Walmart buys vizio to use its TVs as a new way to blast you with ads | Hacker News Reader

Walmart buys vizio to use its TVs as a new way to blast you with ads

gizmodo.com

35 pointsrntn32 comments

Vizio has been already caught and fined for spying on users through their Smart TVs; it might not be just about pushing ads but also buying access to users data. Either way, it stinks.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2017/02/08/shocking...

There's an easy fix to this. Just use a bit of the savings from your ad-subsidized TV to buy a Chromecast. The continuous HDMI input makes it look like the TV is never idle (so it can't show ads), and when the Chromecast itself is idle it just shows you pictures from your photo albums instead of ads, and you still have a smart TV

If some party must get my data, Google is not going to be that party.

Presumably, you could replace Chromecast with Roku or Apple TV and get the same result.

That's the problem. It's all the same result.

In this context, I should have probably said "same effect."

I'd be curious whether Apple is actually collecting data of nearly the same type or degree as Google or Roku. My guess is they're not.

The bigger issue is that it hardly matters, since every app you launch through your TV streamer device is probably tracking your use to a microscopic degree to feed into their analytics and advertising.

Your solution to TV ads is to.. install a device manufactured by the largest advertiser on the planet?

FWIW, the least bad option seems to be AppleTV, at least they don’t sell your information.

> The continuous HDMI input makes it look like the TV is never idle (so it can't show ads)

Why have the TV connected to internet if you've got a third-party device?

I've got a Sony Android TV that I plug into internet for firmware updates, then unplug and wipe the storage for the "Google TV" app to get rid of the ads it downloaded while having internet access.

(Sony does theoretically support firmware updates via USB, but I couldn't get them to work when I tried.)

You seem to think TV companies wont show ads on non-idle TVs but people have already seen their TVs used to show ads while playing console games or watching movies on bluray

As long as people keep paying for ad infested products the ads will get more annoying, aggressive, and invasive until people stop

Unfortunately, Chromecast has been discontinued. I liked it.

They're going to replace it with a "Google TV Streamer", more capable and more expensive. I really liked the idea that it just took the bits and put them on the screen, and didn't try to do anything else.

What is the up-front price impact of these ad services? Or, what would a representative 'smart tv' cost if the vendor only needed to accommodate apps and upscaling/pq stuff, and did not need ACR on the TV and the backend infrastructure to support it?

I think we're told the advertising stuff is really beneficial because it makes the products available at a lower price point, to more people. Is this really true?

My hunch is that price and picture quality make up at least 90% of the purchase criteria for most people, so as a manufacturer you'd better be optimizing primarily for those. Has anybody here ever chosen "smarts" at the expense of either?

That's not what I was asking, but I think I didn't word my question very well.

I think Smart TVs cost more to produce than they could, because they include hardware for automated content recognition and other ad/data-related functions. I was asking what would happen to TV prices if manufacturers did not include this hardware.

And I think I can answer my own question. A few years ago Vizio claimed to earn roughly twice as much from ad sales and data collection versus device sales to consumers [0]. So I guess that even if Vizio could build an otherwise-equivalent TV more cheaply than they do now, if they did not do ad sales and data collection then those TVs would have to cost over 3x more than what they sell for now to maintain margins. Which is not going to happen.

[0]: https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/10/22773073/vizio-acr-adver...

Your math on that is bad. You can't use the profit ratios, you have to look at the revenue. Making a TV costs more than selling ads on one does.

From the earnings report referenced in your linked article (https://investors.vizio.com/news/news-details/2021/VIZIO-HOL...):

Overall revenue: 588.3 M$

Overall profit: 82.9 M$

Overall margin: 14.1%

Ad Revenue: 85.9 M$

Ad Profits: 57.3 M$

Ad margin: 66.7%

and making a simplifying assumption that all non-ad revenue is from making and selling TVs:

TV alone revenue: 502.4 M$

TV alone profit: 25.6 M$

TV alone margin: 5.1%

So, yeah, the margins on ads are much much higher than on making the TV itself.

However, if we were to look at the counterfactual for just making the TV and selling it at the same overall margin without ads (14.1%), the TV would only need to cost (14.1% - 5.1%) = 9% more. Not anywhere close to 3x.

Just bought a "smart" TV from Costco after careful research to insure that it could be configured to use as a "dumb" display.

I will add my own "smarts" that I can control, thank you very much. The TV is not connected to the internet and has no way to ascertain the source of the info being displayed on it.

It's sad and kinda disgusting that you have to go to such lengths just to watch TV and video in private.

No problem, eventually tvs will come with SIM cards and cellular connectivity to phone home regardless of your choices.

Yes, look at 5G and the iot stuff they're adding.

It should be better, but I see it as dystopian

search for miot or mmtc

Then they'll have to glue it shut to keep me from opening it and disconnecting the cellular antenna.

It might refuse to work without a signal

Then I will return it as defective.

This is the sort of thing I researched before my recent purchase. The trick was to run the TV in "store" mode --- no internet connection required.

Agreed, some sort of activation required by phoning home. Makes me sad capitalism lead to this.

Can you recommend the model of TV you settled on? I have been looking for a TV that can be de-smarted for a while now.

Also, are you considering KDE Plasma BigScreen?

A Costco-exclusive variant of the Hisense QD6N Series that uses Amazon's Fire TV OS.

Run it in "store" mode and it is as dumb as a rock. I have it connected to a mini-PC where it serves as a large 4K HDMI display and nothing more.

I use a Hauppauge USB tuner connected to the PC for viewing and recording over-the-air broadcasts and hard wired ethernet for streaming --- all fully under *my* control.

The only reason for a "smart" TV is because it's nearly impossible to find any alternative at a similar price point.

One additional note on this model, it needs to be configured to automatically select HDMI-1 on power up. Otherwise, it will display "No signal" until you select one of the 3 HDMI ports.

With this minor adjustment, this cheap QLED TV quietly powers up in "store" mode without any connection and acts just like a "dumb" video display. No "activation" required and any "smarts" are out of sight and out of mind.

Mind sharing the make and model and what you found in your research?

See post below.

How about not watching tv

This comment was flagged and I vouched to reply.

This general issue should be of concern to everyone, because we're starting to see 'smart monitors' from the big vendors as well. More people need to be aware of what's going on so they can make an informed choice about if and what to buy. Maybe most people really don't care about this. But I'm personally not interested in a future where the only affordable displays - tv or computer - spy on me to inform advertisers.

My new Samsung monitor has a Lightning dock integrated into it. So on the back of the monitor, there is an Ethernet port. Presumably this is only connected to the dock, but we have really no way of knowing. I won't hook up the Ethernet port on this thing ever, because I no longer trust anybody to not try and spy on me and steal my personal information. Honestly, if this monitor hadn't been given to me, I would not have paid for it.

Why not just reply top level? Nothing you had to say required responding to a person offering an absurd solution to the problem of our electronic devices spying on us.

I don't think it was absurd, just unrealistic.

I replied here because I felt like it, but thanks for your feedback.

That’s what my family has been doing for past 16 years. There’s no TV in the household and that’s not going to change in foreseeable future.

Instead, we have a lovely home library (though we are running out of space).

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