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Comment by danielodievich | Hacker News Reader

I have a smart LG connected to a blu-ray player and a computer for gaming/streaming. It has never been joined to the wifi. It is hooked to the network for firmware updates via cat5 wire, but that wire is physically unplugged all the time. If I want something streamed, I stream it off the computer. I've not seen any degradation from the TV, it just works. Problem solved?

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LG TVs can be updated from a USB drive. This lets you get firmware updates without needing to do a factory reset to remove the ads that would otherwise be downloaded when you connect to the internet.

I guess this is how this project managed to work http://openlgtv.github.io/

Unfortunately the repositories are not very up to date.

Until storage gets cheap enough that the TV can simply cache it's information about you indefinitely, and upload as part of a firmware update.

Hell, that could be today, just rotating logs and discarding the oldest.

If a TV is being used only as a display for external devices such as Apple TV or gaming consoles, it is a reasonable assumption to assume the TV will never need a firmware update.

At least in my 15 years of using flat panel TVs, I have never seen a need for a firmware update.

HDMI version updates may cause machines with older decoders to not work without an update. Its no biggie until you attach a streaming service dongle and it can't send its encrypted HDMI.

Which brings us back to Mr. Gabe Newell and his "Piracy is a service problem" quote, but we've already had that discussion on HN this week.

While I try to hold onto my electronics for awhile, I personally would have a new TV by the time that happened.

> At least in my 15 years of using flat panel TVs, I have never seen a need for a firmware update.

Never had any HDMI negotiation issues or CEC issues or OTA demuxer crashes, I guess? Or adaptive backlight dimming issues... Lots of software in TVs these days.

Times have changed. My TV (a 2018 Sony) needed a firmware update to support Dolby Vision. My receiver needed a firmware update to support eARC.

Smart TV companies are going to begin to move to tech like this to pick up the telemetry when a jogger comes by with an airtag type device in their wallet:

https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Sidewalk/b?ie=UTF8&node=213281...

It could happen with one of the firmware updates you plug in for, and when you plug in it could also dump stored telemetry, in some cases (Samsung) including screenshots of your desktop if you use your TV as a monitor.

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