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Comment by mcherm | Hacker News Reader

I'm in the market for a new TV. Is there any source that lists models that do NOT engage in this sort of spying? I am willing to pay a significant premium and forego convenience features, but I lack the expertise to review products myself.

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Sceptre is the last company I am aware of making modern TVs without smart nonsense in them targeted at consumers. All the other brands have converted completely over. I have had trouble with availability recently though.

https://www.sceptre.com/TV/4K-UHD-TV-category1category73.htm...

I’m a privacy advocate but I just can’t pass up the otherwise amazing value of some of the smart tvs that have been released in the last few years, the size you can get for an reasonable price is incredible and for the first time is actually suitable at the viewing distance most people view a tv at. The colour, contrast and brightness is fantastic.

Having said that I added this block list to my router https://github.com/mboutolleau/block-samsung-tv-telemetry You can add it to a pi hole or to your router of it supports black listed domains. Sadly I can’t confirm if this blocks all Samsung tv’s shit. You can also never connect it to the internet and use an apple tv or something over which you don’t have more control.

Yeah, I just never let it hook up to my wifi

Look into “industrial” or “commercial” displays. Many of them are the traditional dumb display, but they may not have the refresh rate or other features you want in a consumer device.

Just don't connect it to your network and you're probably fine. Use a smart box for streaming services.

How do you know the smart box is not doing the same thing?

You know that the smart box IS doing that, but you’re able to make the choice of which one to get. And it’s not coupled with the display so you can choose the best options in each category instead of being locked in to whatever OS is installed on better displays.

I think the safest option would be not to connect the TV to the internet and buy an OpenSource smart box for connections. If anybody has suggestions for smart boxes, please reply here!

The best option I’ve found is to ditch the TV and use a projector

A lot of popular projectors are "smart projectors" too. Same issue.

I got a benq projector where the smart thing was an extra dongle that you could choose to add or not.

The last LG I used had a nag popup about once a week.

imo you'll be better off with a monitor in this case with some dongle connected to it

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