constant problems with the detergent staining clothes.

Regarding the sizing again, I’ve never had a problem. I’ve also never heard of anybody washing a comforter (although I don’t call it a comforter so maybe I’m misunderstanding what you mean). A comforter (or duvet) has a cover on it and you wash the cover.

Huh. Top loaders are more common than front loaders in the US.

Not in apartments, where machines are often stacked on top of each other.

I think it's mostly about being able to stack other appliances on top of them to save space. Especially dryers.

Here in Spain I've never seen anything but front loaders, they are almost always embedded into the distribution of the bathroom or kitchen, kinda like dishwashers. Front loading allows you to use the space above it for the kitchen counter or such, washing machines rarely have their door opened anyway.

The spin cycle dries synthetics to near dry if the machine is lightly loaded. Works the same on top loaders.

My wife says front loaders are more gentle, so do less damage to delicate clothes. Maybe due to the lack of the central agitator (do new top loaders still have that)?

The big reason I prefer them though: I can put a counter top above them for folding laundry and things.

They are an absolute pain in the ass to keep clean and odor free though.

Higher end top loaders don't have the giant doom spiral in the middle that rips fabrics apart. :)

> Also front loaders just can't clean synthetic fabrics that water beads off of.

None of the front loaders I’ve used has had a problem with that. Are you sure the one data point you apparently have experience with wasn't just an older and/or relatively low-quality front-loader?

> Aside from space savings, I really don't get the point of a front loader at all.

They are easier to get stuff out of than a top loader of similar size, particularly for larger ones. I’ve also never seen a top loader with a steam cycle, though I guess its possible they exist.

You can add stoves to that list.

Not around here. TVs, fridge and a/c throughout the house working without issue for more than 10 years so far. A couple of Samsung mobile phones as well that kept going until they were so old they could not receive updates.

I've vowed not to buy samsung 3 times now, every time I've been burned. This time it's for real

Same here, I bought a Samsung TV around 5-6 years ago and a year ago it started to show me ads all of a sudden in that 'Media Bar' (I have no idea what's it called, where you select the apps you want to use). A day later I factory reset it and gave it no access to the internet anymore and only stream to it from my PlayStation.

This made me swear off Samsung forever. Don't mess with my stuff I bought years ago.

Make sure your HDMI cable doesn't support ethernet... I've seen people comment about their TVs updating through HDMI when connected to peripherals like consoles.

I bought a Samsung smart TV recently got it all hooked up and noticed that the UI was unbelievably sluggish out of the box when i bought it...

Hooked it up to my Nvidia Shield, configured HDMI-CEC and it's everything i want for a TV, all it does is turn on and display the shield while passing through audio to my receiver haven't seen the Samsung UI in months.

Samsung has some of the best displays. I use 0 "smart" features and just use it as a big dumb 4k monitor for a dedicated Home Theater PC. My wireless keyboard with built in track pad is way better than any smart features they offer, or having to wave a dumb remote around in the air to get their "air mouse" feature offset just right from where you're actually pointing so it doesn't mess up. The TV itself is not connected to the internet and doesn't receive firmware updates beyond the initial one to set the TV up. When I still subscribed to cable TV I used cable cards and windows media center to get all the HDTV stations. Sweet DVR functionality.

I purchased a Samsung tv, I connected it to Wifi one time to download any 'updates' then I disabled WIFI and all of the smart features via the menu and went the extra mile to block its MAC Address on the router.

I never once touched any of the smart features and it has been fine so far. This has been my rule for any devices that requires WIFI. I should really setup a special guest network for them and disable WAN access but I haven't gotten that far yet.

If I'm not mistaken, smart TVs can still communicate by via inaudible sound signals directly to other devices. Spooky.

Really? That's dystopian, but in a cool way. A little like Amazons own internet sharing network or what it was.

It's terrible though. We really live in a panopticon now.

Any links?

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/05/there...

Be careful which apps you allow to use your phone's microphone.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/11/beware-of-ads-th...

Not exactly the TV manufacturer doing it, but there have been reports of advertisers using ultrasonic pitches to do cross-device tracking.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinavia

Slightly different than what gp was talking about but also deals with using invisible audio for DRM

Audio is usually invisible

If you don't want it constantly connected ie to use built-in apps, the step with allowing it out once is needless or even potentially harmful.

Of course I don't know your usage of it, but generally there is nothing worth downloading in those firmwares, only potentially new ways to serve ads and be obtrusive if facing issues with that. You don't want your previously-OK TV to start showing you some warnings after updating it.

You can't really avoid smart TVs these days. Any model that has a good picture quality will have a higher end chipset, and with that higher end chipset TV manufacturers are just rolling Android since they largely don't have to worry about the UI etc.

Technically, all you should have to do is not enable Wifi/Ethernet and you're good to go. But I wouldn't put it past Samsung to look for open APs or connected Samsung products and secretly funnel data via that channel.

You could create a black hole wifi SSID or vlan to frustrate their efforts if this was discovered to be the case.

It would be trivial for them to cut a deal with Comcast to use their xfinity mobile base stations, for example. Frightening!

Coming soon: movie rooms housed inside faraday cages.

Other brands are equally bad in my experience sadly.

Can you avoid these problems by not allowing the TV to connect to the internet?

did anyone in this thread really expect quality when buying a product from a company run by a convicted embezzler?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Jae-yong_(businessman)#201...

I bought a high-end Samsung smart TV in 2017 and simply never gave it the wifi password and never connected it to ethernet. I use it as a dumb screen connected to two consoles and a living room PC for movies.

Thankfully we're not yet at the point where my xbox one or PS4 will give it a DHCP lease, NAT and default route/gateway outbound and 100Mbps ethernet over the HDMI cable .

> simply never gave it the wifi password and never connected it to ethernet

I worked on the team who built Samsung’s initial smart TV experience back in 2009 and yet I’m the exact same as you with every TV I own. If I could get the same quality panel and video processing without “smart TV” functionality for a reasonable price, I would, but they generally are much more expensive. My choice of panel is intended to last me 5 years, the last thing I would want is to be stuck with 5 year old “smart” tech that usually is abandonware shortly after purchase. It’s just to easy to buy a separate box (AppleTV in my case) and get a better experience and easy upgrade ability as new stuff comes out without wasting a perfectly good multi-thousand dollar panel.

Unless I win the lottery or something I don't see myself buying a 'professional' flat panel display that has zero smart features, and things like RS232/RS485 based control, as they are more than double the price... The same $1700 smart TV would be easily $3500+ as a professional/industrial display.

Surely there's a wire to snip or PCB trace to cut to disable IP-over-HDMI.

It's just a missing feature in your console, Ethernet over hdmi (hec) is a thing and who knows what you need to prevent this (hdmi firewall?)

Convert HDMI to SDI and back, but you'll need a HDMI-to-SDI converter that ignores HDCP (i.e. either pages of forms explaining how you've got a legitimate reason for doing it and an expensive converter, or a cheap Chinese one)

If it ignores HDCP, doesn't that prevent you from using it to play Netflix and Amazon Prime content?

These devices pretend to pay attention to HDCP, tell the tranmitting device "oh yes I'm good", but then ignore it.

> simply never gave it the wifi password

That's been my strategy too, and so far, so good. We treat the TV as dumb. Getting a 75 inch screen that isn't a 'smart TV' is dang near impossible.

I'd rather expect they'll soon start putting cell chips inside of them for telemetry and ads, kind of like cars do nowadays.

What's the point of a TV to begin with. All oyu need is a display and a laptop.

Can you recommend a non-smart TV? Seems like everything is smart these days.

Get an LG. Problem solved.

Have you tried another brand? Seems like you are jumping from "I had a bad experience with one smart TV" right to "smart TVs are to be avoided".

I have a smart TV (of another brand) that I am very happy with, and while I don't really use the built-in apps, they are quite decent and – importantly – don't get in the way of me using the TV as a HDMI sink exclusively.

It even got native AirPlay support via a software update three years after its original market launch, something I'd absolutely not expect and was quite pleasantly surprised by.

This thread feels very...Hacker News Bubble?

Why is everyone so confused that smart TVs are popular?

Being able to just turn on your TV and open Netflix without messing around with inputs/other devices is a huge benefit for non-technological people.

And it probably costs <$50 for the manufacturer to include whatever chip is running linux in the TV, its a no-brainer.

My non-tech extended family members all use separate Roku and/or FireTV devices instead of the built-in TV functionality, because I've seen the devices. I don't know why, but they do.

Lots of people bought Rokus/FireTVs before they had a smart TV, and now simply prefer the interface.

Maybe because the Roku interface actually works properly, whereas the apps on the smart TV are slow and buggy.

I bought a "premium" Roku box brand new for I believe $90 so I could have one with an ethernet cable. That was 3 years ago and it's currently supremely buggy. It goes green, black, crashes mid episode, if I skip a few times within a few seconds the audio might desync. It was already bad but I got a new speaker system and hooked it up to an AV receiver and it instantly got several times worse. I don't know if my experience is typical but 3 years is a disappointing lifetime for something like this IMO.

Very much this. I use the Netflix app on my smart TV as it mostly works without issue. Hulu stops with a black screen every few minutes. I haven't bothered to look to see if it has Disney+ or HBOmax apps, I just use my phone and chromecast to do anything other than Netflix.

I was pretty happy with my old LG TV's smart apps, but it seemed to get more and more sluggish with each update, until finally it got annoying enough that I bought a Roku.

It's Samsung hate, not smart tv hate (although there's that too).

(I have a smart tv but honestly I don't want it anymore. I'm creeped out by the whole idea of it, and I don't like how it's always updating, or complains with blinking lights when it's not on the internet. No ads though. For now. It's kinda hard to find a dumb TV but I may just go with either a large-ish computer monitor or a projector.)

For a dumb TV to computer a projector is the way to go. I haven't darkened everything much so it doesn't work great in the daytime, but I tell myself that's a feature not a bug.

The software in the newer LG OLEDs is so good I haven't bothered hooking up any of my boxes to my new TVs. I'm sure in a few years the UI will start to feel sluggish and it will be time to plug something in, but for now its a great experience, far better than any smart TV I've used before.

I have a non-OLED LG. Great picture, have not plugged anything in but casting from iPhone is buggy (it was added remotely via an update years after I bought the TV). It's amazing, and with very little bloatware

Agreed, I was shocked that I stopped using my Apple TV and that a Smart TV app experience would be even remotely close to an Apple one.

Similar for me, but I was using NVIDIA Shield TV before (now LG C9).

The magic remote kind of ruins my LG TV for me. I like the UI, but hate that bumping my remote brings up that darn cursor that flies around the screen.

It's switched on after powering up the TV, but then I just press twice the down-arrow on the remote and then the cursor disappears and appears only if I use the scroll wheel (which I never do)... .

Really? For the the cursor appears every single time I touch the remote. There is no disabling it.

Ok, I just doublechecked and I must state that the cursor does appear again if I shake violently the remote (never noticed this since I bought the TV hehe) - if I just move it, put it into my pocket and run with it etc... it does not appear. (btw my TV model is "OLED55C6V", not sure if it's relevant, just fyi)

Maybe it's a matter about setting the cursor "sensitivity" (or something similar)? In the "[TV options] -> Accessibility -> Pointer Options -> Tracking speed" mine is currently set to "slow". I did set it to "high" but in my case it did not make any difference (once I pushed twice the down/up arrow keys it did not reappear unless I actively shaked the remote)... :(

I did install all SW-updates that were available so far for that TV, but I had the same behaviour already in its original "unboxed" state... .

I bought one for my grandmother after reading lots of comments like this. She found it baffling, and we went back to Apple TV. Honestly, I found the interface a little confusing myself.

I'll partly agree there, the OS is generally solid but the apps individually can leave a lot to be desired.

My go-to example on LG OLED is Spotify. It's so not OLED friendly, it's essentially OLED-hostile. The UI during playback is completely static and nearly seems designed to cause burn-in.

There are so many things wrong with that app's UX. I would rather listen to worse quality on Youtube than bother opening that app.

A 'favorite' of mine: The Spotify mobile app will play little animations and videos behind the playback display for many songs and albums, but not the TV app. It seems like the TV platform is generally neglected by Spotify engineering.

It doesn't matter how good it is, LG already got paid and has little incentive to keep the software secure in the long-term.

I've never hooked mine into the network.

Roku is same payment model.

It is good, but it's gotten worse. I have an older LG LED TV that had the smart remote, it's about 7-8 years old now and I've replaced the main board once and just ordered another one as it's gone out again. In the mean time I decided to upgrade to a new LG C1 OLED and the picture is stellar in comparison - but the UI has gotten much worse. The remote is just as good as it's always been, however the amount of garbage content on the main screen now is horrendous. It's littered with content I don't want but am forced to look at given I want to use the native apps so I can move my NVidia Shield along with the older LG (since many streaming apps aren't available for the older LG units). My old LG I only connected to the network when I wanted to check for updates, this new one is cordoned off to an IOT device VLAN that only has access to the Internet and there are some holes popped over to Plex so that I can get content streaming to it locally. I also have a specific DNS filtering policy just for the LG TV to cut down on the noise it has access to.

I don't honestly think the experience is good, and I've done a lot to minimize what it has access to. I didn't pay a couple thousand dollars to have a digital billboard in my house. I'd pay a small premium if I could buy a unit that was stripped down and only ran apps and didn't have any other placeholders for content. But... Manufacturers are getting out of control with what they deem OK to do with a device that they claim I've purchased. If nothing else it feels like a prepaid rental at this point - they don't last all that long and they can't seem to help themselves from thinking it's a platform I'm going to shop directly from? Even if it is content - I can't imagine many people want yet another vendor to pay for media content. Especially not LG/Sony/Samsung/etc.

Interesting side note - the LG SmartTV OS has a lineage from PalmOS (Apologies in advance if this is common knowledge).

webOS, also known as LG webOS and previously known as Open webOS, HP webOS and Palm webOS, is a Linux kernel-based multitasking operating system for smart devices such as smart TVs that has also been used as a mobile operating system. Initially developed by Palm, Inc. (which was acquired by Hewlett-Packard), HP made the platform open source, at which point it became Open webOS. The operating system was later sold to LG Electronics, and was made primarily a smart TV operating system for LG televisions

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebOS#2013–present:_Acquired_b...

Completely agree. I hated the idea of a clunky "smart" TV and only purchased LG because of the ratings on picture quality. I have a Nvidia shield, Amazon fire tv cube, and a media PC. I recently realized I use none of them, because the LG software is good enough (and there's a Plex app).

Can you even purchase a dumb but modern TV set? e.g. a dumb 4K OLED?

You can but they're really expensive and not designed for regular home users.

Gigabyte have a 48" 'monitor' now (an LG panel with Displayport 1.4 and no smart features)

Yes, but TVs and monitors have different purposes and it shows. A quick summary at https://thewiredshopper.com/tv-vs-monitor/

TL;DR:

- If you want a certain display tech (qled, oled, ...), you don't need this guide.

- otherwise: there is no difference. pick whatever screen has the size and ports you care about.

I expected something like distance (several m for tv, .5m for monitor), but that goes unmentioned. I guess size+resolution already cover this.

Does it come with a remote control? I expect most panels sold as "monitors" don't.

Don't most things you'd want to use this with come with remote control mechanisms? Chromecast, Apple TV, whatever you run on your raspberry pi, etc.

> Why is everyone so confused that smart TVs are popular?

Also the real reason that they're popular: there are no non-smart TVs available.

There are. It's just you can't get the good stuff for anywhere near smart TV prices

the next logical question is why are they the only tv's available? the reason is the same reason that phones are getting bigger and laptops are getting thinner. (hint it's not some grand conspiracy to ruin your life or to fuck the consumer) the answer is because that's what people buy.

Wait a minute now. TV manufacturers are mining the frames from video played on them in order to detect which shows people are watching. They then sell that data to 3rd parties (typically advertisers and data brokers). It's maybe not some "grand conspiracy", but there is a definite profit motive to push smart TVs and only smart TVs. It is far more profitable than a one time sale since you can sell data over and over. I only personally learned this after meeting some engineers working on such a data mining project, but its fairly well documented:

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

Luckily, you can block them: https://lazyadmin.nl/home-network/how-to-block-ads-on-your-s...

One should not have to, nor should they have to explain to the less technically literate ow to. The practice is disgusting and needs to be handled by regulation with teeth.

Sure, but I think the point is that it's more likely that the idea of an internet-connected TV originally came from the perceived usefulness of having a TV that could come preloaded with various apps (Netflix, etc.). Certainly I think that's a valuable feature to have.

But of course now that the TVs have an always-on internet connection, the manufacturers have realized they can extract more revenue (recurring revenue, at that) by spying on their customers and selling the data. So of course, they do it, and most people don't even know they're doing it, so there's little outrage from the mainstream.

> there is a definite profit motive to push smart TVs and only smart TVs

I would imagine that most customers would prefer a TV with Netflix (or whatever) than a TV without Netflix. At that point it becomes a decision of whether it's worth it to incur the cost of having a separate SKU without the "smart" bits, and it may not be.

Yes, the "smartness" benefits the manufacturer (to the detriment of customer privacy), but I would bet that even if all the sketchy bits were banned tomorrow, manufacturers would still make and sell about the same number of smart TVs.

Actually, it's because they show you ads. For example:

https://www.sony.com/electronics/support/articles/00225587

https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2021/3/10/22323790/lg-oled-tv-...

https://digiday.com/future-of-tv/samsung-pitches-advertisers...

Remember 3DTV’s? For like 5 years, all TV’s being sold had 3D support. Not because consumers wanted it — it was because the industry believed consumers would want it. Industries don’t turn on a dime..

Market forces don’t correct small issues in short timeframes — and smart TV’s are not problematic enough to meet their immediate demise (but sufficiently awful that they eventually will — alongside car infotainment systems)

> alongside car infotainment systems

I don't know if market has corrected those or Apple did.

I couldn't care less about my car's infotainment system as long as the screen is 7+ inches and capable of Apple CarPlay.

> capable of Apple CarPlay.

E.g. you care plenty.

I wouldn't call a glorified screen mirroring an "infotainment system".

I've got a pre-CarPlay OEM infotainment and can confirm, they are pretty shit.

The screen is hard to get it to register a tap, the corners are dead, and the UI is very 2013 (It's a 2013 toyota, so I guess more like 2009 UI).

Supply side is the first side in what exists

Sure but they're also juicy extra revenue streams for the manufacturers from ads and behavior/watch data even without the neigh conspiratorial spying people speculate about.

Well of course. It's the only thing you sell.

The last TV I purchased I had to spend a $10-$20 premium over the smart model with similar specs (from a slightly more reputable manufacturer at that) just to get a non-smart model.

The data mining definitely plays a huge part.

Care to share which model? Last time I checked, the few dumb TVs I could find were at least 30% more expensive than a similar smart one.

I've had the TV for about 5 years now so no information I could share would be too helpful. It's got a 1920x1080 resolution and seems to work well with the living room PC, that's good enough for me.

If you don't give it your wifi password it will not be smart? Its not like they come with a sim card...

I would however love a smart tv with an open stack where I can control the software.

Personally I didn't want passive collection phoning home if, at any point, anyone connected it to anything, and there is also the possibility of connecting to open access points.

And, well, saw no reason for leaving around untrusted unreliable crud I couldn't remove. It was worth a modest markup to get rid of it.

> because that's what people buy.

Not quite. In a world where consumers don't care at all, smart TVs will take over because they're more profitable.

It would take a notable consumer preference against smart TVs just for manufacturers to be neutral.

Like death and taxes are popular.

And now with embedded ads.

There are, they are called monitors

Monitors generally don't have remote controls or speakers. The latter solved with soundbar but former is important use case.

Well depends how do you use it. My DVR set top box has one and I control that to change channels, record etc

Monitors usually don't support HDMI-CEC either.

Some monitors do have speakers, and not having enough functionality for a remote to be needed is exactly why someone would get a monitor. A remote for a non-smart tv these days would basically be an input control and volume. Everything else would be controlled by some other piece of equipment that would need its own remote/app on your phone.

I used to have a Nintendo WiiU connected up to an old computer monitor with integrated speakers. The WiiU has no volume control of its own, so the only way to change the volume was by going through a series of menus using the crappy unreliable light-sensitive (yes) buttons on the bottom of the display. It was a pain in the neck, and a remote control would have solved that problem nicely.

Monitors also generally don't come in 60"+ sizes, or if they do, they don't have HDR or other modern video display technologies.

Possibly some hospitality TVs still come as dumb variants but that seems to be changing too.

My company has monitors for video conferencing and they all have remotes and speakers.

I think they are LG's... like this one:

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1526262-REG/lg_55ut64...

> LG UT640S 55" Class HDR 4K UHD Commercial Smart IPS LED TV ;)

(Although the key here really is the commercial - different standards of what customers are expected to tolerate there)

I have a 4k 43 inch 144hz hdr “gaming” monitor (ROG Strix) and it has a remote. It’s becoming more common now.

And they will eventually have a network connection in a few years...

Samsung seems to be ahead on that one

https://www.samsung.com/ie/monitors/flat/smart-m7-43-inch-sm...

It stretches credulity to suggest that the lack of non-smart TVs on the market causes the popularity of smart TVs. Would you also suggest that the lack of black and white TVs on the market causes the popularity of color TVs?

Does it similarly stretch credulity to suggest that the lack of commercial-free cable channels on the market causes the popularity of cable channels with commercials. Something may be "popular" because it's the only game in town.

I challenge the premise. At least in the United States, the number of subscribers to commercial-free cable channels has decreased significantly in the last 10 years, during which time the number of subscribers to streaming services which show fewer or no ads has increased significantly.

I think it was more of example as using term ”popular” in different context, regardless of it is true or not. Arguing if it is not true, does not take this example away.

Of course it does, because “popular” in the original example was referring to their ubiquity and lack of over viable alternatives. An example of a once-dominant product that appears to be losing in the market to a fast-rising new alternative is not analogous.

Argument goes then more for “is this scenario possible at all for term ‘popular’?”, when it certainly is. Example was just weak.

Another example could be, why driving a car is “too popular” on country side to move between places. It might be popular, because there is no public transportation. Is the situation same with public transportation? Can we call it popular, because it is forced?

The whole point is that there's a difference between saying that the popularity of a product can be caused by the lack of what would be a viable alternative (like your example of public transportation versus cars), and saying that the popularity of one feature of a product is caused by the lack of alternatives that do not have that feature. The latter is more like saying "the popularity of 4-wheeled personal automobiles is caused by the lack of 3-wheeled personal automobiles on the market" or "the popularity of touchscreen smart phones is caused by the lack of smartphones with physical keyboards on the market."

Why weren't TVs with built in VCRs and DVD players more popular?

They were mostly small TVs and not the highest quality. And separate VHS or DVD players had more features.

They were great for a child's bedroom or similar but a big screen with a VHS would just look sort of silly.

I never wanted one because I was afraid that one or the other would break, then it would be half-useless.

My parents had one where the TV part stopped working, but the VCR still worked. It had video/audio out jacks so dad plugged it into their other TV, so they had a dead TV sitting next to their working TV for use as a VCR.

Smart TVs from at least the last 5 years have a similar problem. You update the software and they become excruciatingly slow, or you can't update the software and they gradually become useless.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

But I can replace an old Roku for $39.

True, my old LG TV UI kept getting slower and slower with each update, finally I stopped applying updates and switched to a Roku.

Though the good thing is that I can't see the carcass of the old SmartTV laying around, the TV stays connected to the Roku so unless I accidentally hit the Channel up/down button and switch it to TV mode, I never see the LG SmartTV features.

They work exactly as intended, too bad that among the intended features there is also their planned obsolescence.

I hit that point with my 5 year old Sony android TV. I just plugged in an Nvidia Shield TV device, though, and now it's buttery smooth again with nearly perfect integration.

They were popular!

But there was also the tradition in higher end A/V equipment of selling components instead of complete systems so it was limited to the low end.

I think the issue with Smart TVs is that people became aware of the extent of the downsides only years after they became aware of the convenience.

Smart TV’s are negative costs to the manufacturers as in they get paid more to install them than they actually cost.

Manufacturers therefore have zero incentives to manufacture non smart TV’s.

There would be a damn good incentive to manufacture dumb TVs if governments added taxs/duties to their smart TVs if they did not also manufacturer dumb ones.

Color TVs superseded black and white because it was objectively an improvement for the customer. There wasn't any benefit to the manufacturer besides selling a new unit.

the "Smart" TVs of today are riddled with spyware and telemetry that provides a second revenue stream to the manufacture since 95% of the population is too lazy or uninformed or doesn't have the time to turn it off.

Yes, there benefits to the consumer in the form of convenience but it's not a paradigm shift like the switch from color to b & w. Also you could buy black and white televisions for _decades_ after the introduction of the color TV.

In the course of about 5 years "dumb" TVs have almost completely disappeared from he market. Maybe I'm just cynical but I have a hard time believing that it was because everyone just _had_ to have a TV with a buggy UI (in many cases) and/or loaded with spyware.

The average customer doesn't even know what spyware or telemetry is. I'd even argue that broadcast TV is dying making some form of video streaming service necessary which the smart TV accomplishes in a nice form factor.

… while also making a product out of the user through data collection.

What do the smart ones in possession of a smart TV do? Because I constantly bleed time fine tuning pi-hole to limit telemetry and retain functionality…

Don't give it network, and use it as a dumb terminal connected via hdmi to a secure pc

Eventually they will all likely have cellular modems.

But if you are using an external video source and the tv as a dumb display via hdmi, what is that cellular modem going to transmit? Screenshots?

The TVs track the content you’re watching by sampling a subset of the pixels. So yes.

Wow. I never knew about that. It’s called ACR (automatic content recognition).

I remember reading some tvs will actively search (open?) networks to connect on their own.

This might be unpopular in these parts, but... just don't do anything and actively choose not to care about things like telemetry which have no tangible effect on my experience.

I removed the WiFi card from mine.

Do you remember which model it was and the format of the card? M.2? Card-express?

Probably M.2 since its the most common form factor for them

Sorry for the late response. I don't check this account every day. It isn't my main TV it is a TCL 49S405. It wasn't any form factor I recognize. I looked up the replacement part and found an image.

https://i.imgur.com/FlbKQEu.jpg

It was super trivial to remove. There is actually a removable panel on the back of the TV that lets you access it. Once I saw the antenna connector I knew what it was.

Hey, no big deal. Thanks a lot for coming back and even posting a picture. Now I know what to look for. Didn't even think they'd have the wifi as an separate module, what with integration these days.

Turn off the WIFI, unplug the ethernet, ban the MAC from DHCP, and then plug in an Apple TV 4K.

(I trust Apple more than Samsung. Except when it comes to remote control design.)

Yes TV channels are being replaced by apps.

I think smart TVs are great, the chips that they put in the €1000 models are good enough for 4k streaming now. No more cheap mediatek crap. The only remaining problem that needs to be solved is long term support.

Roku TVs have handled 4k for years with much lower price points. They also have the best track record for supporting their product lineup.

They know what ads are, they know what poorly designed laggy interfaces are, and they know about TVs that weirdly behave slowly if you load to many apps without rebooting your TV.

It really makes more sense for smart functionality to be a different box so you can pick it independently

> The average customer doesn't even know what spyware or telemetry is.

The average customer doesn't know what telemetry is. They usually know what spyware is, and, if they don't, they will find out very quickly. Of course there are exceptions like your favourite Smart TVs or Google (MS, Apple) products.

If I had to choose between a color TV that could only show live broadcasts or a B&W TV that could stream Netflix, etc., I would certainly choose B&W streaming. This obviously doesn’t require a smart TV—I personally use a Roku and rejected all of my Smart TV’s EULAs—but I consider streaming to be a much bigger objective improvement than color.

That would be a fun product actually.. kickstarter idea?

B&W TV w/ built-in roku-like/streaming capabilities.

I wonder how expensive it would be to manufacture a B&W TV these days

It would the exact same amount as a colour TV because the B&W would all be done in software.

If you mean a bw crt, the consensus on the crt gaming sub is that it's too expensive and there are a lot of undocumented secrets :(

I've found some Chinese factory which claims they can do it, but they seem to be using new-old-stock tubes.

I believe EU regulations regarding lead in consumer products prevent this too.

I watch Netflix on a CRT TV in 2021 lol. Hook up a ps3 via component and it's a great way to watch older 4:3 content like anime

Are there any conpanies which sell CRTs TV?

Not any more, and they can't now (regulations about lead, etc). You can only buy them on the second hand market or find them on the side of the road.

> Maybe I'm just cynical but I have a hard time believing that it was because everyone just _had_ to have a TV with a buggy UI (in many cases) and/or loaded with spyware.

As you indicated, dumb TVs did compete against smart TVs for many years. The options were more like:

1. Buy a smart TV that might contain spyware and bugs.

2. Buy a dumb TV, and also buy another device to play content which can just as easily contain spyware and bugs. Oh, and the dumb TV already costs the same as the smart TV, because the "smart" hardware is extremely cheap at scale even without any secondary revenue streams.

Being able to update the secondary device (with or without bugs) independent of the tv screen is a better upgrade path.

How long will tv manufacturers be supporting and providing updates to smart tv software? If the smart components in the tv bug out or get bricked, you need a whole new tv.

In addition to the spyware and telemetry, Samsung's smart TVs also show ads in their interface. Yes that $1000s TV you just bought. Sigh...

Yes. I bought two for my office wall recently and really regret it solely for this reason. I never really see the ads because I use them as dumb displays, but it pisses me off every time I do spot them.

It didn’t seem enough at the time to warrant sending the TVs back but perhaps I should have.

They’re segregated from the rest of my network at least. I may try to MITM them and strip out the ads.

99% of the market does not even know about telemetry and spyware. And then about 90% of the 1% who does does not actually care. Smart TVs are popular because they offer a far better user experience for the average person. It really is that simple.

This is why I got a smart TV. We watch Netflix, YouTube and Plex. We don't even have our TV connected to an antenna (and it reminds me that every time I turn it on). Compared to the alternative of getting a non-smart TV and plugging in some kind of dongle I think this was the better choice because:

- When I got the TV 4K was only just becoming mainstream and most dongles didn't support it. My TV natively supports 4K, HDR and Atmos on Netflix and Plex. (Does YouTube support HDR and Atmos?)

- My TV is 5 years old. The manufacturer (LG) hasn't introduced any new features that shove more ads down your throat [0], and all of the original features still work [1].

- Everything is controlled by 1 remote, so no need to explain to my wife you need to turn this on then this on (yes with HDMI CEC this should be possible, but the key word is "should").

- Using a dongle would have exactly the same privacy concerns - unless you run Netflix on a Linux laptop, but then you are stuck with 720p.

[0] https://www.consumerreports.org/streaming-media-devices/what...

[1] https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/roku-youtube...

> My TV is 5 years old. The manufacturer (LG) hasn't introduced any new features that shove more ads down your throat, and all of the original features still work.

And on the flip side your TV probably isn't receiving security updates anymore either.

Hope you have it segregated from the rest of your devices.

Yes, there benefits to the consumer in the form of convenience but it's not a paradigm shift like the switch from color to b & w

Not having to procure or mess around with external devices and cables is a huge plus for most people. People who buy new TVs want great image quality, and are mostly concerned with where it will fit and whether they want 8k or are happy with 4k.

Why does it stretch credulity? It's exactly the reason smart printer cartridges are popular.

> the lack of non-smart TVs on the market causes the popularity of smart TVs.

Consumers buying TVs are driven by prices. Prices of smart TVs are artificially low...to the tune of either slim margins (<5%), no margins, or negative margins. The only reason 90% of the TV manufacturers can make money is by making them "smart", because they make up for margin on collecting/selling data. In other cases, big box retailers use them as loss leaders (see -> monster cable margins).

In other words - it's not that simple - the demand for smartTVs is driven partially by an artificially set price point.

source - my dad was a sales rep that sold TVs for 15 years late 90's-early 2000's.

Would I care do compare apples to 15th century Venetian artwork? No, so I won't do it here either.

The reason that companies were so hellbent on getting "smart tvs" into our households is because of the ad revenue that come with them.

They aren't simply TVs, they're paid marketing platforms with captive audiences.

Do we have a way to measure popularity that isn't what people are buying? If not, then no, there's no way to tease the two concepts apart.

What else are people going to buy then?

I can recommend Sceptre if you want a decent dumb TV.

Thinking next time I need a big panel I'll shop in the digital signage area, and take care of inputs and sound externally.

Philips got the BDL line, NEC also a big supplier.

The choice is shrinking, but there are still some available.

Example: https://www.sceptre.com/TV/4K-UHD-TV/U750CV-UMRD-75-4K-UHD-T...

Sadly unobtanium in the EU.

I just got this one myself (the 50-inch model, really), and am completely satisfied with the purchase.

If you have time, please could you check somewhere if there are traces of any manufacturer other than Sceptre? Although possible, I don't think they're made exclusively by or for Sceptre as the cost should be much higher due to the smaller market, so I believe there are chances they could exist somewhere else under a different brand, which hopefully would distribute in the EU. Thanks!

Anecdotally, I heard a German TV brand called Telefunken sells some non-smart TVs, e.g:

https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Telefunken-XH32G101N-ready-triple...

there are no dumb TVs available because Joe and Jane consumer want a Smart TV, because why the hell wouldn't they? The price of a dumb TV and anything to plug into it to give the same functionality is more than the cost of the equivalent Smart TV alone, AND THEY GET THE SAME STREAMING SERVICES. That was the case when Smart TVs were introduced, anyway. it is an easy choice when you don't know the minutia.

Television manufacturers are always looking for a new thing that will prematurely render existing sets obsolete, triggering a new television purchase. Smarts embedded into the TV are one of those things that is very inexpensive to add at scale, but convinces many consumers that their existing devices are no longer "good", which starts that itching that can only be scratched by purchasing a larger TV with the hot new feature du jour.

it was only after Smart TVs gained wide adoption that the abuse of network connectivity was capitalized upon by manufacturers, and dumb TVs were virtually made extinct.

Anecdotal, the last "unsmart" TV I found was hobbled to the point of not even having a power indicator LED.

It wasn't used much until putting a "good smart" device behind it...in this case a Roku.

Orwellian prophecy in real life, the Roku sends data back to the company about anything you watch using that device.

The only difference between this setup and a "plus good smart" TV is that anything else displayed on the TV(pc, pirated movies, photos, playstation/xbox/nintendo consoles, etc) will be fingerprinted and sent back to the company analytical department.

My opinion is it is none of their business.

This is all acceptable because manipulation via marketing/advertising is considered a necessary evil, and, the device is easy to use.

>Anecdotal, the last "unsmart" TV I found was hobbled to the point of not even having a power indicator LED.

Please, tell me which model was that! I hate it when shiny LEDs ruin my movie experience.

My solution to get a new dumb TV is simple. I don't want and would never own a smart TV so I use a standard monitor with a PVR/STB (Set Top Box). It works perfectly - I've used that solution for years.

The real problem is that governments have allowed the free-to-air (dumb) TV service to be bastardized, there's no regulation to protect it.

A very simple solution that would end the practice immediately would be for governments to put say 20% tax/duty on all smart TVs made by manufacturers who don't ALSO market dumb TVs.

Blame your governments for the lack of dumb TVs!

I usually just connect the "smart tv" to the internet once a year and update the firmware (after checking the change log for useful fixes). Then I disconnect it again and use my chromecast to stream.

Good idea, but before I'd update I'd doubly check the net to see there are no new/hidden gotchas as some have reported (like the way some manufacturers have coded around Pi-hole, etc.).

Any Smart TV that you don't bring online is essentially a dumb TV.

It's more than that. Ultimately at a certain point TVs are blank slates, and become identical. At that point it's a race to the bottom on price, as opposed to features. TVs might have multiple inputs and outputs - but if they don't, honestly that's a $10 problem so there's a lack of reasonable differentiation.

Enter "Smart TVs". Consumers can theoretically choose one based on built-in applications, versions of Android (in theory). At the very least there is differentiation. The frustrating part is that at least here, it seems like these TVs are starting to lose features like optical outputs and multiple inputs.

I literally just want a dumb slate with >2 HDMI inputs and an optical output. That's no longer an option in Israel. In calls to 16 different stores based on what's available in the country (zap.co.il) your order is always "out of stock" and the call devolves to upgrade to a newer TV that yay has Android XXX on it. Inter-connectivity is becoming difficult to purchase.

You have to search for Digital Signage monitors, these usually don't have smart crap, a wider selection of inputs, and are built to higher quality standards.

> This thread feels very...Hacker News Bubble?

Smart TVs is one of those recurring HN topics where it’s clear that people made up their minds years ago, likely from a single bad experience. Now they can’t imagine that any progress has been made since then. There’s not much reason to buy a new TV these days if your old one still works (with an external TV box)

You can still find terrible smart TVs out there, of course, but the newer models from top tier vendors like LG are actually quite good.

I think it’s going to take many years before the angry HN smart TV comments catch up to modern reality.

I don't think so. I think regardless of how good they are... a lot of people don't want to sell their viewing habits in exchange for using an app that you have to pay for to watch shows.

I mean, most people just use Netflix and Hulu and Plex from their smart TV anyways.

The former 2 are already collecting your viewing habits, and the latter is uncollectable since it's just streaming from your own server.

> the latter is uncollectable since it's just streaming from your own server.

Except smart TVs take screenshots of what you are watching and send it back for content analysis and correlation. So even if all you're doing is using it as a dumb monitor they are still collecting data about you.

Edit: Before someone calls me a tinfoil hat, it's called automatic content recognition, look it up.

consumerreports privacy "how to turn off smart tv snooping"

https://www.consumerreports.org/privacy/how-to-turn-off-smar...

Opt-out dark patterns strike again! Even then, it still doesn't shut off all telemetry.

Sure, but Netflix is collecting my viewing habits about what I watch on Netflix. That makes sense to me. But Netflix isn't collecting my Hulu and Plex habits. The TV is aggregating all of those, which they have no business doing, and selling that. Though now that I think about it, all 3 probably sell your viewing habit data.

unless they've stopped adding ads to my other programmes then I'm not plugging the TV back into the internet

Some of these comments have a real "old man yells at cloud" vibe. Modern, mid-range or better Smart TVs are great. They let me enjoy streaming content or gaming without wasting time trying to configure something, torrent something, fiddle with subtitles. The newest models offer unparalleled gaming experiences via HDMI 2.1 features.

There's (justifiably) privacy and other concerns on HN, but no one else is aware of those concerns or cares too much. The market has spoken.

The market has spoken.

Markets only speak when meaningful competition exists. Are you really suggesting that people actively prefer to buy TVs that, for example, suddenly start showing them ads months or years after purchase?

An ad-free experience would almost certainly cost more (consider Amazon's cheaper Kindle that shows ads when the screen goes to sleep). If we're talking about adding even $50 to a $1000 TV, I'd bet most consumers would rather endure the ads and keep the $50.

If I were a gambler I would probably take that bet, but the real problem here is that we currently have no way to tell who won because one of the options is not widely available to buyers.

This is why ad-subsidizing is anticompetitive and in my honest opinion, should be banned as a business practice.

Take two competitors selling exact same stuff for the same price. If one adds ads to their product, they can lower the price. If they can ad data collection, the price drops further.

You just can't ethically compete on such market.

You just can't ethically compete on such market.

I'm not sure that is necessarily true but the buyer making a decision needs to understand the differences between products. IMHO one of the problems right now is that manufacturers using these user-hostile practices don't have to prominently disclose them. Many people probably buy these products completely unaware of aspects they might not like if they knew about them.

If packaging and promotions had to carry prominent warnings about user-hostile practices, that would level the playing field a bit. Better would be if the products themselves had to indicate whenever any sort of monitoring or phone-home system was operating, because that way everyone else using or near them also gets a warning that they might be spied on.

> The newest models offer unparalleled gaming experiences via HDMI 2.1 features.

As an aside, there is no need for us to talk like heads of the marketing department in casual conversation.

>no one else is aware of those concerns or cares too much. The market has spoken.

It means the market spoke from ignorance, there isn't much value in that speech, the market was deceived.

I think you may be oversimplifying the concerns some have about smart tv's. There is quite a broad range of opinions between different HN commenters, and lumping us all into one group isn't very conducive to discussion.

For me personally, I have basic privacy concerns with how smart tv companies are selling my viewing habits without any transparency. This issue has nothing to do with the "quality" of the tv and its features, and much more to do with the policies of the companies behind the products.

The simple solution therefore is just don't connect it to the internet, which is still viable (even though Amazon wants to co-opt everyone's devices for their IoT network).

Don't plug an ethernet cable into it, don't give it your wifi network passcode.

> people made up their minds years ago, likely from a single bad experience.

It’s true, I made up my mind in 1984.

Playin' it old school.

Doubleplusgood.

There are almost no tv manufacturers offering consumer TVs without the ability to connect to the internet to collect metrics, display ads, and run “apps” like Netflix. I don’t doubt it’s because the upsell is profitable and regular consumers would choose the TV with smart features over a similarly priced TV without, but it’s also possible no one has decided to compete on the “our TV is $40 cheaper, comes with a rebate for a roku you were going to buy anyways, and also we can’t push ads to you through it”

isn't it going to be "our TV costs $40 more, but..."?

You’re probably right, the ad space and metrics might be worth the component cost, r&d and then some. Slap some apps on it to justify it to the consumer and sell it cheaper.

I can tell you for sure that pre-pandemic you could get AllWinner SOCs capable of 1080P 60Hz for around $2.50/pc. The 4K ones seem to be around $7/pc, still peanuts.

From memory, Netflix pays around $10 to have a dedicated button on the remote, so even if the manufacturer didn't play any ads they'd still be in the black.

I would expect the smart TV is "cheaper" for the manufacturer to make; likely they get money from Netflix (etc.) for including their apps by default on the TV, and I'm sure they get recurring revenue from selling the data they get from the spyware on the TV. I'm sure that extra money more than makes up for the cost of the extra hardware in there to make it all work.

> Why is everyone so confused that smart TVs are popular?

Because almost all of them use internet connectivity to show you ads on home screens.

I disconnect from WiFi. It makes my “smart” tv a normal one that doesn’t serve my shitty ads, lag or turn on some random SamsungTV channel.

Just because you disconnected it from wifi does not mean they cannot connect it through lte without your knowledge

See previous discussion about this problem here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27701977

TL;DR- TVs are using their own cellular connections and/or neighboring open wireless networks.

>L;DR- TVs are using their own cellular connections

The link doesn't say that.

It links to https://venturebeat.com/2019/05/01/huawei-reportedly-plans-f...

And it opens with,

> Though its 5G products are not entirely welcome in the United States, Huawei is reportedly pushing forward with a unique new product: the world’s first 5G television. As Nikkei reports this morning, the Chinese company plans to use the cellular-enabled TV and new PCs to challenge Samsung’s and Apple’s dominant positions in the global consumer electronics market.

That's not really what's being talked about, though. The fear is that if you don't connect your TV to your wifi network, it will have a secret, hidden LTE radio that it uses anyway.

It doesn't seem that Huawei is being at all secretive about this; they are advertising it as a feature.

You're ignoring the part where Samsung TVs are actively connecting to open networks.

That's a single TV, also is this on the market, the link said "reportedly"?

The other comment is also correct.

I guess that's one benefit of not having a usable mobile signal at my house.

It's also true (by definition) that literally any device that you own could be connecting through LTE without your knowledge.

Is LTE a synonym for free internet? Who pays for connection?

Maybe your comment was tongue in cheek but if the product did not reveal it contained a radio transmitter, this would undoubtedly be illegal in the US, EU & UK.

And what will you do when there are no TVs to buy that do not contain LTE transmitters to force more spying upon you?

Do most of them contain LTE transmitters? Is their share increasing?

I don’t know, but it’s not long ago that TVs did not spy on you or serve you personalised ads, and now they all do, so it’s not exactly a huge stretch.

Well that's illegal in almost all (western) countries. A device need to have an declaration of all radio equipment inside in some form (depending on locale).

It also would be a lot harder to profit from ads when you have to pay for lte bandwidth especially with the prices in the US.

(not op)

> Well that's illegal in almost all (western) countries. A device need to have an declaration of all radio equipment inside in some form (depending on locale).

I agree, but I'm pretty sure that it will be buried on the declarations page.

> It also would be a lot harder to profit from ads when you have to pay for lte bandwidth especially with the prices in the US.

You vastly overestimated the costs of wholesale network access, which is surprisingly cheap, that's why Kindles (for the most part) do have Amazon-provided SIM cards. Bad news is that you can't get it: basically you need commit to a minimum bandwidth (in hundreds of terabytes range) with a minimum subscription count (in hundreds of thousands range) to get these cheap prices, which would be more expensive than individual plans.

Can you extract that SIM card and use for free internet?

Depends? Amazon's SIMs are locked to the specific Kindles, so you need to clone at least the radio identification codes (like IMEI) that is used, and you need to relay that to a specific proxy operated by Amazon because the network-in-question would block (on behalf of Amazon) other servers.

I imagine that in case someone has implemented this, it would be locked in a similar way to ensure that it can only access those ad servers and nothing else.

Wrap it in tinfoil.

That’s true. But it does help with the blocking their ads.

With LG C9 I haven't seen a single ad in a year since I've had it. There are large amounts of tracking being blocked by pi.hole however. One LG domain has been blocked 22.5k times in past 8.5 months.

The thing that would bother me about this is that you only know what's being blocked; you have no idea if other spyware is getting through because your pihole just doesn't happen to know about another domain in use.

The only surefire way to block it would be to put some metal or foil around the wifi antenna (or disconnect it entirely, if possible). Otherwise the TV could connect to any random open wifi network it might find (assuming there is one in range). Even if you connect it to your own network and block all its traffic, it might just decide your network is broken and find another one.

Few people feel strongly that a chip running Linux makes a TV worse. What they object to is when the manufacturer controls the TV rather than the owner of the TV. Modern smart TVs override the users' desired by, for example, showing ads. It's even possible these chips will eventually be responsible for copyright verification.

This would be fixed if it was possible to modify the chip's software and easy to install alternate OS bulbs.

Exactly. Were smart TVs to come with OSMC pre-installed, where I have full root privileges on the computer, then it would be a fantastic thing. But since they are instead designed to spy on the alleged owner, to report usage, to download unskippable advertisements, then smart TVs have instead become an abomination.

"Please drink verification can"

https://i.imgur.com/dgGvgKF.png

There's a very real opportunity here for an open source project that takes on the task of doing an alternate kernel/distribution/applications for smart TVs. Big job, and likely to take a while before getting caught up with newer SoCs etc.

But it's totally doable -- it worked for e.g. OpenWRT on SOHO routers, sat receivers, etc.

(what is an OS bulb?)

> But it's totally doable

Unless the manafacturers have locked down the device to only boot software signed with their keys, which they likely have.

The main issue that an open source smart TV software distribution would face is DRM.

We're not confused by their popularity. We understand perfectly why the average person would want technology that is perfectly converged and easy to use.

We're frustrated because our screens went from dumb panels that displayed signals to proprietary computing platforms with DRM, ads and a full surveillance capitalism suite complete with microphones and maybe even cameras, all of which do nothing but serve the business interests of corporate giants.

All that nice stuff that the average person wants? We want it as well. But we want it on our terms. I want to do things that will no doubt cost the manufacturer thousands of dollars: kill their ads, deny them any and all data, etc. The TV should obey.

It's running Android for the most part. Samsung is running Tizen I think

> And it probably costs <$50 for the manufacturer to include whatever chip is running linux in the TV, its a no-brainer.

I would assume it costs negative dollars to include that chip in the TV, because the cost is likely more than offset by whatever the app vendors pay to have their app included, and whatever marketers pay for ad placement and telemetry.

There is also spyware running on them. They literally spy on what you're watching and send the info home, and the data gets sold to market to you. No thanks.

Edit.

They also connect to unprotected wifi networks to send data without your permission.

And in the case of Toshiba at least, use their own hardcoded DNS which doesn't honour the one handed up by local DHCP or even the one configured in the advanced settings where you can manually configure the DNS!

Just stick it in a VLAN to isolate and control.

"Why is everyone confused that smart TVs are popular?"

TBH, Im more confused by the parent comment. (Although this is a very typical type of HN comment, passive-aggressive denigration of anything "not popular".) These type of comments make me wonder why would anyone, other than the companies benefitting, care if some HN commenters do not love so-called smart TVs. This is not a mainstream audience. Moreover, I see no comments indicating "confusion" why surveillance TVs are popular. I see comments that indicate either (a) distaste for them, (b) desire for alternatives or (c) passive-aggressive denigration, like the parent; for example, something like "the market has spoken". WTF. Why would anyone read HN if all they want to read is a restatement of "popular" culture.

Only speaking for myself but I want to read about alternatives to popular choices that feed surveillance marketing as "business strategy".

> "Why is everyone confused that smart TVs are popular?"

In his Appendix, Orwell explains the syntactical arrangement and the etymology of the Newspeak. A living language, such as English, one that has the capability of diverse expression, has the tendency to gain words and therefore broaden the awareness and knowledge of its speakers. Newspeak, on the other hand, loses words, by removing words that represent opposing concepts. Therefore, for example, because the word "good" presumes the opposite of "bad," the word "bad" is unnecessary. Similarly, all degrees of "goodness" can be expressed simply by adding standard prefixes and suffixes to this one root word: ungood (bad) and plusgood (very good) and doubleplusgood (wonderful). In so doing, Newspeak not only eliminates "unnecessary" words, but it also promotes a narrowing of thought and, therefore, awareness. The idea behind Newspeak is that, as language must become less expressive, the mind is more easily controlled. Through his creation and explanation of Newspeak, Orwell warns the reader that a government that creates the language and mandates how it is used can control the minds of its citizens.

https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/n/1984/critical-essay...

Right, true. Hovever, the matter of goodness/ethics, etc. is probably best summed up by G.E. Moore in his 1903 work Principia Ethica:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principia_Ethica

"Unscientific" is a good example.

That isn't the hand of government at work. The term "scientist" is itself only ~200 years old. For centuries it was called things like "natural philosophy".

We just haven't figured out a good antonym yet. Unfortunately, with the Latin root scientia meaning knowledge, the natural choice might be ignorantia. But ignorance is already in widespread use. Just try accusing someone unscientific of being ignorantific & see how that goes!

I felt Pirsig quite hit the nail in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, with his Romantic versus Classical dichotomy. I'm not sure I'll explain correctly, sorry, but that's what I often come back to, when I meet disdain or lack of trust in 'science'.

The antonym is baloney.

Smart TVs, Smart watches, Smart phones, Smart houses.. how did things become smart? As far as I can determine, the 'smart [thing]' linguistic construct started with 'smart bomb', a propaganda euphemism for guided bombs that emerged in the 70s. Does anybody have an earlier example?

https://www.nytimes.com/1972/06/26/archives/smart-bombs-and-...

I had a quick look through this page for examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:PrefixIndex/smart

There were "smart cards" in 1974, "smart casual" dress codes in 1924, and "Smart Set" magazine in 1900.

A more careful look will surely find older and more relevant examples.

Amusingly "smart money" and "smart tickets" existed in the 18th century, referring to the results of injuries ("ow, that smarts!"). See: https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/smart

I don't think any of these are examples of it. Smart cards in 1974 postdate smart bombs. "Smart casual" fashion is smart in the "Good-looking; well dressed; fine; fashionable" sense, while smart bomb/phone are being used in this sense: "(often in combination) Equipped with intelligent behaviour (digital/computer technology)."

Smart bombs weren't called smart for being fashionably well dressed. The term was applied to guided bombs with fire-and-forget capabilities, which were first used during the Vietnam War.

"Smartass" was attested as early as 1960.

A smartass is a person, not a technological artifact.

I don't mean to be nitpicky. There are a lot of ways the word smart has been paired with other words. But "smart [object]", where object is some bit of technology that is suggested to have intelligence in it is really what I'm looking for. If somebody in the 1950s had marketed "smart headlights" that automatically turn on at night, that would be an example of what I'm looking for. But I haven't found anything like that prior to "smart bombs."

Being nitpicky is fine. You asked about the "linguistic construct". I went and did a little bit of research on terms that looked like they fit that pattern. It's worth supposing that the idea didn't appear from nowhere, and indeed there were "smart X" before smart bombs with a close but different meaning for "smart", and seemingly unrelated "smart Y" appearing around the same time having the same "intelligent technology" association. This looks like a linguistic trend to me.

I don't doubt that if I read more I'd find the thing you're looking for from before the first mention of "smart bombs" (first I found was US government documents from 1970) but I'm not going to spend any longer at it, so I wrote my findings and sources in the hope it would be helpful.

By the way, Google {Books, NGrams, Patent} were also useful. There have been various things called "smart cards" for a long time. Also the dates on Google Books (and hence NGrams?) are frequently wrong and you really have to look at the front matter to check.

I have never encountered a group as amenable to "Newspeak" as software developers. For example, note how many times developers describe things, including "startups", in terms of what they "are" rather than what they "do".

Strictly speaking, this is not "Newspeak" by Orwell's definition. However the underlying assumption seems to be the same: ambiguity is to be ignored, or eliminated. Fewer words are used; often they are made-up words. Details are hidden. Objectivity, i.e., how something works, is replaced with subjectivity, i.e., what something "is".

I'd love to use a smart TV as designed (assuming half decent UX), but because I can't trust manufacturers to not push an update that starts showing me ads I instead never give them internet access and use a chromecast or my PS4 for smart functionality instead.

I do also prefer the incremental upgradeability you get by keeping display tech and software separate. I can avoid spending 4/5 digit $s on my big dumb screen for way longer when I can just upgrade a $50 dongle periodically (although it turns out google is way better at supporting old chromecasts than most smart TV manufacturers are at supporting software on old TVs).

They do eventually erode internals after a few years, and become increasingly unreliable even after a deep clean, however each $29 upgrade also boots faster and starts playing faster too..

I own a smart TV. I am very well aware of the data and privacy issues.

However, my wife and kid love it. The main reason, as pointed above, is extreme convenience and user experience.

Sit on the sofa, grab the remote, shout out a programme name and it starts up.

> And it probably costs <$50 for the manufacturer to include whatever chip is running linux in the TV, its a no-brainer.

I'm pretty sure manufacturers make money through analytics and ads on smart TVs. What consumers like is the at-or-below-cost price of the hardware.

smart TV is a brand (silly because it’s a generic term). But eg roku Xbox and fire tv are not smart TVs.

This technology was used for good this time, but there's nothing stopping it from being used for evil next time. The fact that Samsung is even capable of doing this means you don't have control over your Samsung TV even if you do own it legally.

At least they’re not scanning your media library against a list of hashes yet.

Edit: Ahh, I see from the replies I have had my fill of curiosity for the day.

They are, they're just doing it for advertising, not piracy prevention.

https://www.samsung.com/us/business/samsungads/resources/tv-...

That's why you never connect any smart TV to your network and instead use a standalone device combined with a PiHole.

This only works until every "smart" device has a cellular modem built in.

Who pays for the cellular plans?

Amazon put a cellular chip in a Kindle over a decade ago. And that was for a device that cost less than $100. One year of advertising and analytics would easily cover the cost in a larger purchase like a TV.

We do as part of the device cost. 5G makes it pretty cheap so a manufacturer adding in a radio ups their cost by a dollar or two. The revenue from surveillance is marginally profitable including data costs.

You can come up with other fun conspiracies by realizing that the HDMI spec can share internet connections. Plugging in your "fire cast", or whatever external television device you use, could provide your TV an internet connection, but it doesn't seem to be widely used yet.

This is, it seems, just untrue. It was posted before (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24668736) and I was curious about this attack vector so looked it up [0]

Simply put, it seems that this never took off and would require the entire hdmi chain to support it (tv, cable, and device) - none of which do currently, so for the medium future it doesn't seem to be a concern.

Plenty of concern elsewhere, just not necessarily here.

[0] https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/325215/appletv-eth...

It's definitely real. A/V receivers are the typical devices to support HEC, so you can run one Ethernet cable to the receiver and use a smart TV with the HDMI audio return channel, with one HDMI cable.

Interesting! You're suggesting that the A/V would bridge the ethernet connection over the HDMI cable audio signal?

That's the intent, and it's still in the latest HDMI spec, so I think those threads about HEC being dead were premature. I haven't used it myself.

> A/V receivers are the typical devices to support HEC

Then you surely can name a few models that support Ethernet over HDMI? (Somehow people keep claiming that this is totally a thing, but nobody ever can confirm a single device)

Not one of these says anything about HEC being discontinued: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=hdmi+with+ethernet

Can you name a manufacturer of devices or chips that has committed to never implementing Ethernet over HDMI? The same wires are used for the audio return channel, so they have to be present in cables. The HDMI consortium website still refers to cables as "HDMI with Ethernet".

If you claim that receivers are "the typical devices" to implement something, you should really be able to at least show one or two models that support it. No, it's never been formally declared dead, but it de-facto is by virtue of not existing in practice.

Which is where things like Amazon Sidewalk or even just a 3g/4g sim come in... I'm glad the current state of TVs isn't using this (that I know up) but I fear it's right around the corner. I just want a dumb TV that I hook my Xbox and Apple TV up to.

> Amazon Sidewalk or even just a 3g/4g sim

The fix for these is in this video: https://youtu.be/urglg3WimHA

> piracy prevention.

privacy prevention.

Actually it’s kind of odd to me that Samsung isn’t doing this to block child porn.

Since they are already scanning content to sell to marketers it’s odd that they aren’t also scanning it for CP or anything else with a defined set of hashes.

I’d prefer Samsung not do this at all, but if they are scanning for making money, they should scan for public good.

About that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_content_recognition

Many (most?) smart TVs scan what you watch and send it to the manufacturer or one of their partners. Streaming, blu ray, home movies, and all of it.

Samsung does shit much worse than that, like TVs listening in on everything:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21657930

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21899491

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baseband_processor#Security_...

https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/replicant-developers-fin...

I've recently purchased the Frame and if you don't connect it to the network, you'll get a pesky warning message every time. Fortunately I'm using ASUS-Merlin and that firmware has intricate controls to control access to the internet.

Wait till your TV license expires

Samsung’s use of ACR is the other big source of discomfort. That’s some creepy stuff right there. LG has something similar too, but it was off by default in mine.

“Samsung Smart TVs have built-in Automated Content Recognition (ACR) technology that can understand viewing behavior and usage including programs, movies, ads, gaming content and OTT apps in real-time.” https://www.samsung.com/us/business/samsungads/resources/tv-...

For context, see https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/09/18/you-wat...

Cars and phones both can be remotely disabled. This will reduce help crime in the long run.

This is generally the purpose of the law. It's not like this is some life-or-death thing that can't be rectified. Samsung has no legal authority to disable a legally-purchased TV, and they would be sued to death if they used if for evil.

I feel like the law needs to take a greater role in this stuff. If you looted a TV you have no rights at all over it but if you purchased it legally it should be your device, and it should continue working like the day you got it outside of hardware failure which can be covered by repair and warranty.

Technical solutions will never work because the exact same feature can be used for good and bad.

until samsung gets hacked and has every TV globally disabled.

What happens when they get hacked and the hackers disable all of their TVs?

> The fact that Samsung is even capable of doing this means you don't have control over your Samsung TV even if you do own it legally.

It actually true for any smart device now a days. Apple can do same for an iPhone.

What good was served here? The products are still stolen and are still going on the books as a loss. Since they can't be used, they're likely going in a dumpster. And none of this apparently led the arrest of any perpetrators.

Hard to imagine what purpose was served here, other than Samsung broadcasting what kind of power they have over devices you own.

It reduced the criminals' ability to profit from their crimes.

Game theory. This is not an isolated interaction; actors who might repeat it hear these news and take notes.

I think it's more about prevention going forward, and devaluing its worth in secondary market. Sure, it might still be worth something, but only in parts. Given how rapidly TV models change, parts = basically worthless.

Look at the various online stores selling parts, and the poorer regions of the world (this includes South Africa), and you'll see that is not true.

Especially if they are only killing the "smart" part, the panel is still worth quite a bit. You can get a "universal scaler" board to turn them into dumb but working TVs.

Same good as phone kill switches -- they reduce the incentive for future thefts.

https://techcrunch.com/2015/02/11/apples-activation-lock-lea...

Apple has done this fairly successfully for years. The simple answer is, they'd rather deprive someone else of a good than have it themselves. Same goes for Samsung, and pretty much any other company that weighs their bottom line over general benevolence.

A similar situation I heard about; a local pizza shop used to have a policy that if an order is messed up, the staff would be allowed to eat it for free. They then changed it so that all messed up orders would have to be thrown directly in to the trash.

A waste of that pizza, but they found that order messups reduced dramatically when the staff were not allowed to eat the "mistake".

It's the same situation here. You brick a few stolen items and it prevents future theft since there is no longer a reward for it.

> Since they can't be used, they're likely going in a dumpster.

And thus can't be sold by the looters for a profit.

For a long time Subaru held the unenviable position of being the most stolen car in the country that I live in. They started spraying microdots in the undercoat of their cars, which meant that every single part of the car was traceable.

Models from that point on were almost never stolen; earlier ones stayed at the top of the charts. Wrecker's yards were no longer prepared to take the risk of parting out stolen vehicles, and garages weren't prepared to use second-hand parts from stolen vehicles, when it could be traced easily, so criminals stopped stealing those model years.

I struggle to believe you don’t understand how “stolen goods don’t work” affects society.

How different is this from IMEI blacklisting of stolen phones? The secondary market for stolen phones has kind of disappeared despite cost of phones increasing.

EDIT: I think there is plenty of reason to want an open source tv os. They are terrible, ad ridden, bloated commodities. But this seems to be only valid use of DRM I can think of.

> How different is this from IMEI blacklisting of stolen phones?

It's not. People have been doing this for years now, it looks like the big brouhaha this time is that it's likely disabled when it connects to WiFi, not cellular or GPS info like how a phone might respond.

On your phone you might have unencrypted private content and information on the other hand on Smart TV you have entertainment apps and entertainment content no private information at least that is what I think most people have and do.

I don't anybody who stores private information on the Smart TV so when stolen Smart TVs start to circulate on the market no private information can be acquired or accessed(besides maybe your login credentials and a credit card) unlike with phones which store vast amount of your private content and information.

Idk how IMEI blacklisting works but if they can block at least your private phone number from the network that's good because rogue user can abuse your private phone number and cause havoc because your personal phone number is attached to your identity in numerous databases and records.

IMEI blacklisting has nothing to do with private information or user of previous phone number, it does not try to do that, it's a technique that attempts to prevent stolen phones to be used by anyone as the operators would refuse to allow that device (identified by the device's IMEI number) to connect to their network.

But the crucial question is when was device stolen; "a priori" of someone using it or "a posteriori" of someone using it.

Samsung refers to TV being stolen "a priori" of consumer using it("A TV blocking system has been activated on Samsung television sets stolen from our warehouse") but if a TV is stolen posteriori of someone using it maybe blocking can come in handy in order to protect consumer's private information on the device. But when remotely disabling someone's TV you should be 100% sure you are doing it for the right reason and you should inform the consumer before you do it.

Samsung explains "a priori" blocking of Smart TV like this:

Samsung Television Block works as follows:

A TV blocking system has been activated on Samsung television sets stolen from our warehouse

The blocking will come into effect when the user of a stolen television connects to the internet, in order to operate the television

Once connected, the serial number of the television is identified on the Samsung server and the blocking system is implemented, disabling all the television functions

Should a customer’s TV be incorrectly blocked, the functionality can be reinstated once proof of purchase and a valid TV license is shared to serv.manager@samsung.com or click here for more information

I don't think there is really much of a difference for the person buying the device, except they have some degree of recourse.

1. I unknowingly buy a stolen device.

2. I connect it to it's associated network.

3. The device is reported back to some central authority which then black-lists/bricks the device making it fairly useless.

The only difference I see is that Samsung will allow your to provide proof of purchase, and it will function without being connected to that networked system.

I think the same question comes into play here as well, what does blocking have to do with protecting private information?

If it actually had some tie-in to the previous users information I'd follow why it's relevant to the conversation better. As is blocking IMEIs and TVs from registering seems completely unrelated to stealing the existing local data so I can't follow the distinction.

They want proof of a valid TV license when I only use my TV for streaming and do not need or have a license? If that's a hard requirement in their system they'll be getting some complaints down the road.

I don't know anybody*

The larger question for society is do we even want smart everything? I rarely see this issue debated. Undoubtedly, software enables complex/rich functionality for what were hitherto relatively "dumb" devices, but the same flexibility can also lead to exploits, backdoors, bugs and place too much control in the hands of the manufacturers and many other nameless parties.

The most important aspect here is remote connectivity. Software without remote connectivity may be less correctable, but it is also resistant towards tampering from unwanted directions. With network connectivity the device basically becomes impossible to fully control. In fact, admin control shifts from you, the owner, to someone else on the other side of the planet, unless you want to take a hammer to it.

These issue need vigorous debate. 1. Do we even want every device to become "smart"?, and 2. should smart devices be designed with 24x7 network connectivity requirements?

Best I can figure is companies not eating their own dog food. Clever engineers forced in directions the clueless set and enforced.

IMO, we lost the TV and car entertainment system battle long ago. It all just went south. And those two are leading symptoms of dumb smartification.

Car entertainment systems: lure of reprogrammable "somethings" replaced tactile buttons, distracting drivers. And then the programmable interface became a sequence of terrible things, features and partnerships, completely disconnected from how you use a radio.

TV: we went from hundreds of channels modulated on a single coax cable where you can flip instantly and get immediate signal to layers of slow interfaced descrambling and streaming, ... "please wait, updating" ... "please wait, cannot connect to service" ... "service status ok, 4/4" and of course, slow loading interfaces, > 1+ minute time-to-play experiences, audio lipsync issues and balkanization of content streaming, and market juggling of rights.

Yes, I'm whining, but why couldn't evolution of at least these two have gone ... better?

Good point - I don't understand how it's legal for me to drive my Citroen - the flat panel displays are as distracting as a mobile phone.

I'm not sure the consumer's wants really have much weight here. Manufacturers want smart TVs so they can get ad revenue. Streaming services want smart TVs to help get their app in front of more people. Google, Apple, Amazon and Roku want to hook more people into their ecosystems. I would guess your average consumer doesn't really consider any of this, they just go to Best Buy and buy a TV that seems reasonably priced.

"Smart" is just a fancy marketing word for better features and richer experience. Smart TVs and smartphones are not smart. Smart is someone or something who exhibits high degree of intelligence which no computer has right now.

It sucks. The smartest capability I want is the ability to mount network storage, play video from USB, etc. Give me options for playing my media.

Unfortunately nobody owns media, they stream everything, hence TVs with "smart" features.

That is because the root problem is excessive copyright terms lasting 100+ years. Bump that down to 10 or even 20 years and you will see a market emerge for the abilities you are looking for.

I think if you eliminated all copyright right now, people would still mostly choose to stream rather than deal with the hassle of managing a media library. It's a huge pain in the ass.

If there was popular media that could be legally stored locally and played then there would be a market for it.

I imagine it would be possible for a company to sell a NAS with all 80s movies, and 90s movies, music, games, or whatever. Right now there is no incentive to selling devices that can locally distribute content within your home because there is no content to distribute in the first place. So the target market is too small and results in whatever Synology or Plex or XBMC solutions exist.

You make a very good point. Right now the only DRM free media I can acquire is music (qobuz, hdtracks). There is no legal way to acquire DRM free movies or TV shows as far as I know.

I like the idea of a post-copyright world where you could buy a NAS preloaded with content. Unfortunately we seem to be headed for a future where you cannot even buy most media, you must subscribe to a service to stream it.

A few months back I found a very nice Samsung TV locked in a closet. I looked it up and it cost like $3,500 a few years back. When I asked about it, my boss said "I bought it to watch soccer but it doesn't have any apps, what good is it?" He had never heard of Roku/Apple TV/Fire TV.

The companies want it because they make money selling your viewing activity, and that means that these devices will be popular with everyone who buys the lowest priced item in the store.

What I’d like to see are mandatory privacy disclosures on the front of the box and minimum lifetimes based on the primary function: full support for the advertised features for, say, the 10-15 years that the display lasts or they buy it back at a significant fraction of the original purchase price. We have a ton of usable equipment going to landfills because the manufacturer refuse to ship updates for things which aren’t generating ongoing revenue.

Smart TVs are shit. Especially the modern ones. They got worse rather than better!

They are slow and laggy, even doing the most basic things like turning on or changing channel. It was faster the CRT that I used 20 years ago, and it had to warm up before displaying an image! But at least the audio started immediately...

They are also not usable. The UI is crappy and you don't find the most common settings, for example I had to search on the internet where to find the option to disable automatic turn off after 4 hours on an LG TV, the remotes are full of useless buttons (I don't want a huge Netflix button on a remote that if I press by mistake I will lose 10 seconds of the program I'm watching!).

Now I'm using a Sony TV, that I purchased 2 years ago only because it was the TV with less smart crap in it, it works pretty well, it does what a TV should do, let me watch TV channels, program guide, teletext (yes, I still use it), and nothing else (well in theory it has Netflix and other apps in it... but I never connected it to the internet and they don't get in the way). For all the other things, a simple media center PC does them better.

Gigabyte's latest OLED monitor looks appealing. LG OLED without the smart features. Recently featured in a LTT video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBE9DL7MlG0

That can be good for a user like me, because I can easily deal with an external set-top-box to watch TV channels (in fact I already have one, that also lets me record TV channels and even stream them on my LAN and outside with a VPN, that is cool since not every channel you find in streaming and also inside the house I don't consume my bandwidth).

But there are a ton of users, like my grandparents, that wants a TV that if they press the button 5 on the remote turn on on channel 5, without fancy menu and other stuff. That kind of TV is more and more difficult to find.

Next year they change to DVB T2 in my country (but in all Europe the transition is planed to make room for 5G) and thus we must change all the televisions or at least buy a decoder. I'm in difficult finding a TV for my grandmother, that is as simple as the one that has today, and without smart features, that are complicated and also useless (of course she don't even have an internet connection).

What LG TV are you talking about? My old smart TV was "slow and laggy", but as soon as I upgraded to a mid-range model a lot of those complaints went away.

I can't imagine trying to use a dumb TV now. We have four streaming services in my house, the UI homepage quickly shows which series we're in the middle of and makes it easy to jump back in without navigating a lot of menus.

Even if plex were to do exactly what I want, it's more effort on my end when I just want to be able to easily pull up shows without issues. On top of that, you need a very new TV (with new HDMI 2.1 features) if you want to really experience the power of next-gen gaming consoles.

An older TV might work for your use cases, but I think you're increasingly in the minority. No one I know (except my parents) watches channels anymore, they all just stream Netflix/Hulu/Crunchyroll/Disney. If there's something really niche I want to watch, there's torrents and videostream.

Stay away from cheap Samsung TVs and get a good Sony TV. I love my Bravia x900h.

I don't want streaming services inside the TV. I have a media center PC for that purposes, that is faster than using the UI of the TV, and lets me play all the file formats that I want.

> No one I know (except my parents) watches channels anymore, they all just stream Netflix/Hulu/Crunchyroll/Disney. If there's something really niche I want to watch, there's torrents and videostream.

I watch TV channels in multiple occasions, form watching the news, to watching live sports events (that you don't find in streaming or you find with a lag), to watch all other good programs that still make on TV channels, at least in my country.

Yeah between the TVs and the content, it's just not worth it to me. I have a TV but haven't even switched it on in months. I watch YouTube on my phone a bit, that's enough for me.

>They got worse rather than better!

Sort of. Picture quality is way better, but component and build quality is shit because flat-panel TVs are a commodity. They are also way way cheaper.

The manufacturers are now trying to figure out how to add a) value-add at the software level to stand-out from the pack and b) figure out how to increase profitability (hence the ads).

They should increase profitability on the margin of the good, not try to create a perpetual revenue stream out of each customer by making the entire experience invasive.

I guess this will just greatly inconvenience people who bought the TV from the bandits. But well, if this press release is well-distributed among the public, then they will know to avoid buying Samsung TVs from the backs of vans, and the thieves will avoid Samsung warehouses.

Alternatively maybe Samsung should just offer the innocent buyers a e.g. 5% discount to "legitimize" their TVs, so if they bought the TV from the back of the van for 50% off, they'll in effect need to pay 145% of the retail price. In effect the thieves would have become a new, strange, retail arm. It's like Uber, but for TV distribution!(TM)

More thoughts: the thieves should just cut off the Ethernet port (do they even have these?) and open the TV up and unplug the WiFi antenna. Sure it won't be an Internet TV anymore, but hey, at least their customers/suckers can still watch stuff.

> greatly inconvenience people who bought the TV from the bandits

It’s stolen property. The subsequent buyers cannot legally own it.

Under Dutch law: sure they can. As long as you had no reason to suspect it was a stolen TV (super low price, no receipt even though it was basically new, stuff like that) a party that bought the TV second hand is now the legal owner even if the initial owner gets ahold of the current owner.

Under Dutch law the most common thing this applies to is second hand bicycles. If you bought it off a junkie at the train station for 10 bucks, it's probably not yours to keep. Showing up to a house through a Facebook-group and paying something like 100 bucks for a second hand bike would totally qualify though, even if that bike turned out to be stolen.

I think that varies a lot around the world.

Under Danish law even if you were in good faith you will still loose the merchandise. If you were in bad faith you can be punished with a fine or even prison in the most severe cases.

The illegality is also inconvenient, but how likely are the cops or whoever are going to inconvenience them about that?

For the bandits the disabled TVs is no big deal because they'll probably manage to sell them to "bargain hunters" anyway.

The point is to make it harder for the bandits to offload their goods, by ruining their resale value. If someone's selling cheap TVs off the back of a truck, and you know that you'll get to keep it (as in netherlands, see sibling comments), then there's no real incentive for you not to buy it. Who wouldn't want a 75" OLED TV for $1000, no strings attached? On the other hand, if the law was that stolen property was liable to be bricked/seized, then you'd be much more hesitant in buying the TV. Sure, $1000 is still cheaper than paying retail, but if the cops find out you could be out the $1000 and the TV. In response you might not want to buy the TV at all, or are willing to pay less for it ($500 perhaps). The reduced demand/price hurts the bandits.

Yeah yeah yeah, but this is S. Africa, a place where laws aren't automatically obeyed, unlike e.g. Singapore. If there is your law, my guess is getting caught "buying stolen goods" is probably not something many people there worry about. Sure there will be straight and narrow citizens, but my guess is, without the disable-tech, the bandits wouldn't really have a problem getting rid of their stolen goods. Even with this tech, my hunch is those TVs will still sell, but at least now the crippling will be a lesson for their bargain-hunting buyers.

What are the chances that someone would phish an admin user to the platform that blocks all the TV systems and block the all samsung TV devices. What are the chances that they could be snooping and monitoring what I am watching.

It would be nice to see some more transparency in these remote monitoring and management systems. The system setup is very similar to Teamviewer or kaseya where you accept them to manage your device when you accept the terms of service or user agreement.

I am not sure if it is just me, but It is making a little paranoid. In my opinion, this is not a good thing.

> What are the chances that they could be snooping and monitoring what I am watching.

100%.

> Samsung Smart TVs have built-in Automated Content Recognition (ACR) technology that can understand viewing behavior and usage including programs, movies, ads, gaming content and OTT apps in real-time. It’s a simple 3-step process:

Linked elsewhere itt: https://www.samsung.com/us/business/samsungads/resources/tv-...

One of the CIA leaks included malware for turning Samsung tvs into a listening device

So it's not unrealistic for it to be done my others

What leads you to believe they are not monitoring eveything you watch now?

Jeez. I am going off the grid.

I'm probably just old and grumpy, but I ditched my newer smart TV's and moved to projectors. Last night I watched Altman's "The Long Goodbye" (1973) at around 120 inches on wall that has been skim coated and painted white. It looked like actual film with grainy night scenes and a muted color palette. It is a "dumb" projector and I love it. I love the experience of it.

I also love the fact that this little projector can go in a drawer when not in use. No black mirror dominating a room. It also means I don't really watch much until near dark which for me makes it a little more special. I actually have to wait for the optimum conditions to enjoy (the horror!)

I walked into Costco a few days ago and the new TV's are always near the entrance. Colors are saturated to cartoon levels, motion is 'smoothed' and HDR looks weird. It looks less and less like anything relating to human vision.

I'm clearly bucking the trend since I'm guessing all these TV's are hot sellers.

This is why i only buy "Dumb" TV's and connect a third-party "smart" device to them (Firestick, etc)

Smart device wants to do some crap like this, in the recycle bin it goes but the TV which cost far more is still good.

Many of these manufacturers also have a well documented history of not supporting anything they sold, in an attempt to push new products (buy an android phone and see how many updates it actually gets).

Again, far cheaper and easier to replace the smart device instead of the TV when this happens.

The problem is finding non smart TVs anymore. It used to be that WalMart would have a tv or two that were still just display devices but I haven't seen a non smart tv for sale in quite a while.

Honestly, I'm not a big one for regulation, but I think those TVs should have a large print notification somewhere that says they're spying on you - although people would probably accept the convenience tradeoff.

> Honestly, I'm not a big one for regulation, but I think those TVs should have a large print notification somewhere that says they're spying on you

The warning should replace all the branding on the outside of the package, exactly like tobacco products in Europe.

It would be cool if we end up with an OpenWRT-type situation for Smart TVs. We establish some rooting procedures for some popular models, and then root it or replace the OS.

I worked for Samsung. Let's just say, I am not letting any "smart" TVs in my home.

Given choice of "smart" TV vs no TV, I choose no TV.

Currently I have an old 30" monitor filling the function of the TV.

I would love to have nice shiny screen, but the price is just too high.

Insight into how bad the TV is spying on us?

Can you block samsung.com at the DNS level and be alright or do the issues go deeper than that? Honest question as I don't have a Samsung tv...

How about never connecting it to a network?

I once had a Samsung smart TV that was on the lower end of the price scale. It had Ethernet but no Wi-Fi (this was back in 2014ish so wifi was a “premium” feature). I didn’t have an Ethernet drop near the TV so I bought a USB wifi dongle and used that. A year or two later I was messing around with a Raspberry Pi and needed a wifi dongle, so I took the one from the TV. Lo and behold the smart tv features kept working. It must have had wifi hardware that was disabled in software and the wifi dongle somehow tricked it into working…long story to say that I bet with 5G TVs will start phoning home and nothing short of a faraday cage will be able to stop it.

I've seen comments report that it gets ethernet over HDMI if they plug in their internet-connected gaming console.

This is one of these things were people once heard that it's in the standard and then are convinced its happening, but nobody can ever name a single device that supports it. (Happy to be proven wrong though, but for now this seems to be pretty much FUD)

> The blocking will come into effect when the user of a stolen television connects to the internet, in order to operate the television

I purchased a Sony TV in 2019 after giving up on looking for 70" "dumb" television sets that would only connect to my PlayStation and act as a screen.

I decided that I would buy a smart tv but never connect it to the internet.

Every few days when I start my TV, I get an annoying "set up your Android TV" prompt that takes over my TV. I have to grab my remote and dismiss it to go back to my PlayStation.

If I happen to have a stolen television set, I would never know the difference. (My TV is from Sony, article is about Samsung TVs)

In case it's helpful to you, you can ADB over the network to your Android TV and uninstall packages which are annoying to you. I'd wager there's one which this prompt comes from. I have disabled all but the essential apps (for HDMI-CEC function, etc) on my Sony Android TV.

Alternatively, set it up once then ban it from the internet.

This hadn't ever crossed my mind! Thanks for the tip.

I wonder if I can adb root into my tv via some USB port. Some hardware hacker probably has figured this out - time to go look.

Sad state of affairs when you have to hack a device you probably paid well over €1000 for...

Cr3ative's comment is interesting and I am definitely going to look into that.

I fixed my issues with Sony popping up the android crap by allowing the device I am turning on to control HDMI.

I'm not the biggest fan of that setting being on, but I turned it off and started getting those android pop ups. It took me awhile to figure out why that was happening as my TV isn't on the internet. I use a Sony television connected to Apple TV with internet fwiw.

On the one hand this is understandable and sort of "evil genius", on the other hand, this will also affect grey market buyers who cannot produce a legitimate receipt. It's also problematic because this means they can alter your property at will.

Yep. This hurts all SmartTV owners because it lowers the resale value of their property. Buyers have to stick to official retailers or risk getting a product that will be remotely bricked.

> this will also affect grey market buyers who cannot produce a legitimate receipt.

That's the goal - maybe you'll buy your TV legitimately next time.

I am quite ambivalent to this feature. On one hand, if someone steals your TV, you can deactivate it. But now there is also a benefit to having a dumb TV. Imagine if you have too old of a model, so Samsung decides to remotely disable your TV.

While not the same, crippling of Smart TVs already exists - their apps become incompatible with latest youtube, netflix, etc. APIs and therefore become less usable. You can get away from that with a smart stick, but then, you could've bought dumb tv instead.

My samsung TV was never connected to the internet. I didnt even accept the user agreement, it still works just fine.

Just wait until they include Amazon Sidewalk, so the TV can connect using your neighbor's internet connection to download the latest ads.

Physically eliminating the RF capabilities of a device without impacting the rest of its functions is usually feasible with enough patience. Your options include blocking external radiation (add copper mesh/foil), or destroying the device's antennas.

Modern TVs come with remotes that only work via Bluetooth, not via IR, and which are required for using the TV.

I really love this kind of hacking but I hate several things.

1. That it's even necessary

2. That any non-techie would immediately be against even unscrewing anything on their own devices

Sure, I'm glad to do this on my own devices. But those willing to has gotta be a sample size of so small, its no bigger a deal than a statistical anomaly.

There's the missing link to make the living room mounted telescreen a reality.

I loathe the day where manufacturers start requiring Internet access because you know that most people won't think twice about it. And they'll also all do it within a couple years of each other.

A user agreement of a TV is hilarious now that I think about it. It’s surely a load of disclaimers and agreements that they can violate various privacy laws, but made after you have handed over the money.

I suspect you can not block your TV, if someone steals it. This is bad idea and a slippery slope towards various versions of nonsense.

Then the millions of old TV owners sue Samsung for trespass to chattels? That would be a horrible decision both financially and publicity-wise.

The benefit this gives to having a dumb TV is that it makes it more attractive to thieves.

I don't know how exactly consumer behaviour works in America when it comes to televisions but in India, most people hold on to their TVs for at least a decade. So yeah this would not fly in a place like India. But in America, if the average consumer changes their television far quicker than here, it is likely very few will remain holding onto TVs older than 10 years. So the complaints of people will fall onto deaf ears.

This is one possible outcome only. But I feel this is quite likely.

Nah, I think that's pretty normal here in America too. I've never met someone who's bought a replacement TV for a reason other than that their old one broke, besides ~10 years ago when everyone upgraded from CRTs to flat-screen HDTVs.

And you don't even need a public outcry about it. Just enough people to make a class-action worth it.

Overall I'm not against such a thing because at the end of the day this makes theft less attractive and thus protects consumers.

However not like this: "Should a customer’s TV be incorrectly blocked, the functionality can be reinstated once proof of purchase and a valid TV license is shared to serv.manager@samsung.com [...]".

That's flipping the burden of proof around. Clearly not the way to go about this.

Also of course things should work by default and not require you to go online.

They've all been reported stolen. That already satisfies the burden of proof in Samsung's view. What more proof do you want Samsung to have? They can't prove customers don't have a receipt. It's up to the potential legitimate customer to overcome Samsung's evidence.

Then having that avenue would not be necessary, would it?

It's likely Samsung only has a rough idea which serial numbers were stolen, or there is at least considerable room for mistakes. As a company you don't set up a process for a few outliers.

What? All the big tech companies on HN get lambasted all the time for excessive automation and not having a process for a few outliers.

Why would you NOT want to setup a process for outliers (other than to save money like the big tech companies)?

If that's supposed to be a rhetorical question, you are missing the point.

I'm not saying they shouldn't, I'm saying they wouldn't.

If this process was properly implemented they would not help you unlock your TV if you complain. Instead they would be calling the cops because you just gave them a lead on where those TVs went. Which in some universe where typical warehouse management keeps track of serial numbers may actually be what they're planning.

It was not rhetorical. I assumed they might have planned for a situation where the warehouse or Samsung made a mistake.

Smart everything enables things to control your behavior, to spy and then to report on you. I haven't ditched my smartphone yet but am using it less often and hold onto a phone till it becomes utterly obsolete (Currently an IPhone SE, still good for me). A smart TV would never be on my buy list. First of all I haven't a TV since they weren't so smart, last TV I had was a CRT in the 2000s. I noticed the difference without one. When I quit TV it was because it was toxic and I presume it has gotten worse since. I do own a projector and fire it up occasionally to watch a movie with the family but it's not on on a daily basis.

forget smart TVs, I want somebody to just make a decent dumb TV. Same thing goes for cars, I feel like there is a huge market for "dumb" products. Manufacturers feel the need to keep adding features for some reason

From the albeit little feedback I've heard, I hear the Spectre 4K dumb TVs are decent enough. They go up to 75" and Walmart sells them.

But yes, I want a bigger market for "dumb" products such as cars, and other consumer appliances such as TVs.

Sceptre* brand

For cars stuff is even harder now.

EU for example has regulations that make mandatory for all new cars to come with tracking devices and logging of what you do with the car.

EDIT: just remembered the name of one of such things. It is "eCall", now mandatory on EU. It mandates all cars must have GPS, Galileo, microphone, logging, cellphone transmitter, and be able to detect a serious emergency happened and call the police automatically and provide them with all data needed.

Seemly removing that crap from the car is illegal too. (I don't live in EU right now so I didn't dove too deep in that subject).

Sounds like something out of China.

Do China have a society built on advertising stuff you don't want or need on TV and radio and in magazines and movies, and at ballgames, and on buses, and milk cartons, and T-shirts, and bananas, and written in the sky?

> The SIM-card used to transmit the eCall data is dormant, i.e. it is only activated in case the vehicle has a serious accident (e.g. the airbag is activated).

At least the EU cares about the privacy implications of some of the stuff it does. If/when this happens in the US, they'll just let the auto companies offset the cost by selling the data it collects. For them it's a win-win-win, the government looks good by improving safety to 90% of people, companies can make more money by selling data, and the government can buy that data to circumvent the legal restrictions on tracking citzens directly.

[1] https://ec.europa.eu/transport/themes/its/road/action_plan/e...

HDMI monitor anyone?

I’ve wondered about the feasibility of jailbreaking Tizen. Ads aside, my 2019 HDR TV has a bug where HDR10+ content will drop to 1/2 brightness every 6 minutes to the second, until I open the menu. That will reset the 6 minute counter, but it never stops. It’s infuriating.

It affects the 2020 models too, but by the looks of a very long forum thread it seems to have been fixed with a software update. They have no interest in fixing the older models, but maybe some enterprising hacker would.

I want to say fuck Samsung and that my next TV will be LG, but LG have ads in the menus too. Judging by reviews, most high-end Sony panels cost more money but are missing features I value like VRR.

It’s really shitty, there is basically no amount of money you can spend to get both a high-end panel and a user experience that isn’t fucking awful.

Search the thread for the Gigabyte oled monitor FO48 IIRC.

I'm on the fence here, I sort of like the premise that looters don't get their booty. I do agree though I don't like the idea that a corporation can remotely disable a piece of hardware I bought.

Really? How about this?

    Your social media $POST critical of $PARTY is incompatible with Samsung's
    vision of community. We have therefore disabled your $PHONE, $WATCH, $TV,
    $DISHWASHER, and $PC. Contact serv.manager@samsung.com or click here for
    more information"

Does that possibility change your position?

But if you reached that level of tyranny, shouldn't you be more worried about the state sending Men With Guns to your residence, or blocking you from receiving government services (eg. welfare, healthcare, renewing drivers license)? Not being able to netflix and chill seems like the least of your worries.

You may have not considered that appliances allowing profiling are part of the system that may enable the above.

Which, also, may not be worse: it may be less absurd under some perspective.

Edit: by the way: if you used your handeld and general purpose computers as your extension, which really should be factual, your dismissal would become the least justifiable statement. "Yes, I had an hyppocampus (amygdala etc.) but I probably did not need it that much." Little has more priority than your full ownership of your extensions.

> You may have not considered that appliances allowing profiling are part of the system that may enable the above.

Profiling/anti-theft seems orthogonal here. You can have profiling without anti-theft (eg. facebook/google), and you can have anti-theft without profiling (eg. lojack).

Since when is this going on?

They have the ability to, but that doesn't make it legal. Samsung has the ability to hire mercenaries to go to your home and forcibly take your TV, and that's beyond your control too. But both are illegal. You can never ensure that nobody will ever have the ability to do bad things to you, but as long as it's a rectifiable matter and you're protected by the law, we often have to rely on those legal protections.

Looking at some comments, I was surprised seeing many complaints about Samsung ads but (as of writing) no one mentions Google doing same thing lately:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27643208

The big difference is with Google you can disable ads for the most part with an ad blocker.

Samsung TVs however you cannot. For example I have a pihole server running on my network. I cannot use Disney+ or Hulu on my Samsung TVs. But Nvidia shield and my phone work perfectly.

Samsung injects ads into all their apps. Even if you lay for Hulu with no ads, guess what you're still going to get an ad. It won't be a stream stopping ad, but more like ads when you pause a stream.

> The big difference is with Google you can disable ads for the most part with an ad blocker.

At least from my perspective, any product I buy that impose regression in functionality is a bad practice.

It’s the same as if you buy an app and then gets ads in an update.

Google are an advertising company, it would be like complaining about McDonalds selling fast food.

Samsung are an electronics company

So should Android start showing ads on your lock screen is that acceptable practice?

Or is it acceptable only for Pixel as it’s McDonald’s and evil if it’s a Samsung Galaxy?

I don't care as I don't use an android as I don't trust google and actively dislike the entire advertising industry and its drain on society. It wouldn't surprise me if google did that. It should surprise me if my oven or fridge did. Sadly it becomes less and less surprising as time goes on.

The ecological impact of this shouldn't be ignored.

Imagine the number of iPhones that are activation locked due to oversight of owners before disposal. They are much more likely to become e-waste.

Possession as the primary indicator of ownership isn't such a bad option after all.

At the very least, there should be a well-known process to remove these locks.

> The ecological impact of this shouldn't be ignored.

Pretty low so long as they only use it for theft. Thieves will soon learn not to steal TVs as there is no value in it. As such it is only a small number of bricked TVs that are landfilled early - nothing compared to all the TVs already landfilled.

Now if this is used for something other than theft cases it can get bad, but in this case at least it is a good thing that helps all honest people.

> At the very least, there should be a well-known process to remove these locks.

There is. Or so they claim, I don't know if it works or not, but supposedly you can just send proof of legal purchase.

What proof? A receipt from a shop barely lasts the 2 years warranty product if you don't photocopy it, because it's printed on thermal paper. And a lot of people doesn't either keep it. Also is this service going to be maintained forever?

The reality is that new TVs and in general new electronics are effectively disposable products, not meant to last in the time. While I have at my house an old CRT with valves in it, that I can repair simply with a soldering iron, as I did a couple of times, and other old electronic devices that still works fine, it's not the same for modern crap. When it breaks the only option is to throw it in a landfill.

We should start form the past, where everything came with its schematic in it, and thus the facto open source, where they didn't even imagined something opposed to that, it was natural when you purchase something to be in full control of it, to have the right to know how it worked and how to repair it when it failed.

And nobody, I mean no user, complained that there wasn't a way to remotely block their TV in case someone steal it.

> And nobody, I mean no user, complained that there wasn't a way to remotely block their TV in case someone steal it.

Only because they didn't know they could. Where TV theft is a problem people will be happy for this where it isn't people will rightly be more worried about the things you point out.

> We should start form the past,

Modern electronics is a lot more reliable than the old stuff. Sure you can't repair it anymore, but you also don't need to, it just works.

Thieves will still steal TV's, they will just end up in panel repair shops. iPhones still get stolen as well, even though they are worth much less.

iOS 15 takes things up a level. Your phone will remain trackable on the find my network even while the phone is turned off and it will remain trackable for weeks after the battery is "flat".

Sure there are still methods you could use but it makes theft another level harder. The serial numbers and authentication on each part could also be used to brick each part of the phone if it is marked as stolen making them useless for resale as parts.

So... I'm supposed to keep the receipt for the lifetime of the TV? Around here I don't even need it for the warranty in some places, they just look the item up by serial no.

And what is a "valid TV license" ?

Some countries require a TV license to own a TV. Its a monthly license fee used to fund public broadcasters.

And if i'm in a country that doesn't? I'm screwed? Or you think Samsung cares?

I'd love to hear folks' recommendations for non-smart TV's. I haven't paid attention to this topic in a while and I haven't kept up with the technology.

If i just need a "dumb" TV go for prosumer or commercial solutions. Imaging the TVs you see in big corps or shops. NEC E-Series is good if you're on a budget.

I bought the Sceptre 65" (model U658CV-UMC) based on a recommendation in another HN thread last year. There's not a lot to say about it, since all it does is show a signal on a big TV screen, but that's also its biggest benefit. It's an $800 4K 65" TV that doesn't spy on you, so big thumbs up from me.

I'm not sure if it's got the best panel in the world or not. It's definitely good enough for me. One thing I accept about myself is that if I am not looking at two TVs side by side, I am not going to know if one is inferior to the other.

Thanks. I'm the same. I'm sensitive to audio quality, but I'm pretty oblivious to the quality of TV screens. I'll happily watch a movie on a laptop as long as I can hook it up to a decent sound system.

You can always buy a large monitor. For example, AORUS FO48U 48" gaming monitor has 4K OLED, 120Hz, 1ms G2G Freesync Premium for $1400. https://slickdeals.net/f/15210775-aorus-fo48u-gaming-monitor...

> Should a customer’s TV be incorrectly blocked, the functionality can be reinstated once proof of purchase and a valid TV license is shared

What the hell is TV license?

"In the British Islands, any household watching or recording live television transmissions at the same time they are being broadcast is required by law to hold a television licence. This applies regardless of transmission method, including terrestrial, satellite, cable, or for BBC iPlayer internet streaming. The television licence is the instrument used to raise revenue to fund the BBC; it is a form of taxation"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_the_Un...

The TV license in the article is for a similar system in South Africa, which funds the local public broadcaster SABC

Funniest and saddest thing I saw was bookstores being completely ignored during the looting. South Africa's literacy rate declined from 93% to 87% during the last decade.

Many comments here going on about "I do not have a proof of purchase for X". Well, good luck claiming insurances if your property ever gets burgled.

you only have to prove ownership not purchase for insurance

How do you otherwise prove an ownership of an item you have purchased?

Lots of ways. My renters insurance just wants a timestamped digital photo

Cool. Unfortunately not every country works the same.

When I was young, you could steal a TV, or a VHS or CD or DVD collection, or a phone or (a little later) a GPS or media unit in a car or books.

Now almost everything can be remotely disabled, and nobody really owns anything anyway, they just pay for subscriptions to things.

I wonder what it does to society if crime becomes effectively impossible. A lot of writers have suggested that some level of deviance is essential for a healthy society.

It's an interesting question. Some kinds of crime do seem necessary since many things we consider essential human rights or at least harmless were once criminal. But I can't imagine this applies much to theft. I can't ever imagine a society where we are worse off because people couldn't steal TVs. And anything where it might make sense, a protest against the government in general would be more appropriate.

Remotely disabling stolen internet-connected devices is good common practice. We used this once at my company for some items which inexplicably went missing from the manufacturing line. A few years later I got a support ticket escalation about a customer who got a device from “some weird turn of events” (something like that) and couldn’t figure out how to activate it, it kept saying to contact support.

The one feature I like better of the Samsung TV is the picture setting menu, which seems to have more options than the other one (although there is still room for improvement; I would design it very differently, with settings for YIQ->RGB matrix, RGB->RGB matrix, deinterlace mode, YIQ bandwidth, etc). Still, I don't use a smart TV; I have the older one. Even a while ago I had used a computer monitor as the TV set; it is smaller than a TV set but I don't mind. It is also faster than a smart TV set which is too slow.

What I think should be want on the TV display is only: Digi-RGB video and analog audio input, IMIDI interface for control, picture setting, 4:3 aspect ratio (I dislike the wide screen), and a remote control with numbers. It shouldn't do more; the other features (including tuner) could be implemented in a VCR/DVD with FOSS, so that you can modify the program by yourself and adjust according to your intention.

About remotely disabling TV sets, will they use it to violate the right of first sale? (Is that even how it works? I don't really know)

They mention TV license is needed to reactive the device if it stops working, and I remember back when I was in uni they told us we need to have a TV license to watch TV in the U.K.

So I am wondering would this mean any government that wants to collect money for people watching TV, Samsung TVs will provide these gov with the power to do TV licensing automatically?

Unless Samsung enforces an internet connection on the first start of the TV it's completely useless as long as they don't connect it.

Still, a worrisome approach. After a few years if they shut down or change the blocking servers will the TV still work or it will become a brick since it can't check its authenticity?

They do on The Frame series TVs because it's supposed to show 'artwork'. If you don't connect, you'll constantly have to deal with an ugly warning message instead of defaulting to the preloaded images.

I don't own a smart TV because every smart TV I've used has been in an airbnb and they are generally sluggish to the point of being unusable. Even my plug-in Roku has gotten to this point. I don't understand what it could be. Memory leaks? It's totally bizarre

Poor software development is my theory.

Planned obsolescence. We should really make that practice illegal at some point... but we are too busy imposing people to get rid of they perfectly reliable 20 years old petrol cars to buy crappy new electric cars that will break for a software update and will end up in a landfill...

Samsung should be permitted to have something like this until the unit is sold.

Once it is sold it is no longer theirs and any of these blocking features should be removed unless explicitly re-added buy the new owner. In fact why don't they charge extra for such a feature?

Jack a bunch of smart TVs from a warehouse and nobody panics. Because -- it's all part of "the plan". But if a company reaches out across the 'net and disables their stolen contraband; everybody LOSES THEIR MINDS!

It's not about the TVs, it's about sending a message.

This reminds me of a thread here recently about certain power tools being sold in Home Depot stores that will need to be “activated” or they won’t work as an anti-theft measure.

These particular situations aside, I don’t see a problem with this kind of tech, as long as the manufacturer either ends their use or hands the “keys” (whatever they may be) to the buyer after the legitimate sale.

The slippery slope argument that “DRM-for-X” tech will be abused by manufacturers who want to charge subscriptions or will brick devices if they close down doesn’t resonate with me, I don’t think we should throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Smart TVs are an obvious cash grab from TV manufacturers. When a new [Roku|Apply TV|Fire Stick] comes out, a consumer only has to buy that device itself to get access to new features. They don't buy a new tv. In this way "Smart" TVs are a way for TV manufacturers to bond the two devices so that consumers will be locked out of new developments eventually where they'll obviously buy a new TV because they've been conditioned to and because they know the TVs UI and switching is harder.

I gave away our SmartTV several months ago, and bought a dumb TV that is basically a cheap monitor with one HDMI input that we plug an Apple TV box into. I love this setup, but we don’t have the same hires quality display.

I would like SmartTVs a little bit, if they had secure operating system with good security updates, but I don’t think that they do. Our Apple TV box does get frequent software updates, and we don’t have to deal with being marketed to (pushing apps, etc.).

Got it, don't connect the stolen TV to the internet. Just plug in a Fire Stick, Apple TV or what have you. Fortunately, that's good advice in general anyway.

I vowed to never buy a smart TV, but it's getting harder and harder.

Luckily, I recently found that Sony's smart TVs have a mode called "Basic TV". It doesn't require internet and disables a bunch of the extra functions that I don't need my TV to do. I can even disable the bluetooth connectivity to turn the display into as dumb of a TV as possible.

I also swore to never buy Samsung, after they messed up the Samsung Galaxy Tab S3. But then, I bought the S7, because they made a lot of improvements.

In the end, I'm happy with the purchase, because I got it at a massive discount. However, I am still weary of Samsung devices in general.

Also, the iPad just didn't do it for me. I prefer the S-Pen to the Apple Pencil.

When it says disabled does that mean it won't even connect to HDMI ports? Because if that's not the case, then all that's needed is an android box which costs like $50 bucks and often performs better than the bloated android rom on tvs.

Looking forward to the future of consumerism.

Do something out of line? Your tesla car stops working, samsung tv shuts down, social media bans you, central bank cryptocurrency prevents you from making purchases, airlines put you on the no fly list.

Gonna be a lot of fun one day when hackers target out-of-maintenance but otherwise fully functional devices one day and the manufacturers make the decision to brick them in order to save money then pretend like nothing happened.

How can they know for sure that some activation was invalid. I'd think this could be challenged in court. If hypothetically the SA govt. declares amnesty for the looting, then will Samsung unlock it. Just saying.

That seems like dangerous and very anti-consumer practice. I honestly don’t like smart TVs in general, I haven’t seen one where you won’t end up buying a tv setup box, like Apple TV or Amazon firestick anyway.

Samsung you’ve done f up.

> Should a customer’s TV be incorrectly blocked, the functionality can be reinstated once proof of purchase and a valid TV license is shared to serv.manager@samsung.com

So if you can't find your receipt, you're SOL?

Proof of purchase can usually be obtained from the store if you give them the time of the transaction which would be saved by your bank.

Instead of disabling them, they should let them operate, but play only ads.

Would be an interesting situation if someone bricked a large chunk of internet connected TV's. It would possibly drive the mainstream population towards greater internet security.

(generous assumption?)

My coffee machine was bricked, once it detected I started drinking Tea.

IoT gone wild.

It is impossible to find a "dumb" TV today. It sucks, because I was currently looking for a new 75+ inch one, but everything out there is just smart crap.

They're out of stock now, but they were available last time I checked a few months ago.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Sceptre-75-Class-4K-UHD-LED-TV-HD...

No-one forces you to connect your "smart" TV to the network... You can just use it as a "dumb" TV and connect anything on it (such as a Raspberry Pi) to do the "smart" things. I have an old Toshiba smart TV from >7 years ago that I bought second-hand for 100€, and while it is doing great as a dumb TV I would never connect it to the network considering there have been no firmware update for years and that the current one is likely affected by un-fixable security holes !

Just wait till your Samsung TV phones in to your Samsung mobile to share wifi credentials. It's zero click convenience!

Are you sure?

https://thehometheaterdiy.com/hdmi-with-ethernet/

As you control your pi, you can control ethernet over hdmi

"Should a customer’s TV be incorrectly blocked, the functionality can be reinstated once proof of purchase and a valid TV license is shared to serv.manager@samsung.com or click here for more information"

Fuck off.

This is a wake up call for us to make free and open source Smart TV operating system so we can stop this tyranny.

Oh the tyranny of having to pay…

I have a 10 year old Sony TV that I have NO proof of purchase for, I threw out that receipt with the box about 3 moves ago.

Well, since you didn't steal it why would they disable it?

But if you bought it off the back of some guys truck would you honestly expect it to work?

From the parent:

> "Should a customer’s TV be incorrectly blocked, the functionality can be reinstated once proof of purchase and a valid TV license is shared to serv.manager@samsung.com or click here for more information"

I don't know why they would block me, but apparently it is something they've created a process for, a process I wouldn't be able to participate in.

But they wouldn't. You have a 10 year old Sony TV. This is Samsung.

My point is that, I don't have proof of purchase for my 10 year old Sony. I would presume this also applies to Samsung customers.

Obviously that's not the point, here. The fact that Samsung has the ability to brick a TV remotely _at all_ is ridiculous. It's not hard to imagine this being used by an attacker to shut down all Samsung TVs remotely, or for planned obsolescence if you want to be more cynical.

Or.....against thieves. As someone who had stuff stolen, I'd pay money for electronics that catches fire once reported stolen, thieves are literally scum of the earth and only one step above murderers and rapists in my books. Great step by Samsung here.

You'd install a firebomb in your own home? I think you need to rethink this position.

I carry one in my pocket every day, so why not?

I can't argue with your assessment of thieves, but if you're going to have self-destruct mechanisms in your devices, appliances, or car, do you really trust a company like Samsung with the red button? Wouldn't you rather have that under your own control?

That's akin to a booby trap, and US law does not look kindly on such machinations.

That would be about as huge of a security failure as an attacker sending out a malicious OS update for any other device, except with a planned, controlled way to disable TVs, Samsung could reenable them promptly once they realize.

Intentionally disabling purchased devices to force them to buy new ones is called trespass to chattels and is illegal.

Which part of the South African laws says that?

I am not a South African lawyer, but it is almost assuredly part of their common law if nothing else. Being based more on Roman-Dutch law, they probably call it an Aquilian action instead.

> Intentionally disabling purchased devices to force them to buy new ones is called trespass to chattels and is illegal.

You've never seen any IoT devices shut down remotely? It happens all the time.

Some people will pay, not knowing the TV was stolen.

A batch of stolen TV's could end up in the ends of a legit distributors; someone could end up with that by walking into some established brick-and-mortar discount TV warehouse type place.

Gee, I hope that everything you own that you got off Craigslist in good faith and paid for is remotely disabled if it had been stolen, while the thieves enjoy the money. Because you're the bad guy!

>Gee, I hope that everything you own that you got off Craigslist in good faith and paid for is remotely disabled if it had been stolen, while the thieves enjoy the money. Because you're the bad guy!

You're not the bad guy, but you're also not entitled to keep the stolen goods. It has to go back to its original owner. I'd be pretty pissed if someone stole my bike, sold it, and I'm not able to recover my bike because somebody "bought" it at 80% off.

No, you aren't; it called "possession of stolen property".

However, Samsung is not the law, first of all. (If they have a court order to disable the equipment, that's fine, I suppose.)

Second of all, these TV's won't be recovered; they will probably just end up in the landfill.

You're not catching the thieves this way.

>However, Samsung is not the law, first of all. (If they have a court order to disable the equipment, that's fine, I suppose.)

Should apple require a court order to enable icloud lock on your stolen iphone?

>Second of all, these TV's won't be recovered; they will probably just end up in the landfill.

>You're not catching the thieves this way.

Same for stolen iphones, are you against icloud locks as well?

Do you not believe in property rights? If a stolen car gets resold that doesn’t automatically void the original ownership papers… and that’s the standard practice in every country in the world I think.

The standard practice in most countries is that the police and the court system are distinct from this entity called Samsung.

That doesn’t affect the principle that the original ownership rights cannot be affected by any subsequent resale after theft.

I don’t have proof of purchase for 90% of the stuff I own. It’s insane to expect people to hang on to receipts for eternity.

Even more fun is that there’s some receipts where the ink fades/rubs off in a matter of days so even though you have the paper receipt you still have no proof of purchase.

You have a high-res camera on your person at all times. I take photos of all receipts for over $50 or so as a precaution.

And you're not expected to. This is for TVs that were recently stolen. Do people here actually think this will be used in the future for random ownership checks?

No bank statements?

I have bank / credit card statements, but those aren't itemized.

I could say I spent $1500 at BestBuy on some date, but not have concrete proof of exactly what I bought from that alone.

oh the tyranny of having a product which you purchase and think you own have all functionality be remotely disabled—effectively becoming a multi thousand dollar paperweight—at the whim of a large international corporation with no real recourse...

You have recourse by showing proof of purchase. Or you sue them.

> You have recourse by showing proof of purchase

How does that help when the product is out of warranty?

> Or you sue them.

How exactly would you go about suing Samsung. Figure that out and let us know if it would be worth it for a TV.

> > You have recourse by showing proof of purchase

>How does that help when the product is out of warranty?

This is for TVs that were recently stolen. They'd definitely be in warranty (short of you not buying from an authorized reseller because you bought it out of the back of a truck), and you're reasonably likely to have the receipt.

While TFA focuses on recently stolen goods, the broader concern here is the invasive remote control that Samsung has over your device. The concerns I'm reading in this thread include Samsung turning on invasive advertising, remote bricking, and possibly monitoring your media consumption.

So in light of the relevant debate here, how exactly does a proof-of-purchase help if the product is out of warranty?

You might have paid the TV second hand, and not be aware of the theft. What recourse do you have then? You're out of pocket, the seller might not be reachable anymore, and you have no proof of purchase.

Supply chains matter and that has always been true. You have never had recourse for buying stolen goods under law. If you buy stolen goods, the police can seize them and you are out the money.

Samsung is not a police agency. It should not be allowed to virtually seize something that belongs to me.

If it was stolen, it was never yours, even if you paid the thief for it. At least in the US, this is a settled matter; You have no right to a stolen good that you paid for.

I don't dispute that. I just don't like huge corporations in other countries acting like the criminal justice where I live.

You did, if you did so unknowingly and had no reason to doubt you bought stolen merchandise.

Burning the buyer means they will be more careful who they buy from next time. This could be both good (reduces market for stolen goods), and bad (inhibits legitimate 2nd hand sales). In the long term I would expect some technology for proving provenance pops up but it might be a little painful until that happens.

Apple remotely scanning our phones for "suspicious" content, Samsung remotely disabling our TVs on the suspicion of TV being stolen what is next?!

This is akin to Crypto Wars from the 1990s but this time the enemy is far more dangerous. In the 1990s we had a centralized enemy the government which decided to turn against us this time the enemy is decentralized in the form of private corporations which are turning against us one by one.

Government can be tamed but private corporations can not; they only see profit and now they think they can get more of it by lying to us they do it in the name of social justice.

While I agree that smart TVs are a cancer, I'm confused by your take. Do you have the same opinion towards locking stolen iPhones? If not, why?

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/apple-is-reportedly-disabl...

iPhones are necessarily cloud connected, TVs not so much. Activating my iPhone is something I normally do and provides me value (payment, location services, etc etc) so there’s a natural place.

All this is bloat on a tv.

Also the iPhone bricking requires a police report and has a pretty defined process and I’m not aware of any overreach by Apple to brick phones like this story.

Ah, I see. It's mainly the lack of due process and the implication that legitimately purchased units might have been included in the bulk lockout. Thank you for explaining!

I think it depends on who initiates the lock. If a company can choose to arbitrarily lock my device then inevitably it will be misused. In the case of phones it is usually the customer initiating a lock, either from Find My Phone style apps or through the carrier itself.

My TV phoning home doesn't really seem like it accomplishes much, and will likely be misused in the future, not to mention is an entire layer to vectorize in terms of fleet device attacks.

>I think it depends on who initiates the lock. If a company can choose to arbitrarily lock my device then inevitably it will be misused. In the case of phones it is usually the customer initiating a lock, either from Find My Phone style apps or through the carrier itself.

why does this matter? In either case the entity responsible for handling the lock request is the company itself.

The company has to coordinate it because otherwise I would need to have a server that supports some remote locking protocol and my phone configured for it.

Who initiates it matters because if a TV vendor can arbitrarily brick your TV for something after you've paid cash for it, then that smells of theft. The same thing if a TelCo could or would arbitrarily brick a device I paid for. The distinction is that I'm telling them to do this to my phone.

>Who initiates it matters because if a TV vendor can arbitrarily brick your TV for something after you've paid cash for it, then that smells of theft. The same thing if a TelCo could or would arbitrarily brick a device I paid for. The distinction is that I'm telling them to do this to my phone.

What happened in south africa:

* TVs are sitting inside a factory

* TVs are owned by samsung

* factory gets robbed

* the owner (samsung) tells the manufacturer (samsung) to brick the devices

I fail to see how it's different than:

* iPhone is sitting in your pocket

* iPhone is owned by you

* you get robbed

* the owner (you) tells the manufacturer (apple) to brick the device

> Should a customer’s TV be incorrectly blocked, the functionality can be reinstated once proof of purchase and a valid TV license is shared to serv.manager@samsung.com or click here for more information

This statement is from the source: https://news.samsung.com/za/samsung-supports-retailers-affec...

That means the Samsung TV's call home. How do they know when to stop calling home? The answer is they don't. That's one layer of the problem.

The second layer being that they can "incorrectly" brick someone's TV. Remote device administration when done by a TelCo requires a whole ton of validation, your eSIM goes through a fairly extensive validation check when it logs onto a network, which is why it has this capability in the first place. They are not the same thing in this way either. If TelCo's started accidentally bricking peoples phones I think you'd see similar criticism of the practice.

The third layer, as mentioned in other threads, is that most people don't keep receipts. A TelCo knows you went through an activation process with a certain phone number. It's a little easier to target at that point. You don't need to dig up a receipt from months or years ago.

>The second layer being that they can "incorrectly" brick someone's TV.

What gave you that impression? The statement put out by samsung? It's reasonable to think that they keep very good records of where a given TV should be and whether it was at a looted factory. If the TV was blacklisted, it's almost certain to have been looted. The statement is just a CYA to prevent a PR nightmare on the off chance that some TVs make it back into the retail supply chain and into the hands of an unsuspecting buyer. Legally speaking, it's still stolen property and the customer can't keep it, but Samsung doesn't think exercising that right is worth the hassle/negative press.

>The third layer, as mentioned in other threads, is that most people don't keep receipts.

People don't keep receipts for a $1000+ purchase? On the off chance they don't, they can get the retailer to make a copy, with supporting documentation.

>You don't need to dig up a receipt from months or years ago.

This is for devices that were looted weeks before. I see no indications that they're going to use this to do random ownership checks.

Not OP, but I'd say the problem is that someone, doesn't matter if it's the manufacturer, can disable your device remotely or that he has access to it at all.

My confusion was why this is considered to be a positive feature in some cases (e.g. iPhones), but not in this case.

You don't usually carry your smart TV around with you in your pocket

But TV sets are targets of burglars.

Hence it's good to have a proof of purchase. If your house gets burgled, you can claim the insurance.

There's several. I'm fond of https://libreelec.tv/

This is not to firmware though. Is there an OSS firmware that can be used to replace whatever crap Samsung has on these devices?

It is quite pointless to fight hardware vendors for FOSS support if they don't want to and you don't have to.

Why spend effort to crack their platform when you can buy from competitors, which you do a disservice for fixing Samsungs TVs.

Then again I don't know if there are any 'dumb' or open software competitor TVs left on the market ...

The same argument applies to M1 and people still (successfully) reverse engineer them.

Sure, but it is a high profile target versus keeping up with reverse engineer TV model after TV model.

It works quite well for WiFi router hardware.

When you see what the open source community is able to do with entertainment systems I'm sure there is a market for an open source smart TV. But the issue will always be marketing to the customers and brand reputation that will make years to acquire. But sure, done right with quality premium products first, not low cost ones and times, this can be achieved.

> This is a wake up call for us to make free and open source Smart TV operating system so we can stop this tyranny.

Why does the TV have to be smart? Having the smarts integrated into the TV requires that 2 components be replaced if either no longer meets the user's needs.

Lets make a really nice large format display with no smarts or connectivity and then let the user choose an Apple TV, Roku, Fire, Android, or whatever.

This! I'm never buying any kind of smart TV again. I currently have one those TCL TVs with Roku built in and it sucks. All of the apps on it are slow, the menu/home/OS is slow. This could just be a overall Roku thing but I'll never buy either a Roku or a "smart tv" again.

I mainly use Apple TV and PS4 to access all of the streaming services. They are slick, fast, and responsive.

If you don't want a smart TV, you are pretty much limited to bargain bin Sceptre and Best Buy TVs or finding a business signage TV.

Gaming monitors come up to 48" size. That's TV enough IMO

How bright are these large monitors for viewing from a distance?

They’ve got the same hardware as regular TVs, the Gigabyte Aorus FO48U is the exact same as the LG CX series, but without all the smarts.

Obviously, they cost quite a bit more (almost double), because modern TVs are ~40-60% subsidized by ads and tracking.

Sadly PS4 is pretty bad for streaming services. They don't show up on the main screen and often are buried in subsequent pages in the streaming menu.

I haven't been able to figure how to "sticky" YT TV for example to either the main screen or early in the "Video" section.

Yeah it's not perfect, they shove everything into that TV & Video section[1] and then in there I sometimes I have to look for the app I want in another sub-screen. I want to just create a folder on the home screen with my streaming apps on it. I'm probably going to get another Apple TV in the end. But even with all of those annoyances I am still much happier using the PS4 than the built-in Roku.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUBJxPkUUh4 <-- If anyone is curious, this is what PS4 does to your streaming apps and there's no way out of it. You are forced to go into this section to find the streaming app you want to use

I have a Hisense with a built-in Roku, same experience, but it got a lot faster once I cut off its internet access. (It's still connected to the home network so I can use the iOS remote control app for it, but I set up a firewall rule to block it from WAN access.) Worth a try if you can live without it dialing out.

Interesting, I'll give this a shot. thanks for the tip!

This is a wake up call for us to make free and open source Smart TV operating system so we can stop this tyranny.

Or to just stop buying "Smart" televisions.

People on HN like to say that buying a regular display panel without any of the "smart" features is cost-prohibitive, but it isn't.

A few months ago I did some comparison shopping on B&H, and the price difference was very small. Sometimes within sales tax range.

My next TV will be a regular display panel, and it will be the "smartest" decision I can make.

> People on HN like to say that buying a regular display panel without any of the "smart" features is cost-prohibitive, but it isn't

My argument is the opposite. It can be very difficult to find a dumb TV that actually has a high-end panel in it.

One avenue is the digital signage models, but they can be super expensive, and are not always available via normal retail channels.

> This is a wake up call for us to make free and open source Smart TV operating system so we can stop this tyranny.

Heh, firey take.

Personally my want is for systems like Netflix's Discovery and Launch[1] to take off. TV's can present themselves on the network, and phones or other devices can tell them to start running certain activities, & control them from afar.

There's been some good work to try to modernize these early protocols, & to build a more robust, fully featured, competent standard. That work has been happening at Open Screen Protocol[2] spec, which recently went Draft.

Alas, of course, Apple seems like they're going to do everything they can to prevent open standards from succeeding. They have a couple dozen patents vaguely in the field, most of which seem farcially ridiculously generic & obvious, and the bulk of these patents don't start expiring till 2024. They've disclaimed these to the working group[3] and while it doesn't prevent the standard from being worked on, as far as I know, it means there's almost no chance of it being supported or shipped until ~2028 or latter.

This is a spec that seems enormously pure & good, based on simple, obvious, straightforward ideas. I'd expect a random pick of Senior Engineer I's to come up with a design real similar to what is presented here- little of it feels novel or interesting. It's so damning, so sad that this world feels so obstructed, so road blocked, from doing the right thing, from the good & easy paths. And Apple being the sinister juggernaut preventing the good just feels so typical to me, locking us in to specific narrow means, controlling how we connect, how we think. It's been very hard days for me hearing Apple set us back like this. And I have no hope any kind of Fair Reasonable and Non-discriminatory licensing will ever be set up, no confidence we could try to find a legal route, even if we wanted to. Humanity is occluded by the largest, vastest, highest tech entity on the planet, held back.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_and_Launch

[2] https://www.w3.org/blog/news/archives/8973 https://www.w3.org/TR/2021/WD-openscreenprotocol-20210318/

[3] https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Apple-Pa...

Or just use dumb tvs?

Never ever connect the TV to the internet. If it won't operate without an internet connection, take it back to the store.

This sounds like it’s going to paint a target for necklacing on the back of anyone who’s found to be a Samsung employee.

The announcement reads like they're in a frigging war zone. Calm down, you're a TV company.

"The functionality can be reinstated once proof of purchase *and a valid TV license* is shared"

What.

Remember when TVs did one thing well and one thing only?

what does #RebuildSouthAfrica mean? Why is this post tagged with this? Weird

South Africa is apparently having large riots and looting going on right now. This video popped up in my YouTube recommendations last week and completely surprised me. I'd tell you more but this video is my only exposure to it so far so I figured I'd just link it than try to say it second hand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cew-BnjA_q4

Who lets TVs connect to the internet?

I use my smart tvs as monitors, I got a small 2nd hand pc for each of them with a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. No rules, no restrictions, no ads

Does anyone connect their TV to the internet these days?

This is bad.

Please elaborate. These kind of comments don’t really belong on hacker news without more content.

If youd actually browse HN you would know. One less step away from full ownership of your own devices and one more toward the consumer even more dependent on the compagnies.

Who cares about a bunch of stolen TVs ?

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