> 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.
Because almost all of them use internet connectivity to show you ads on home screens.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27701977
TL;DR- TVs are using their own cellular connections and/or neighboring open wireless networks.
The link doesn't say that.
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.
It doesn't seem that Huawei is being at all secretive about this; they are advertising it as a feature.
The other comment is also correct.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.