Do you have a reference for this? I guarantee that it would be interesting for people.
I second that. Will need a new TV soon and before buying a much more expensive signage display I would consider a SmartTV that would work as "dumb" screen without complaining, or worse, forcing me to connect it to the Internet.
1. CostCo models have 3-year manufacturer warranty instead of 1 year. (mine bundled coverage through AllState to make it 5 years warranty total)
2. CostCo models have a physical switch for the built-in microphone (used for Google Assistant, Alexa, and tuning audio for the built-in speakers) to turn it off. Mine is turned off and left off out of the box. [2]
3. In the fine print on superscript 2 in the spec sheet[1]: "Use of TV without connecting to a Google account allows only basic TV features and certain apps."
So #3 there, basically means if you don't accept the T&Cs and connect the TV to the Internet it acts like a dumb display with just support for HDMI, etc inputs. I am using mine with an Xbox Series X connected to it and that's how I watch Netflix, as an example, or play games with Game Pass. The TV itself has never had an Internet connection, and all /display/ features work perfectly fine, it just doesn't do anything "smart" in basic mode. In basic mode it basically reverts to a dumb TV. It also doesn't nag you after you make a choice.
This differs from the non-CostCo models, which in some instances /force/ you to connect to the Internet and accept the T&Cs within some time frame in order to be useable. As far as I am aware, CostCo has agreements with most manufacturers to produce CostCo specific SKUs and always enforces points #2 and #3 for these TVs. It's the primary reason I bought my TV through CostCo.
[1]: https://mobilecontent.costco.com/live/resource/img/static-us... [2]: https://www.avsforum.com/threads/what-is-the-difference-betw...
Does Costco do stuff like this in more instances? Are they for real some kind of consumer super heroes?
I'm reluctant to call any company a super hero, but, costco does some fairly great stuff aside from this TV thing (which I wasn't even aware of).
Costco are fairly famous for cost optimizing with their vendors, but, in contrast to how others do it they have a much different model from what i've read and heard. They try to help their vendors to optimize their own costs and thereby sell things cheaper by using their extensive operational knowledge to help them both understand their own cost structures and what they can do to reduce their costs. Unlike most other brands they then just pass that savings on to members. Many other companies would chose to use this information gathering to undercut their vendors and eventually supplant them and/or force them out of business (I'm looking at Amazon as the prototypical company here for this bad behaviour) but costco seems to value their relationships more and doesn't really do this (see https://www.trendymatter.com/fast-gallery/these-big-name-bra...).
Anyway, i'm hesitant to canonize any corporation but I do love their food.
I bought a treadmill from costco, a proform 2000 pro.
It said stuff in a weasely way 1-year iFit membership included (internet required for ifit).
I didn't care about that at all.
I just plugged it in and after a bunch of "now lets set up your treadmill" screens and asking for wifi access... you can see "manual mode" in the corner of the screen.
That's all you get. You can press start and then press the speed or incline buttons but nothing really useful.
I called them and they said there are canned workouts that will unlock if you connect it to the internet, but without doing that, you only get manual mode. jerks.
Without internet there is no guide data for off-air TV even though it is not only part of the ATSC stream, Sony is decoding it. I know this because the pop up menu for the channel line has the name and time of the program being watched. That had to come off air if the internet is disabled.
Declining everything and setting up the TV as “basic” still has the underlying Google TV OS reaching out to the Play store, Android update, plus something in the Google IP block in China. Yes, China. And three net blocks from Microsoft.
Carefully selecting and permitting only the AWS Cloudfront net block will restore guide data, but it will cause the Google TV OS to howl loudly about no internet access. Allowing it to hit www.google.com shuts most of it up, but I will be poking at the OS to find out what needs to be shut off. Developer mode is available.
Sony is not using anything to report what the user is watching, network traffic is non-existent when viewing something on HDMI inputs.
This was not a cheap TV, Sony promised they would honor my requests not to be monetized, but my need for their guide data suggests otherwise (PSIP is not entirely broken, just slow). That doesn’t matter, Google is there to pick up the slack on the over the shoulder browsing.
It will be relegated to HDMI use only, just like the Samsung it replaced.
How? If you don't give it access to your WiFi, how does it make an IP connection?
5G.
[edit] looked it up, it's this one: https://www.lg.com/us/tvs/lg-55UM7300AUE-4k-uhd-tv
Of course, who knows if they've since updated the OS and make it impossible to use without establishing a network connection..