Walmart to buy TV maker Vizio for $2.3B
cnbc.com
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I had a more recent 65" Vizio (2020, I think?) in my living room, which was also a great TV. It was something like $600 (crazy cheap for the size!), great picture, never connected it to the net, always worked like a charm. Was a great panel for my Nvidia Shield.
That TV was broken in an unfortunate incident involving a toddler and a thrown wrench, and was replaced with a similarly priced TCL TV (which was the best rated one in my price range on Rtings at the time).
That TV is nothing less than a hunk of shit - constant sound issues, molasses slow UI, built in Roku stuff is all crap. Picture is decent, but I liked the Vizio better.
I've often considered shelling out the big bucks for a better model TV, but given the industry trends I'm terrified of the thought of spending triple the price of my current TV and still hating it. Happy to pay for good quality, but just extremely skeptical of most offerings in the market these days.
Both of the early cord cutting companies that drove all this are on the decline: Roku and Sling. Google especially has stolen a lot of marker share with Chromecast and YouTube TV, respectfully. Kind of sad to see it happen, but monopolies are the norm now.
Its picture quality is great, and sound is more than enough. I can always get a soundbar, but actually we don't want more devices and wires at home. It's good in this configuration.
The advantage of Sony is, they're an audiovisual company, so they design their own DSPs and algorithms. I never disappointed by any Sony device I had from Hi-Fi to speakers, cameras and TVs. If Sony's style is your cup of tea, it's hard to change to any other brand after getting used to them.
*: I shocked when I learnt that every year TV manufacturers update their TVs and people flock to their brands not unlike phone fanboys and shout to each other about this years' new features, on-paper numbers and whatnot. It's a display panel, c'mon.
I won't be comfortable with that kind of usage pattern. Moreover, I'm pretty happy with the image quality of the device I own. I'm not that sensitive to image quality after a certain point (my wheelhouse is Hi-Fi audio).
So, what I have is more than enough for me.
It’s been perfectly happy to remain totally offline too and is built as if it’s expected to be connected to a streaming box and/or receiver, as opposed to some TVs where the manufacturer really pushes the onboard “smarts” over external sources. Works wonderfully with an Apple TV 4K, PC, and PS5 and can have its firmware updated offline with a thumb drive. Its smart bits are vanilla Google TV though and would be reasonably usable if one were inclined (though I’d advise removing a preinstalled content ID package with a laptop and ADB first).
[0]: https://www.rtings.com/tv/learn/longevity-results-after-10-m...
Not quite LineageOS for TVs but it’s something.
https://www.sony.com/electronics/support/lcd-tvs-android-xf9...
I bought a Vizio back in 2006 that is still running today. It's now at my parents' house but runs as well as when I bought it.
Unfortunately I also have a modern Vizio I bought for the guest bedroom. That thing is a piece of shit. It's just ridiculously slow, sometimes won't display the picture from an input signal, and software updates break stuff all the time. Before I bought it I hadn't ever bought a cheap "smart" TV but it's been worse than I imagined they would be.
When I bought a TV ~10 years ago, rtings had various Vizios as their top-rated TVs at different price points. I remember my choice at the time being less "which of these TVs should I buy" and more "which of these two Vizios should I buy".
But looking now, I can't find a single model that's rated highest at any size or price point. It's a pretty stark difference.
How did that happen? Kid get into your tools while you were fixing something in the house? Accident teaching the kid to play dodgeball?
However, I bought a cheap Roku TV for my family’s beach house. I don’t care about quality in this situation because it’s not used much and I should be outside at anyway.
However from the article: "But in buying the company, Walmart touted the potential to boost its ad business through Vizio’s SmartCast Operating System, which allows users to stream free ad-supported content on their TVs."
Shouldn't have bought an expensive big monitor for work without OLED the year before, but i hear that OLED is not that great for close up text rendering.
Customer-centric ad-pumping platform which consumers love. What a great and lovely contradiction.
Vizio had an eye on something not dissimilar, and Walmart until 2020 owned Vudu and while that didn't pan out in this space, I think they see this as another avenue in that space to try again, its relatively good business if you can manage it.
I'm honestly shocked they didn't buy Roku yet.
Not that I like it, but I see their business reasoning here. There's a whole new set of streaming services that are becoming similar to over the air TV delivery in the sense that they're 100% ad supported and Vizio wanted in on that, and I think Walmart does too.
Its not only about showing "homescreen" ads, though that itself is a surprisingly burgeoning advertising business.
All this is to say, I'm glad I have an Apple TV and I don't put up with any of this. None of my TVs have ever connected to the internet. The next one I buy might just be a monitor made to purpose
On the other hand, I don't watch "TV". I watch a couple of shows semi-regularly and use my TV as a glorified HDR monitor for movies I own or as a second screen, that's all.
I can argue. The whole point of society is that we can choose to say "no, you can't have/do the thing YOU want because it has externalities that affect everyone else"
The advertising economy is corrosive and toxic to society
Personally, I know a couple of people who prefer to have ads in YouTube because they like targeted advertisements, and claim that they're informed by them.
On the other hand, I'm against advertisement economy as much as you.
Lastly, please tell me, how many times society collectively said no to some entities, and how did it went? Backlash is allowed to the point where the tension is relieved and the old thing continues as is, maybe with a different paint job, that's all.
Users of an application protesting a company is not the same thing society protesting something against a sector or government. It's very hard to pull the latter one off.
Inscape is their ACR/Ads subsidiary. https://www.inscape.tv/
Other TVs are doing similar things but Vizio pioneered it. That’s how they subsidized their TVs to offer the lowest prices and the rest of the industry followed.
Vizio TVs are literally data collection devices.
Sadly opting out of this junk is the first thing I do on any TV nowadays, along with sticking it in a locked down VLAN if it's mine.
Last I was there was over a year ago, but VIZIO was one of the first to get in big trouble with the US government due to privacy issues back around 2016 I think? It's on wikipedia if you are curious.
https://ospo.co/case-studies/why-we-run-an-open-source-progr... https://github.com/walmartlabs
Crikey.
there may be something like that in your town. For the rest of us there is Ebay.
They’ve been on the forefront of selling viewing data.
The problem isn't TVs being smart, it's the terrible firmware written by appliance manufacturers like TCL which are not software companies.
It's more practical to just buy a smart TV running Roku or Fire OS internally, which are both built on Linux.
The difference is that a Roku or Fire Stick is $50 or less. If I need to upgrade my device to support a new compression standard or something, it's only $50 to replace, rather than needing to buy a whole new TV.
It's definitely more practical to buy a dumb TV and connect a streaming device, especially when smart TVs value their smart functionality at a couple hundred dollars.
I'd far rather buy a dumb OLED for $1500 and connect a $50 Fire Stick than buy a $2000 OLED with smart features, if it was an option.
Seriously, what's the benefit for having all that built into your TV?
Also hand waving about "new codecs" doesn't hold any weight. A Roku/Fire/Google TV is a Linux computer with hardware acceleration for all modern codecs. By the time AV1/VP9/H265 are being replaced in the 2030s, you're going to need a new TV anyway to support 8K and whatever other features are de rigueur then. Same goes for audio codecs and Wifi support.
It's just a simple display cable like HDMI. Not really a lot of cooperation needed.
> Also hand waving about "new codecs" doesn't hold any weight
Fair, but trying to watch a streaming service on a smart TV and being told "This device will not support X service after Y date" has happened.
https://www.tomsguide.com/news/these-old-devices-are-about-t...
https://www.reddit.com/r/Hulu/comments/xvaqqm/this_device_no...
https://www.amazonforum.com/s/question/0D54P00006zSxAMSA0/sm...
Again, that's a symptom of shitty manufacturer firmware, it's a burden on streaming services to support these devices because they are the ones that have to maintain software packages for hundreds of different TV models.
In contrast, Fire/GoogleTV OS are built on Android, so streaming networks don't need to support individual TV models, they just have to target supported versions of Fire/GoogleTV OS. Android has APIs to handle Smart TV functionality.
That's exactly my point.
I operate under the assumption that my TV will have shitty firmware. Always has been shitty, always will be shitty.
So rather than relegate the shittiness to a $1500+ device that will be very expensive to replace if/when the software becomes obsolete, I'd put the burden of shittiness to a $50 device that I don't mind upgrading as necessary.
I know the common refrain is don’t connect tv to the internet, but for whatever reason the Vizio showed up in chromecast at times when the Roku stick wouldn’t, otherwise didn’t use tv smart features
The engineering leadership was going downhill with layoffs and politics. We would have the quality of the firmware/smartcast be rock solid and then following quarter it took a nose dive. Some of the best people I ever worked with are no longer there.
And last I know, VIZIO isn't like samsung and tries to randomly find an internet connection to update firmware. I still use my free 70in with Apple TV and it is great because I disconnected it from the internet (after I was laid off).
Personally, I don't own any TV, since I use my monitors. But it does beg the question of why monitors don't have these kinds of issues. Why are companies happy to sell me a "dumb" monitor, but won't sell me a TV unless it includes a bunch of fragile "smart" features?
The trend of coupling the TV to the computer (as opposed to using something like Chromecast) is the primary driver of the enshittification of the TV market. And this shouldn't be surprising - just look at what happened when the auto industry tried to invent and maintain their own entertainment systems. Ironically, they eventually came around to decoupling and delegating that work to Apple and Google, whereas TVs had it right at first and then made it worse.
I understand the business reasons why TV manufacturers want to own the computer part of their TV too. But it still doesn't have to be tightly coupled to the TV. If they really believed in their product, they could sell a dumb TV along with a dongle that competes with Chromecast. But if their product sucks and nobody would buy it, then they need to resort to forcing it on consumers as the default mode of operation.
TVs from about a decade ago fit the bill while being of "acceptable" 1080p quality. Lord knows the manufacturers aren't bothering with updates anymore if they even supported them. My primary TV is a Samsung from 2012 and I've never felt the need to upgrade. I can't tell any quality difference from any non-high end TV today.
So, you're using a free or subscription service that's enshittifying. Bad enough, but okay just stop using it or unsubscribe.
But, the idea that you can outright buy a product then have it change in any way that materially impacts its usefulness or your satisfaction with it is customer hostile at a minimum; and straight-up fraud at worst.
Between everything-as-a-subscription, monopolies, the rise of the billionaire oligarchy, defanging of our regulatory apparatus, Citizens United, etc. we're becoming a society of semi-autonomous renters.
But, I guess we shouldn't worry too much. Soon enough, Zuck will bring us our VR utopia, and we'll all be eating steak in the matrix.
Don't connect it to the internet.
Show me a model number where you cannot plug in HDMI and watch from an input without connecting to the Internet. If this is truly happening, it should be easy to find YouTube and TikTok videos from customers and reviewers.
They include it in the setup screens, but they let you plug in HDMI and it works without internet. Even Amazon Fire TVs (the worst in terms of privacy) has a store mode that removes most of the "smart" features.
It does not allow you to view the HDMI ports until it is setup; setup requires an internet connection. I don't have it any more.
WebOS is slow, picture is fine and I even updated FW on it... using USB thumbdrive. Never connected it to the Internet even once.
They are a little more fragile than your typical TV - move them around with care.
The speakers are much much worse than average - you are going to want a soundbar.
The IR receiver is oddly placed, so you have to be a bit more exact when aiming the remote.
But to be fair to TV manufacturers, if you're selling a 4K TV - you need buyers to be able to get 4K content on it.
And you've got to be a rocket scientist to get 4K video from Netflix, because of all the DRM you have to navigate. Remove the smart TV functions and 90% of customers would probably end up only getting 720p because they sacrificed a chicken instead of a swan and got their graphics card blessed by a priest and an imam but not a rabbi too.
Once they start locking basic functions behind garbage like that, I'll roll to a large monitor or projector.
What will never happen is me buying a TV, then ceding control of said device to the manuf. They can fuck right off with that invasive garbage.
YMMV.
I'm with you. Arrrrgggg, matey.
They will one day have cellular modems so they can phone without your permission
You don't understand the level of "Fuck these people and their invasive shit" that I'm will to go to.. lol
I thought it would be a Faraday cage and cut that out?
There could also be a cellular extender inside the building. I happen to work in a building with LOTS of materials that block signals from the outside. The windows are bulletproof, the walls contain metal plates, etc.
We have to use a cellular extender to get cell signal inside, however, the building wasn't designed as a Faraday cage. It just happens to hamper signals in a similar way.
Oh, I guess you haven't heard of Samsung Smart Monitors - https://www.samsung.com/us/computing/monitors/smart-monitors... - which now bring spying and ads on your computer monitors too! ;)
Because “Smart Features” are a Trojan horse for giving the TV manufacturers ongoing revenue via ad sales and viewing metrics. This has allowed them to significantly mark down the TV selling prices as the sale price is now subsidized by the ad revenue.
Vizio actually pioneered this model with their “Inscape” product.
This is a trade off that most buyers will happily make, including the ones tech savvy enough to just not hook up the WiFi.
There’s zero market for TVs without smart features at the price they’d have to be sold at.
Some may say there may be improvements, but the streamed ads, and surveillance and phoning home of my behavior, the benefits of privacy certainly outweigh the downsides.
Somehow, 3 years later, it still recommends the movie "Hancock" every time I turn it on. Perhaps it was the last ad it ever fetched? And it has an eternal cache? Who knows.
Turn off wifi, get a chromecast, an Apple TV, or a gaming console.
Xbox one, it's bundles of ads. When it first released, the UX was so horrible, I remember getting lost trying to find the menu to launch a game from disc. I had to page through ads just to find it.
Playstation, there's popups, and non-disable-able promotions for games and subsriptions. (There's also these "Stories" I think they're called, that tell you about the progress in a game, that are heavy with spoilers").
Both interfaces are masterclasses in optimizing noise/signal and adding as much noise as possible before the user stops using it.
My policy is to never connect these TVs to the internet. If I accidentally bought one that required it I would return it to the store as defective.
Of course, that won't stop them from programming the firmware to wait until outside the return period to start demanding internet access. And I expect sets to start showing up with built in 5G you can't turn off quite soon. The perversion of ad and user tracking will never be satisfied, it is a cancer that only stops if the host cells have entirely died.
I had the Vizio fail on me and somebody gave me a bottom-of-the-line Samsung which is also not "smart" that I don't like anywhere near as much.
I have been thinking about getting a 4K HDR set or maybe a used 3D set for a long time and also about upgrading my computer monitor but with free TV sets showing up I never get around to it.
In one way I was very angry I found out I was "abandoned" by Vizio and couldn't get their "new streaming experience" they were delivering, but looking back I'm now very glad all my "smart" TV is is a very dumb Chromecast.
Beware these kinds of deals as the worst of all worlds
Can you expand on this?
I liked my Vizio TV at first, but it gradually became awful through firmware updates, to the point I sometimes actively hope the thing will break. Walmart will no doubt find ways to make it even worse, but this brand is no great loss.
It sounds like you knew it was on the path of enshittification since 2017, so then WHY would you buy one 5 years into that descent that you decry?
As a teenager, I would be subversive and unplug them
TVs have become a bit like printers; one starts to suspect that the manufacturers gain some sort of actual benefit from making them ever more annoying.
(Personal conspiracy theory: An evil billionaire left their money to, er, the opposite of a charity, which compensates companies for making products deliberately more irritating.)
Bigger driver are consumers’ demand for high returns from their pension funds.
> Reuters reported earlier this month the deal would be blocked by European Commission antitrust regulators and that its main concerns were that Amazon could thwart iRobot rivals on its online marketplace, especially in France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. Amazon could have delisted rival robot vacuum cleaners, reduce visibility of rivals or raised costs of iRobot's rivals to advertise and sell their robot vacuum cleaners on Amazon's marketplace, Vestager added. - https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/amazon-irobot-abandon-...
The same can be said about this deal too. And ofcourse, since Vizio is a data harvester and broker, there's the additional privacy angle involved.