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Comment by Kelteseth | Hacker News Reader

There is no TV OS, that I know of, that does not suffer from one of these issues:

- Slow/laggy UI

- Ads on the home screen

- Sends a shit ton of telemetry home

This is why all of my TV are never connected to the internet and only serve as output for my Apple TV. Sadly, I gave up on the cheaper Android TV boxes, because they all have the same issues with crappy software and even started to show ads.

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TVs with Google TV that you put into Basic mode (https://support.google.com/googletv/answer/10408998?hl=en ) fulfill most of that, though they're probably still sending some data back. I have my firewall set to block everything except the domain that handles the firmware updates.

The laggy UI is what irritates me the most. I do not have a smart TV, though I do have a cable box, and there is no excuse for an interface to lag in [current year], or even for anything in the past 20 years, which serves to merely display a list of program listings. It's frigging text! Built-in vehicle interfaces are also perennial offenders.

My 6 year old Philips Android tv gradually got super slow. At some point it had a problem and I had to reset it to factory settings and then I noticed how snappy everything was, like it was when new! Now I keep it disconnected from the internet and use a google tv chromecast instead. Works much much better!

First one being the problem with my Sony KDL-60W607B since day 1 (the youtube app is a pain in the butt), otherwise though it doesn't has too much sparkles and whistles it has been great this 10 years I've had it. I wish you could do something like swap whatever it has internally with the OS to switch it to a Pi or something like that - not something like a Chromecast or an external dongle that would require (1) another power socket, (2) another remote control and (3) switching back and forth between TV input and HDMI input.

1) try to use 2 or more usb ports in your tv to draw power

2) IR learning remote Beware, amazon link. This is just an example, not a quality product https://tinyurl.com/yks7kmxv

3) I dont have a non-smart solution to that

I have one of those tvs (kdl##w####) and yes, the youtube app is becoming unusable. I am quite sure someone might be telling us the party is over (that they want us to use a new tv)

Same, but I keep my LG c1 connected to internet just to be able to turn it off from HomeKit. Never using its “smart” features though. Apple TV ftw.

Have used Windows PCs connected to my TVs since about 2006 .. so agree in principle. :-)

My pet pieve with my current Samsung QLed 4K 65" (2016) is just how sluggish changing input sources is - when wanting to go between the Xbox and the PC. Have never tried any of its other features, can't imagine they'd be anything other than horrible.

The display is a very nice monitor otherwise! Still very good colours. Windows with a Logitech media keyboard is awesome. Zwift, Spotify, Internet media all plays back very nicely.

You don’t need that. Just enable CEC and let the ATV turn it off and on.

My LG TV is completely offline, but I can still say “Hey Siri turn off the TV” and it works.

In 2024, there are large LCDs with DisplayPort, HDMI, and speakers that can serve as the display in a home theatre.

But for those who need a 65" wall of advertising, the Invisible Hand will provide.

Why are large tv sizes so derided?

It’s probably the same set of people that want us all to live in 400 sqft apartments and cannot fathom sitting more than four feet away from the screen.

Sour grapes from either their overbearing neck pain from staring at a 50 degree upward tilt to accommodate for their ugly fireplace mounting point, or from the seething hatred of being unable to fit it in their gaudy 400lb "entertainment center" wood furniture pieces that force them to compensate

I laugh every time I see a livingroom with all furniture focused toward a fireplace. It truly reminds me how holdovers from out-of-touch lifestyles two+ generations ago still dominate some norms of interior decoration. Larger screens are objectively better in every way if you have the space.

The TV industry is notorious for the telemetry generated by "smart" TVs.

Commercial "dumb" TV screens are available but are harder to find, and as I said, it's only recently that large computer LCDs (not TVs) have become available. But these are still not as large as recent gigantic smart TVs.

So when most people want a bigger screen, they see little choice but to accept telemetry. The more privacy-aware people take measures against it.

And the worst part is that the "dumb" TVs are expensive.

This is mostly because Roku/etc are subsidizing the cost of the device so far down the line that it becomes impossible to argue for the better ones, especially from companies like NEC/Sharp who make Damn Good displays for business.

This is because all of them using low powered CPU/RAM. Similar to all other STB out there.

Even the shittiest STB-grade CPU should be perfectly capable of doing what the user wants out of their TV which is draw basic menus for settings and otherwise display the signal unaltered (the signal path is all in hardware anyway, the CPU isn't involved).

The reason it's slow is because "growth & engagement" wants that slow CPU to be doing more ("suggestions" aka ads, telemetry, garbage overdesigned UI, etc) than actually necessary.

A quality, high-performance UI can be done on a 200MHz MCU. Add a few advertisements, three different telemetry systems, etc. and things change.

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