Dumb TVs deserve a comeback | Hacker News Reader

Dumb TVs deserve a comeback

makeuseof.com

382 pointsznpy439 comments

Why dumb TV's won't make a comeback --- price.

Manufacturers make recurring revenue by invading the privacy of "dumb" users with their "smart" TVs.

It's probably only a matter of time before TV manufacturers establish their own ad networks.

Why? Because they can. They have the ability to fully control *their* "smart TV" (that you paid for) and show you ads that they control --- independent of any programming.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/12/tcl-tvs-will-use-fil...

It's why Walmart purchased Vizio for $2.3 billion.

https://www.axios.com/2024/02/26/why-walmart-bought-vizio

Amusingly enough, if you buy a Visio, reject the agreement during setup - it turns into a dumb TV.

TCL’s agreements say you’re not allowed to do that.

https://www.tcl.com/us/en/roku-tv/eula

“If you do not agree to this EULA, you do not have the right to use the Television or the Software. If you are within the allowable time period for returns under the applicable return policy, you may return the Television to your seller for a refund, subject to the terms of such return policy. You should perform a factory reset before you return it to erase data that may be stored on the Television.”

Can anyone confirm this? If this is true, this is huge news and highly consequential

you can also just not connect it to a network

I won’t buy Sony TVs because their EULA says you have to indemnify Sony.

> Why dumb TV's won't make a comeback --- price.

I'm cool with it provided I can use it as a very high quality HDMI display. Then I just got a nicely discounted product.

My worry is if they demand connectivity in order to work as a display. Or worse come with some kind of LTE transceiver to phone home then we're in trouble.

I'm cool with it provided I can use it as a very high quality HDMI display.

Most will work --- but not always *conveniently*.

On power up, a lot them will launch into setup if connectivity is not configured. Some may actually store/retrieve the TV configuration in their cloud.

I'm wondering if HDCP is paradoxically to the rescue here?

So the main concern with keeping it in dumb mode I would think is that they could still snoop in on your streams through the plain old HDMI port.

But if the HDMI is encrypted.....

With their antipiracy standard ....

God that would be amazing.

Also, I'm kind of surprised there isn't a raspberry pi open source project that does what those 20$ Roku fobs do.

Finally ... It kind of shows that hardware hacking is going downhill that there isn't a replacement os for the major brands of smart TVs. It's possible they've locked that down, but also the price points are so low you'd think they don't have the money to keep them out.

This doesn't make sense at all. HDCP doesn't change anything for the TV - either way the TV must be able to decode the signal to display it which means it can also analyze it and/or use subchannels supported by the other side for nefarious means.

So the main concern with keeping it in dumb mode I would think is that they could still snoop in on your streams through the plain old HDMI port.

So they snoop. There's no value to be had in it if they can't report back to the mother ship. Without a line of communication, the "personalized" ads premise fails.

Unfortunately, only a matter of time.

There will always beeoptions without. Some tvs are used in industrial settings to show safety information. If someone dies and the tv was, showing ads instead of safety information there will be big lawsuits.

In some cases, those places buy non-retail "kiosk" televisions. They're hard to search for on the manufacturer sites.

> non-retail "kiosk" televisions

The more correct term would be Digital Signage displays, eg. [1] - they often run on high voltages though so it's better to be sure when screwing around with them

[1] https://www.samsung.com/us/business/displays/

Yeah, they just cost a ten times more

Those usually have shit color accuracy and high black levels, but they are bright.

There are OLED digital signage displays, which won't have any issue with black levels. Colors might need calibrating but I doubt they use different panels for these from equivalent consumer TVs.

Regulation could always fix this.

Like regulation has fixed privacy invasion on the internet?

in Europe it's gone a long way towards that

Are you from the future? What regulation? No one has even tried.

Have we tried? I just see politicians sitting on their hands while holding stock in tech companies and feigning helplessness and ignorance.

It could. It has all the power.

Regulation can prevent the fix as well.

So can a wish on a monkey's paw.

this is how i learned that taylor swift had a birthday recently. my samsung television advertised it to me on the ad banner that goes across the top third of the home screen of the television.

And you didn't return the TV after that? Why would you accept that kind of customer abuse?

For what it's worth, my LG TV (which is a few years old, to be fair) has never once showed up in my pi-hole's logs. We use an external box for the "smart" stuff, and the TV itself isn't up to any shenanigans as far as I can tell.

I have an entirely separate VLAN network in my house for "appliances". Any access to the internet from that network has to be explicitly whitelisted in my router.

pi-hole uses DNS, and will give out fake ip addresses based on the name lookup.

Unfortunately it is NOT a firewall.

Any device can easily do its own DNS like DoH (dns over https), nnot involve pihole in name lookups, and send package directly to the destination ip address.

I have a Samsung TV similarly hobbled. I simply never gave it a network connection and it works fine.

For now at least this really isn't an issue. If and when these companies ever start requiring a network connection it's a different story.

I saw an ad on the home menu on my samsung tv. Shit is ridiculous

Dumb TVs are called monitors, you can buy them. For large sizes, I guess you can look at the kind of displays they have in shops and meeting rooms.

Today, TVs are by nature not dumb, what make them a TV and not a monitor would be the presence of a tuner, and modern tuners are built-in computers that can at least decode compressed video, which is not a trivial task, especially at 4K.

The reason people don't like smart TVs is not because they have a computer inside of them with internet connectivity. It is because of ads and partnership deals. And of course people don't like it, because as much as manufacturers advertise them as features, they are not made to add value for the customer, they actually lower the value. But here is the thing: they lower the price even more.

Let's say a manufacturer makes a TV intended to be sold for $300, they reach for their sponsors and can get $50 of deals. Now they can chose to sell a "sponsored" TV for $250 or one without the annoyances for $300, and as it turns out, the majority of customers will go for the $250 option. So much that there is no good economic reason to even sell that $300 ad-free TV, the niche is too small. Competitors without sponsorship deals and $300 TVs will be out-competed by that $250 TV and will have to adjust. As a result, we all have the "smart TVs" we hate (but with a price tag we love).

Pros are ready to pay to avoid all that bullshit, but they don't need TVs either, they need monitors, that's why you can find monitors without that bullshit, for a price.

Your model is oversimplified in a way that downplays the value of ads to the manufacturer. They don't reach out to sponsors and get a $50 static offer per TV in deals. They do some math and figure out that they can make at least $X per customer on average over the lifetime of the TV by selling ad slots dynamically.

The subtle difference here is that because the sponsorships can be updated live across TVs that have already been sold, the actual value of each TV sale can be made to go up after the date of purchase by updating software and/or changing the ad deals.

So the manufacturer isn't pricing the TVs at a discount precisely equal to the ad revenue they receive per TV, they have to price the TVs based on a complicated formula that includes both a rough estimate of the minimum value of ad deals and customer willingness to pay (keeping in mind that customers are choosing their willingness to pay based on a landscape that has no ad-free models!). And what's more, the manufacturer is free to alter the deal after the sale is made to try to make a larger profit per-TV than was originally priced in.

You make it sound like it's a reasonable outcome of an efficient market, but the current situation—where one party can and does alter the deal retroactively and unilaterally—does not create an efficient market!

If it was purely competitive pressure, they'd be happy to let you pay extra to not have the ads.

Instead, they seem to make an effort to make sure no such model is available in stores. People have go hunt down display models intended for businesses, or never connect them to the internet, and display media from another device.

I suspect ultimately, they don't want to be manufacturers. They want control of a "platform" they can milk for infinite money, similar to what Facebook, Google, and friends have.

I suspect it's not quite that simple. First, is there actually enough demand for ad-free TVs to make the option worth including? I personally probably wouldn't pay $20 to avoid ads in the home screen since those kind of ads are just a minor nuisance, which makes me question the size of the market for the ad-free option.

Second, what would the pricing be for the option?

If it's $10-20, that'd probably be fine, similar to what Amazon did for Kindle. But if it's more than that, then I bet the negative PR they would get for including the option outweighs the potential benefit to customers. "I would never buy an X, they're extremely greedy and want $50 just not to show ads. Crazy. I'll buy Y brand instead (which has ads but no 'corporate greed' option to not show them)".

They do actually sell screens with no ads for businesses, as mentioned. They just seemingly won't put them in stores where consumers can purchase them easily.

I would look at Google Contributor and similar efforts as a supporting argument. They tried a few times to allow you to pay directly and not see ads, and each time failed reportedly because it was a not loss for publishers. Google is not unbiased here but I suspect that this was a real problem and that it’d be even worse on TVs since most people are used to disruptive ads there.

ahh - this is what I do and why I've never noticed "smart" TVs.

My TV is connected to my desktop and will never ever have an Internet connection or it's own - nor will it ever turn on to show anything other than my desktop.

It's the solution for almost media issues tbh.

That doesn't explain why it's impossible to buy, for instance, a 65" OLED without ads. We're talking about a TV with a four-figure price tag, and there's no ad-free option.

They've probably calculated that that the value they get from showing ads on more expensive TVs (read: to a more affluent audience) rises at least as fast as the sale price of the TV, maybe even faster.

Exactly, which totally undoes OP's argument. At the high end the manufacturer can have its cake and eat it too. By pricing the TVs in the high income price bracket and ensuring there are no ad-free versions on the market (easy to do because most consumers don't choose devices based on ads or not, even if they find the ads irritating after the purchase), they get both the profit of selling a luxury item and the recurring ad revenue for selling ads that they can confidently tell advertisers will be seen by affluent people.

OP's argument assumes an efficient market, which over-the-air updates ensure this market cannot be.

On top of that, the dumb TVs could come from the same hardware line and just run different software. It's not like they need to spend millions to retool like they would for an unusual panel size.

65" OLED TVs signal that the user has money, exactly the kind of user you want to advertise to most!

TVs and monitors are technologically different. They are constructed to be focused on from different range depths and widths. You can't just buy a TV-sized monitor and use it like a TV.

> They are constructed to be focused on from different range depths and widths.

Can you explanin? AFAIK, TVs have dot pitch much larger than monitors. To me it seems better to have monitor as TV than a normal TV.

You can and I did.

> So much that there is no good economic reason to even sell that $300 ad-free TV, the niche is too small.

Is it? This is one of those things where I don't feel I've ever had a choice.

So... we get the cheapest TV and just hook a laptop up to it, and just watch stuff from a computer via HDMI.

> So... we get the cheapest TV and just hook a laptop up to it

Exactly, and that's another reason why "ad-free" TVs won't sell. Those who just want to connect their laptop via HDMI will buy the cheapest TV with that feature. They won't pay more to avoid seeing ads in the menu screens they don't use anyways.

Now, it may change if they force ads in the HDMI stream or something equally annoying, but they didn't go that far (yet?).

Agree. I nomad, and about 6 years ago I saw my last TV without an HDMI input. And only once in that time, I came across a DP monitor. I now carry a USB-C to HDMI cable that lets me use my phone as a desktop whenever it's plugged into a TV.

Monitors have different (worse for distance viewing) panels, so they aren’t a replacement.

Also, the price of an excellent non-ad-supported computer (eg Apple TV) to replace the one that comes in the TV is $140.

That’s rounding error vs the price of a midrange TV, and it shouldn’t be a selling point in the > ~ $1000 range.

When post above you referred to monitors, they weren’t referring to computer monitors but any screen sold without a tv tuner including all kinds of units large distance viewing screens.

But he has a point. Monitors might not do interesting things like HDR or dolby vision or other advanced a/v stuff.

Even computer monitors are slowly going the "smart" route…

this is an annoying trend. Like monitors with a remote (that you can lose)

there are "smart monitors" now, which are just smaller-sized tv with better panel performance (https://www.samsung.com/us/computing/monitors/smart-monitors...)

Show me a 48-52 inch "monitor" that's 4k 120hz full HDR. Have been looking for one for years.

I just typed "48 inch monitor" into amazon search bar and got one that seems to fit your spec. What's the problem?

Asus PG48UQ? LG also makes one with the same specs.

Where do I find 65" monitors?

I WISH they would make a comeback. Smart TVs are the single worse piece of (shit) consumer electronics on the market. Any time you take anything electronic and connect it to the internet you're asking for trouble. Throw an operating system in it controlled by parasitic advertisers and that's where we are today.

Thinking about it too much makes me furious. We have supercomputers in our pockets and TVs but it all spies on us and nobody gives a shit because everything is cheap. It's a Faustian deal that sucks! Nobody would actually choose this yet here we are.

I feel this same fury. It's nice to know I'm not alone.

It's not that nobody gives a shit, it's that the alternatives have been taken away

I have the alternative of just plugging in an Apple TV, Nvidia Shield, whatever Google or Amazon makes, any computer with a digital video out port, tons of IPTV boxes that stream tons of pirated channels.

All I have to do is not put my wifi password into the TV.

They haven't you're just not buying them. Almost all manufacturers are also selling "digital signage displays".

Millions of people actually chose this over their other options.

Consumers regularly vote with their wallets against their best interests.

> Millions of people actually chose this over their other options.

What other options would those be? What non-"smart" OLED TVs exist on the market right now?

I only ever use mine as monitor ("PC mode") and have a different device drive it. It would take some major market dysfunction to lose large monitors with this feature.

A quick search for "Dumb TV" on amazon shows two Sceptre models, a 43-inch and a 50-inch. The 43-inch model says it's been ordered 500+ times in the last month and the 50-inch claims 50+. There is also a Pro Scan 40 inch that doesn't have ethernet connectivity. So they do exist, and it looks like there is at least some sales activity with them. I don't know if that's the last dying breath of the dumb tv as a product or if they are trying to make a comeback, though.

I think the smart car trend is worse, and much harder to work around. I can only buy old cars from the south for so long before that dries up as well.

Smartphones are just as bad.

and the bloat. Long boot times and cluttered menus / functions.

I don't need a tv home page.

what about laptops? can we connect them to the internet? tablets? phones? :)

Yes, the ads infiltrating Windows, for example. Linux and Mac seem to be holding the line for now.

Windows offered me 3 separate subscriptions during setup. After managing to decline all 3 and complete setup, it then re-ran the Windows setup process a week later to help me "finish setting up", where it re-offered all 3 subscriptions.

I have "free offers" for Apple Fitness, Apple Music, Apple News+ sitting in the Settings app on my iPhone 16 Pro, not sure how that's any different from the Windows offers (and until you ignore them at least once, they even show up with a badge on the App icon to draw you in).

Except for Ubuntu, which puts ads in the terminal:

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/hfs4v9/ubuntu_is_put...

https://x.com/omgubuntu/status/1574759306544701443

MacOS will gladly serve Taboola ads in first-party apps and beg you to use Safari in push notifications. If that's not infiltration by advertisement, I'm not sure what is.

I don't get your point. Laptops, tablets, and phones are made for that.

> Any time you take anything electronic and connect it to the internet you're asking for trouble.

you said if I have an electronic device and connect it to the internet I am asking for trouble :) phone was AMAZING before some moron connected them the internet and now they are “smart…”

Sorry for my dumb question, but the timing of this topic is perfect because I'm just now considering getting my first TV.

Can't I just get a nice OLED smart TV and NEVER connect it to the internet?

Put MP4/MKV movies onto a USB stick and watch them in "AUX/USB" mode? Or use HDMI from my computer, and just treat it as a big monitor?

It might ask me to connect, but I can just decline and keep watching the USB/HDMI inputs, right?

You’ll still have slow startup and splash screens and the like, but yes.

It would be nice if top-of-the-line models were available with instant-on and unobtrusive UIs, like CRTs used to be.

Yeah, the start-up can be atrocious on low-end smart TVs. I had a Samsung that I more often than not would turn off before it turned on, because I thought it hadn't registered the input from the on/off button.

And as salt in the wound, turning off takes like 10 seconds.

Hahaha. I dug into the setting on my newish tv and found an option for the tv to make a little chime when turned on and off. It is so nice because the sound will play right away even if the tv hasnt visibly started to turn on/off yet. It's the only thing that saves me from hitting power multiple times and being unsure what state the tv is in.

You absolutely can. But you'll want to pay attention to how insistent the TV is when it comes to being disconnected from the internet. I have an offline Samsung that will occasionally prompt me to accept the terms of service, which obviously fails because it's offline. I can imagine there are some brands/models that are more pushy.

I have a Samsung oled from 2022, I think S95B. It’s technically connected to the local network (I still want it to be usable with home assistant), but denied all connections at the firewall level. I don’t recall it bothering me about anything, and I pretty much always turn it on directly into Apple TV.

Same here. I have an older LG model with a Nvidia Shield hooked up. I never even get terms of service prompts.

Also depends on the model, my Samsung TV from 2022 hasn't bugged me about anything yet when offline.

I’ve been very happy with my Sony in this regard. Its OS is extremely basic Android TV and it doesn’t bug you at all if you don’t connect it to the internet. Newer models than the one I have also come with a “basic TV” mode that disables most of the Android TV bells and whistles.

Yeah Sony means a higher price, so it’s not going to be as cheap as some other options, but peace is worth a lot of money in my opinion…

Which Sony models? I have a Bravia and it's android TV all the way, no basic / dumb mode.

My Vizio just turns into a dumb tv if I say “no” during setup.

Since all I need it to do is come on automatically when the Apple TV turns on, it works great.

How often does it nag you to say yes, while using it as a dumb TV? are all features usable in that mode? I may need to rethink a Vizio if that's the case and not annoying.

Mine only does that if I accidentally hit the TV+ button on the remote. So I took the remote apart and disconnected that button from the board. Problem solved.

Otherwise it turns on quickly and it's just a dumb tv. Perfect.

It's never nagged me as far as I can remember, and changing input and volume work fine (though it always stays silent on HDMI 1 with EARC).

Of course, none of the "smart TV" things work, and it's not connected to a network, but I don't need those.

how old is it? vizio used to collect everything without your knowledge and got sued.

Not the person you responded to but I never connect my vizio tv to the internet

> Can't I just get a nice OLED smart TV and NEVER connect it to the internet?

Until they start shipping wideband chips in them. Make sure your helpful in-laws don’t connect it either.

Connect it but block traffic at the firewall. Or intercept it all. Traffic shape it, MITM it, etc.

The biggest concern to me is built in 5g etc.

I could imagine a future TV requires phoning home every 30 days or else it stops functioning. Single network source for both the "license" check + the ad network so as to simple deny rules.

This is actually the smart question in a dumb discussion.

None of these TV show ads unless you connect them to the Internet. If it’s a big deal to avoid ads, plug them into a media center PC or an Apple TV.

We have an Apple TV connected to an LG OLED. We very rarely use Blu-Rays but we have a Blu-Ray player also connected.

The family has been instructed to never connect the LG TV to WiFi.

Anyway, I'm sure you could use HDMI from your computer and that seems easier than dealing with a USB stick.

That's how I setup and use my C2, which is fairly performant and non-egregious as far as smart panels go. It's not strictly necessary, but I even install firmware from USB.

Can it play +50GB remux mkvs from a USB pendrive?

I haven't tried direct playback, but the ports are USB 2.0 which should work for anything with a bitrate below 480Mbps.

LG TV - Supported Video Codecs For Connected USB Devices: https://www.lg.com/us/support/help-library/lg-tv-supported-v...

For now (see e.g. [1]), though companies with surveillance capitalist business models are not only abusive but often sneaky and may do things like include a surreptitious prepaid mobile connection to better thwart your wishes. You really can't trust the bastards.

[1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/hdmi-customized-ad-i...

Note that HDMI has an option for running ethernet over it. Probably invented by the advertising industry.

You might be better off buying a big monitor instead of a TV.

Why is HDMI Ethernet brought up so often in Smart TV posts here and on Reddit?

HDMI Ethernet Channel (HEC) was added to the HDMI spec in 2009 to allow Blu-ray players to access the internet without a direction connection.

There are zero devices ever released that support HEC.

There are zero OEM HDMI chipsets that support HEC.

The streaming device manufacturers have no incentive to enable this feature.

It's a nice reminder that a good amount of people on HN/Reddit have no idea what they're talking about, even if they use acronyms.

People don't want solutions. They want to be mad.

When TVs started to be computers, they started to have computer problems: bugs, outdated software, freezing, and so on. Recently I needed to buy a smart TV to replace a 2015 one that was OK as a TV, but its operating system (...) was so outdated that it couldn't open the apps anymore.

This is easy: when we buy a smart TV we buy a TV plus a computer. I really would like pay less only for the TV, using the "smartness" of other "computer" (Chromecast, Apple TV, Fire Stick, videogame console, an old computer, etc). If the TV or the computer stopped working, it's just a matter of buying _only_ it.

Hell, I'd be willing to pay more for a dumb TV!

If you don't mind paying more, they do exist in the form of digital signage / commercial displays. They're usually either completely dumb or support "smart" features via standardized pluggable modules, which can host a normal x86 computer, amongst other options.

Yes, I used to feel the same.

Until I did some research and found out there is no need to go to this extreme --- at least not yet.

It is possible to buy a "smart" TV at a price subsidized by the privacy of "dumb" users and still run it in a "dumb" display mode.

With the TV I just bought, this is called "store" mode. I use it as a big, dumb 4K display connected to "smarts" that I can control.

The reason they dont exist (or rather that they exist but are rare) is because you, and me, are in the minority. Most people do not care if their tv is dumb and likely would be upset if their tv didnt have built in app support.

If there was a larger more vocal market for dumb tvs, they would exist more readily.

You would have to. The smart features are there to generate ad revenue. It's part of the reason that TVs have gotten absurdly cheap over the past decade.

You would. I would. A lot of us would.

But the public has spoken, again and again, with multiple goods. All that matters is price.

You may be able to sustain business selling very high end stuff for people with means.

But most people, out of greed or need, will go with a low cost option. And that will push nearly everything out in a race to the bottom.

Why not just... do the thing you want? IE, the solution you alluded to in your comment: have a dumb [which here exclusively means not internet-connected] TV with an externally "smart" device like a Chromecast?

This is essentially your own preferred solution to a problem that just cost you several hundred dollars when you "had" to replace your 2015 TV

It's not so simple. It's almost impossible to separate the "smart" side from the "dumb" side. Just like trying to use a smartphone and use only the phone, it won't make Android or iOS (and their pros and cons) disappear.

I wouldn't mind smart TVs if they were as serviceable as most computers. There was that Sharp M551 panel that had a Pi CM4 as the onboard CPU and that seems ideal: a modular, replaceable, upgradable board.

The fact that this both exists and is utterly unrealistic in the consumer space just makes it more infuriating.

I would love to see this happen. In some ways, it's a story of the wrong system boundaries and modules. A mismatch between component age, manufacturer expertise, and how long software needs to keep being updated or patched.

You can see a similar phenomenon in car media systems, where the solution is an interface (e.g. Android Auto or Apple CarPlay) allowing the vehicle to be "dumber" but more reliable and robust over time. [0]

Televisions can be rescued even more easily, since we already have standards and conventions from the past to use.

[0] For folks unfamiliar with those systems, basically the car's touch-screen becomes an extension of your phone.

So did I buy a smart TV at some blink of time when the software had gotten pretty good but not yet infested with ads? I have an LG with WebOS.

I guess it might have ads for apps or content if I ever opened the app store thing or whatever it's called. But I never have any reason to do that beyond the initial setup when I installed youtube/netflix/some other apps or when they (very rarely) want an update.

So I'm perfectly happy with having apps for various services and a pretty decent UI with pointer remote, and easy casting and screen mirroring from my phone or laptop.

These homogenous threads make me wonder if I'm alone or got super lucky on the timing of my purchase. But since the OS does update sometimes I don't think that's it?

Might also be dependent on your location.

I have a EU model (LG) and I was able to decline some privacy popups which gives me a functional but dumbed-down version of the OS.

Who is this article for? I don't disagree with it, but manufacturers aren't somehow unaware of any of it. They don't want to manufacture dumb TVs. They're the ones _currently_ manufacturing smart TVs.

Plus, there is the problem that the vast majority of consumers want smart TVs due to a combination of subsidized lower price and "simplicity" (e.g., they may be worse but they are simpler)

Just don’t use any of the smart TV’s “smart” functionality. Don’t even connect it to the Internet or give it your Wi-Fi password.

It is still creepy to have tech in my home that is trying to betray me, even if it isn’t successful. Also you never know if some well-intentioned person might connect it to wifi.

That’s why you connect it to an IoT network that has no internet access.

Just do your homework before purchasing to make sure this is possible.

In this vein, I just bought a Hisense QD6 series TV from Costco. I run it in "store" mode connected to a PC and it serves well as just a big, dumb 4K display.

Or they start to require internet access before you can use the device. Even if it's periodic. Once a month you have to connect to the internet to validate your license and agreement, wherein it uploads your watch history and downloads new ads.

The box will still be warm from the warm of the store I bought it from when I take it back for a return. How’s that thing going to work at my remote cabin?

I did this with a Samsung TV I got recently. I works great. I am really not sure why everyone is upset. If you don't want to use the smart features, you don't have to. All you have to do is not connect the smart TV to the Internet.

This won't make the "smart" disappear, nor its problems (buggy software, bloatware slowing down everything), and you'll still need to pay more for it.

Until they come with their own connection embedded, which you know is what's going to happen. Just like cars.

I bought a 4K 240Hz OLED gaming monitor a week ago and it connects to the internet & has streaming services on it. By default, it has annoying popups on startup that can't be turned off in the default menus[^1]. It's extremely frustrating, but it is on me for not doing my research and just getting the highest-rated monitor across review sites...

[^1]: https://pfy.ch/programming/disable-samsung-game-bar.html

Return it and buy something else. Don’t put up with the abuse.

Yea return it 100%. No way in hell should a computer monitor be connecting to the internet or have streaming apps. In fact this is the first I've heard of this. "Gaming monitor" in name only.

I don't see the issue if it only pops up when the screen is turned on. In my case that's only when the PC is starting. How often do you turn your screen off...?

Why did you connect it to the internet?

Get a projector. I have a Phillips short-throw projector. It has no OS beyond settings. It can have up to a 10' screen. Works great with Apple TV.

Maybe I'm not being creative enough, but for the average living room setup that would currently have a TV (e.g. (couch with a coffee table facing a TV stand), where exactly do you put the projector? You could put in on the coffee table, but that takes up space and doesn't look great. You could mount it to the ceiling, but that's more of a pain than just putting a TV on the stand you already have. And either method makes it significantly more difficult to connect anything, including power, to the projector.

Don't get me wrong, I think projectors are cool, but I'm not sure about their applicability to a large percentage of TV use-cases. Aside from expensive home theater type setups or janky dorm room style installs, both of which I'm a huge fan of, I'm not sure how the average person is supposed to use a projector. I would love to be wrong though, especially if it means I can use a projector in my fairly average living room layout.

The short-throw projectors only need to be a maximum of 12" from the wall. That's for the largest size, so if it's 12" away you get a 120" screen. You can move it closer for a smaller screen. This should work with most TV stands.

I have an earlier model of this one: https://www.usa.philips.com/c-p/SCN355_INT/screeneo-ul5-smar...

Hmm, looks like they are starting to make them "smart" now. Boo.

Projectors are designed to hang from the ceiling. That is how I installed mine, above the couch. The install is easier then mounting a TV to the wall.

The problem is light control. You want to have blackout curtains and you have to close them every time you want to watch something.

And I might be out of touch with current offerings, but I think the sweetspot for price performance still has not LED options. Only entry and high end. The non-led projectors have a bit more fan noise and expensive to change the bulb, which has limited on-time.

I had my entry level projector for 10 years now and the bulb is still fine. But I also don't watch that much. Paid ~700 EUR. I shitty smart tv with no internet probably also turns on faster. I have to wait ~20 seconds.

I think this is going to be the "hacker" answer for a long time to come. Hardware that by most metrics is technically better, it's a little more expensive (but not commercial signage expensive) and a lot more inconvenient to set up which puts most people off. Functionally immune to ads being a serviceable business because selling cheap and making it up with ad revenue requires volume they'll never have.

> Hardware that by most metrics is technically better

I think that's a hard one to sell with projectors. Picture quality is substantially worse, and images are substantially less bright, than with TVs. People buy TVs on 3 axes: price, image, and smart features. Here we explicitly don't want the smart features, but TVs are much cheaper and much better image quality (even at that much cheaper price) than with projectors. Brightness matters a lot for where/when you can use them.

> Get a projector.

I confirm.

Came here to write the same. I got an Epson LCD projector used, 2m wall. Works great with an ipad mini and bluetooth box (although Apple ios is kind of dumb, I need to tell it every time I turn it on to not use the speakers in the projector). Watching happens mostly in the evening/night.

LCD (vs DLP) are kind of hard to find these days, which is unfortunate. Proper lens shift isn't so easy to find either. And you need to make sure you get a reasonably quiet one (so a movie projector, not a presentation one).

If you don't want DLP (presumably due to colour wheel issues) then you want LCoS (aka D-ILA). Only JVC and Sony make these, with JVC being most well regarded. But be aware they are about the size of a mini-ATX tower on its side, and a second hand one will set you back a thousand credits at least.

A better way to look at this kind of product would be: TV with an API.

Now apply this orientation to any device which you would connect to the TV with an API. Speakers with an API. DVD player with an API. Device to interact with my Apple TV... with an API.

Imagine what wonderful things would be made possible by such a class of products. I would pay a lot more for this, and I know that many others would too.

I just want a somewhat trustworthy group to develop a DUMB certification. I would absolutely pay more for a certified DUMB TV.

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

I love this idea. I'd even do the "buy a smart tv and refuse the agreement so it acts as a dumb tv" if it were certified to be dumb. Otherwise I have absolutely no reason to trust a goddamn television.

They're not even promising me anything; the agreement is a bunch of commitments that I'm making, and they're refusing to provide me their "smart" features because I won't agree to those commitments. That tv can still do whatever it wants to as long as it doesn't break the law in a provable way.

1. If you want the functionality of a smart TV without all of the bloat, I've found Apple TV to be fast and functional. Little to no ads.

2. Running a PiHole (or something similar at a DNS level), you can prevent a lot of the "phoning home" these TVs do. That still does not solve the bloatware/speed issue, but point 1 addresses that.

Please anyone in hardware: come up with a TV brand that features no built-in internet connectivity whatsoever.

We’d all buy it in a blink.

It’s also kinda urgent. I’m clinging onto my 2007 TV because I don’t want a smart TV. Not sure how long it will last.

Here's a dumb 43 inch screen. It's sold as a gamer monitor. It's a UHD TV display with HDMI in and no onboard smarts.[1]

Here's another Samsung dumb screen, at 55 inches.[2] This is supposed to be for digital signage, but it's really a UHD monitor with HDMI in. But the next size up has "Alexa built in".

Sceptre, which mostly supplies Walmart, has a whole line of dumb TVs, including some big ones.[3] They're a little company in City of Industry, CA, which seems to have found their niche in dumb TVs.

There are lots of "digital signage" displays available. They're usually very bright, reasonably rugged, OK for 24/7 operation, immune to burn-in (they may spend their whole working life displaying mostly the same fast food menu), but not that good

[1] https://www.bestbuy.com/site/samsung-m70d-43-led-4k-uhd-60hz...

[2] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08651PB1J

[3] https://www.sceptre.com/TV/4K-UHD-TV/U750CV-UMRD-75-4K-UHD-T...

I raise Sceptre every time I see this sentiment, but folks just don't seem to know about them. I got a humble 54" 4k from them a couple of years back for a few hundred bucks. Used it every day since, works great. Zero bullshit.

Slow startup, though. Can be like 10-15 seconds.

There are always many hundreds of options for "dumb TVs", the secret being that they're called "commercial [TVs|monitors|displays]". For example, B&H lists 2,105 so-called commercial displays as I type this (which you can easily filter to your specifications).

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?q=commercial%20display

I thought their size filter was missing the . but you really can get a 589" display there.

Good to see these have added multiple HDMI ports since I last looked.

Get a short throw projector. You can plug anything into it. It’s the perfect “dumb” screen.

I would totally buy it.

Well, if you are in the UK or some EU countries, Cello has a range;

https://celloelectronics.com/shop-televisions/?filter_produc...

Viewsonice, Benq, and even Samsung make dumb monitors for conference rooms and digital signage. They just are more expensive and people don’t want the added cost. Its like consumer grade laptops are loaded with adware that supplements the price paid, compared to enterprise line of laptops which are more expensive.

Unfortunately the best of them is 1080p.

There used to always be some smug commenter in these threads pointing out that life's better without any TV at all... Guess it's my turn.

Really - why bother? Can't you feel how it dominates the room? Don't you resent being constantly programmed by a handful of giant companies hiding behind different brands? Not to mention the ads shouting muck into your brain.

The main benefit of a giant HD TV - and please correct me if I'm wrong on this - is that the bigger and brighter the TV, the heavier the mental domination. After a long day/week working, you get to subside into the minima of mental and physical effort.

Relaxation and escapism are valid human pastimes, and we have 'choice' over what to watch to a higher degree than ever before... And it's a golden age for TV in many ways. But I can't help but feel that TV's hooks into people's minds are also more cunning than ever.

There isn't a nice way to say this, but... I can't help but notice that people who watch cable news, for example, become quite predictably wrong on important topics, and get very worked up over whatever the weekly outrage bait is. It's a toxic brew..

And the same goes for all kinds of other 'programming', from reality shows to celeb gossip to sportsball. Doesn't it ever feel like you're being... Subdued? Or even herded?

/smug

Area Man Constantly Mentioning He Doesn't Own A Television

https://theonion.com/area-man-constantly-mentioning-he-doesn...

Okay but who uses a tv for cable news or any of that?

I want to put youtube channels on it while cooking in the kitchen, or play video games on it. Does anyone actually watch "TV" tv anymore? Isn't it mostly streaming services?

Yeah, for me it is about intentionality. I turn on the TV because I have something in mind I need that TV to display.

Often a computer game or a TV show.

But I have in mind what I want first, THEN turn it on and do the thing.

I have visited people who like to "have the TV on in the background" for whatever reason and it irks me, I can't stand it.

This is so weird. You just don't connect it to the internet. It's that simple. No need for "dumb TVs" to return. Smart TVs are just dumb TVs with extra stuff.

I'll care about this when they start embedding 5G SIMs so I can't prevent it connecting.

Hah, if only...

The TV I bought 2 years ago and never connected it to the Internet. Not even for setup. Zero issues.

Elaborate?

All Sony Bravia TV’s ask you if you want to configure as a dumb TV during initial setup.

I was looking at those.

Note that they don’t support volume control on their analog line out ports. This is a deal breaker for me.

Hisense seems to be the luddite’s best choice in 2024.

"Line out" is supposed to be just that, line level. Not supporting volume control is correct; that should only be used for headphone jacks. (Yes, they're generally compatible, but they are not the same thing.)

That seems like something that could be fixed with a preamp? I run things into my receiver and then to the TV, so I haven't needed a line-out port before.

What are you using to play the audio from the line-out ports?

Did you do this? I'm just curious, if you unplug the TV and plug it back in, how quickly does it start up when in "dumb" mode?

My problem with the Bravia TV I have is it takes a solid minute for the Android system to boot up, so I can't just put it on a smart plug and expect it to turn on when I turn it on...

That's the worst part of the smart TV. I don't use the smart features and have it disconnected from internet, but still takes a minute to boot up.

It's bad, but even worse if you have kids.

I predict that Apple will do this. Supposedly, they are considering making a TV, after years of not wanting to. And it makes sense with the landscape of today, where TVs have become a privacy nightmare and their interfaces are arguably worse than ever. It seems like ripe picking for Apple, playing to their strengths. If they do end up making a TV, I think it would make sense for it to be a dumb TV. Like how the Pro Display XDR is a dumb monitor, not having speakers or a webcam. Apple already makes a good TV remote, which could probably be repurposed easily. And thanks to CEC, I never use my actual TV remote anymore except to navigate its settings menu on rare occasions.

To me, the question is would it have an actual TV tuner in it? Would Apple bother with making a whole interface around scanning for channels and such when it’s not a common use case anymore, adds complexity, and isn’t necessarily in their interest financially? Maybe it will end up being a very large monitor, but sold like a TV. Perhaps alongside the existing Apple TV box, which would hopefully get a rebranding.

Why would Apple make a dumb TV though?

The Pro Display XDR exists because there’s nothing really comparable in the space with those specs and there’s a market to be had for it.

The Studio display similarly exists because the only competitor for specs at the time was its own predecessor.

Both exist at a price point where the specs (specifically resolution at those specific screen sizes and HDR for the XDR) trump the higher cost of entry, and they get paired with an Apple device to take advantage of those capabilities.

TVs are highly competitive on cost because they’re effectively subsidized. Apple might have better processing but they’d get the same panels as everyone else. Unlike the Mac displays, they’d have to deal with the same content that every other TV has so that’s not a differentiator. There’s no money there for a dumb tv and there’s no differentiator for the average customer.

Instead the expectation is that Apple would lplay to its strengths of vertical integration. Build in their Apple TV hardware with Homekit etc on board. If they did anything less it would be panned.

The Apple TV experience would be the differentiator. It’s already miles ahead of the competition in the ways an average customer would care about, and brings apples privacy+ad stance to bear.

> To me, the question is would it have an actual TV tuner in it? Would Apple bother with making a whole interface around scanning for channels and such when it’s not a common use case anymore, adds complexity, and isn’t necessarily in their interest financially? Maybe it will end up being a very large monitor, but sold like a TV. Perhaps alongside the existing Apple TV box, which would hopefully get a rebranding.

ATSC 3.0 is suppose to have IP networking requirement for ad so Apple would probably be better of abandoning this if they're selling an add free privacy TV.

They don't make their displays in house. Until they bring displays in house, it doesn't make sense to get into the display business.

IMO, if apple were to make a TV, it wouldn't be dumb. It would probably have similar software as their current Apple TV hardware.

“Smart TVs are, unfortunately, more like smartphones: designed for frequent replacement.”

Except unlike smartphones, these TVs are not built with high-end components due to the razor-thin margins that have to be optimized for. So you end up with underpowered hardware and janky software that benefits only these companies through ad revenue.

> Streaming Devices Are the Real Smart Choice

Physical media you own is the only smart choice. No apps, just a BluRay player. Or better yet, .mkv files on a PC.

> Connectivity options also need an upgrade. HDMI ports, ARC (Audio Return Channel) support for soundbars, and USB inputs should be standard.

DisplayPort should be standard, at least until the HDMI consortium pulls its head out of its arse and allows open source implementations. Of course the TV manufacturers are all part of the HDMI Consortium. Might need antitrust enforcement.

This article is pointless though since smart TVs are also dumb TVs. There is no incentive for display TV manufacturers to make a separate SKU without the "smarts" but on most models you don't have to use them.

Just don’t connect it to wifi, connect an Apple TV or similar to hdmi 1, and move on.

I’d love a dumb TV, but if you don’t let them online and don’t use built in software it is close enough.

I've got an LG OLED TV that I'm really happy with, because I rooted it before the exploit was patched, so now it's ad-free, and is more capable than any model presently available.

https://rootmy.tv

Some dumb TVs still exist, only they’re called computer monitors now. And they’re a lot more expensive than TVs because TV-sized monitors are a niche product, and because manufacturers don’t subsidize them in exchange for your data.

While I agree that smart TVs are a marketing ploy by the manufacturers to increase the revenue by shortening the lifecycle, I'm not buying the premise that I can protect my data by using dumb TVs. Everybody's using AppleTV, Amazon, Google, or Roku devices, which are perfectly capable of collecting that information and using it themselves or feeding it to various vendors (for a reasonable price). Not to mention that all content providers (ie Netflix) are doing exactly the same.

I have a raspberry pi for "smart" TV use.

...to stream from which content providers? They still have your viewing history, and that history eventually will end up at the data brokers to be perused by the interested parties. Which is really not that different from if you were using smart TV, except maybe a little bit more revenue for TV manufacturers.

PSA, HDMI carries ethernet, so you depending on the device you connect your TV to, it might get internet access without your knowledge.

This come up every time, and yet I have never seen an actual demonstration or example of this. HDMI can carry Ethernet, sure, but you honestly think an (for example) Apple TV is going to let arbitrary devices use its network connection? You gotta show that it even implements the spec first.

I don't have to do any of those things.

I am not going to address all the fallacies in your comment. Whether you have seen an example of it is immaterial to what the HDMI spec says.

I like dumb articles - articles with still text and pictures - I tried to visit the site and it was covered in "smart ads" - ads using JavaScript to try in every way possible to shove ads in front of me

Funny the person complaining about ads is working for a site that is part of the problem

I bought a dumb tv some 2 years ago. 4k, 50ish inch and it has a chromecast v2 attached. Works great.

The funny part is when younger family members come over, they get frustrated there's no netflix button on the remote! Last time that lead to a drawing sessions instead of some paw patrol nonsense.

I’d like to see a relatable ad campaign. One that’s very “hey, we hear ya, no one actually wants this” type speech.

It would certainly catch an eye because what else is there to say? I don’t remember the last tv ad, it was so forgettable.

Now to the problem, much of the points the author makes are environmental concerns about “consumer” electronics. This is just so far off base to the older consumer audience and possibly entirely. You have to focus on…the ads and the bloat. Explain why your tv costs slightly more, because you made sure the experience was seamless.

I’d really love if this took off, but unfortunately without a titan like Samsung it won’t. Otherwise it’ll just be an outrageously expensive tv with average performance, and we al know that’s not the right formula.

Reminder: They make them, they tend to be "monitors", "digital signage" or "commercial". You do have to pay a premium for them, for a variety of reasons.

There may be other options, I have a friend that 6-10 years ago got a TV, then opened it up and removed a USB stick that implemented all the smart features.

> You do have to pay a premium for them, for a variety of reasons.

It's not that you pay a premium for the bullshit-free version, but rather that you get a discount for buying the bullshit-packed version.

Another data point: Before all the smart TV stuff you would tend to pay significantly more for an A/V monitor (basically a TV without the tuner) than you would for a regular TV.

Both statements are true. As a baseline it's good to consider the price of the regular TV's before they got smart.

You do also pay a premium because they use use panels designed for 24/7 operation, sunlight readability etc.

When talking about digital signage in particular, it's clearly a premium because it's such a big price difference. A discount for the bullshit would be much smaller.

Digital signage have embedded computers now too. It's only a matter of time before they have mandatory analytics and advertising.

TVs intended for digital signage usually contain modular computers meant to be controlled by the user.

Wouldn't that be pretty good value add? A mic feeding data to some AI model and then camera to track how many people use it or stop and watch.

Can we generalize this point to the idea that the user might want to manage the complexity level of products?

It's great to have the fully-integrated television that can be controlled by a phone app. This may seem great, until the spyware implications come to mind.

In a similar vein, I like all of the gadgetry on the recent car purchase. The sensors are nice; we can all back in an "park tactically" like a pro with these rear cameras.

But part of me longs for a purely analog chariot with 1960s-level tech that, sure, requires more skill on my part to operate, but I'm OK with that.

This invites the question: if there were a market for a brand new, but de-gunked car, could it even be legally built? Would there be a market? Why not?

Because of mass-market economics, it makes (almost) no difference to the vendor whether the TV is smart or not. So just buy a smart-TV and don't connect it to the internet. It's that simple. Oh, and also, don't forget to live in the EU so you can refuse those contracts that add mandatory data collection.

I have documented how you can use an LG TV and disable its obnoxious "Hi LG" feature without giving it internet access: https://social.treehouse.systems/@Aissen/111267905868798609

I have a Samsung smart TV.

I removed all of the broadcast channels and it's now an excellent TV. The apps just work, it doesn't show me ads for anything, and I'm perfectly happy with it.

Am I just lucky to have found a good manufacturer?

Temporarily using a samsung smart TV is the reason I will sooner have no TV than a smart TV. Worst piece of tech I've ever used. I didn't have any of the smart stuff enabled; I was using it almost exclusively to display HDMI (I watched terrestrial TV for Eurovision once a year) and it was a kafkaesque nightmare. It took 15 minutes (when it worked) to go from standby to displaying HDMI. I had to reflash the damned firmware half the time I went to turn it on (from standby). I could go on for hours about it but I won't lol

My Hisense with Google TV has proven to be decent. I never connected the TV to the internet and went with an external Apple TV instead. It always starts on the last video input. I was able to refuse all the EULAs and was still left with all the visual niceties that I don't use like upscaling and motion smoothing.

Samsung and Sony has been the absolute worst in my case. So slow, so much bs. LG works much better, but Im sure it is having a field day with my data.

As long as I can still open them up to remove/destroy all the wireless radios and networking chips and they keep working as a basic display device afterwards, subsidize them with as much crap as you want.

The cookie pop up is on this site claimed 1,596 partners. Tremendously ironic.

Dumb websites deserve a comeback

I've been fairly happy with the Google/Android TV versions, but the primary feature I bought them for was the ability to pair bluetooth headphones with them. Bluetooth seems to be hard to get, but all Google TVs support them.

The lower end TVs can barely do the Google TV features, often being flaky. The higher end ones tend to implement the features much better, though not perfectly. My TLC 6xxx series is much less flaky than the 5xxx series, but I do sometimes have to reboot it at the beginning of every watching session, depending on the app.

Can’t you just pair your Bluetooth headphones to the device that is providing the video stream? That is the source, the TV should just be the output device.

They will not. Users only care about 2 things: Price and functionality.

It doesn't cost manufacturers anything extra at this point to include all the 'smart' features. It would cost more to make a 'dumb' TV.

No sane manufacturer is going to make a TV with less features that costs more for the sake of not even a percentage of the consumer base looking for TVs.

If you don't like it, buy a TV that's less egregious and get a PiHole. Then don't use the features you don't want. There. Done.

> Streaming Devices Are the Real Smart Choice

This is not true. There are tons of set top boxes out there are underpower piece of garbage. Unless you are getting your hands on Google Streamer/Apple TV.

Why wouldn't streaming devices do all the same surveillance? Don't they have as much financial incentive and broad access as tv manufacturers?

Yep. As someone working in the media app industry. I would say it is in device manufacturers and entertainment apps interest to know what the user are interested, to allow them to keep the user using the app/device.

The Apple TV also has giant ads on the home screen, too.

Yes, and I only see a marginal point of people choosing Apple TV over "Smart" TV. It tracks, but at least give you the performance.

I bought my 65" TV for $299 recently, including shipping to my doorstep. Clearly all the bullshit that's baked into it is subsidizing the price by a lot.

I just never gave it network access and I use it like a dumb TV with a streaming box, so I get to benefit from a price subsidized by the the other 98% of the population who are getting exploited. The whole thing is kinda gross.

It's like there's this enshittification tipping point that you can't come back from. Realistically, who is going to buy a dumb TV at a much higher cost? People who are already savvy enough to get around a smart TV? People who aren't? I don't see it working.

I worry about how long it'll be before the manufacturers either make the TV demand an internet connection, or simply build one right into it.

>Realistically, who is going to buy a dumb TV at a much higher cost? People who are already savvy enough to get around a smart TV?

Exactly, that's why all this "I want a dumb TV!" stuff is, well, dumb.

It doesn't cost any less for a mfgr to make a dumb TV, in fact it would cost more. Modern TVs need a lot of computing power to make them work properly, so making the thing connect to the internet and show you ads really costs them nothing for hardware. Then they get to subsidize the TV with all the ad revenue, the kickbacks from the various streaming apps pre-installed, etc. A dumb TV would end up having the exact same hardware and a higher price tag. What kind of idiot would buy that? Not enough to make it worthwhile for the mfgr. If you don't want ads, just don't connect the TV to the internet.

It's a lot like modern Windows laptops that are cheaper than the same laptop with Linux pre-installed. MS and/or the laptop mfgr get a bunch of kickbacks from the crapware vendors to pre-install their crapware, so you end up paying less than you would for having the mfgr pre-install Linux (a free OS).

So what's the best solution? Suppose you have a dumb TV, or a smart TV locked to a single input. It seems like there are big downsides to most approaches. Rokus and Fire sticks have the same downsides as smart tvs, with ads and laggy interfaces. I currently have one output from my desktop hooked to my TV, but the UI leaves a lot to be desired and of course now I have two input devices to deal with, one for the TV and one for the PC. What's the best way to do it?

Find a decent media remote you can single hand with built in keyboard, i.e. lenovo n5902 (discontinued) - a bunch of cheap airmouse works pretty well. Setup macro for browser, boomarkts , microphone use etc. Adjust desktop UI scaling.

I use an HDMI switch and it works fine for me.

As much as I agree with the sentiment, I can buy a firestick, Apple TV or Roku for a very small cost. Sure, a dumb TV would be lovely, but only because of a quicker boot time.

Given a dumb TV is going to be more expensive, I can't see a market for it based on a small marginal gain for the consumer. And 90% of people don't even care enough about the poor user experience vs the marketing that hypes up features no one uses or needs.

Boot time rarely matters since most TVs just sleep, and not shut down.

Cold boots are reserved for failure situations or updates.

I agree with the point that most people deal with terrible user experience.

A lot of my friends ask me why I went with an Apple TV when my TVs have built in functionality or I could use Roku / whatever Google call their dongles now for cheaper.

The answer is experience. I’ve tried to deal without an Apple TV and my god, the number of ads, the slow UI response, color handling etc.. all have me going back to the Apple TV.

But none of the stuff I mentioned is worth the price difference to the majority of people.

Yeah the Apple TV interface is so much faster, more responsive, and ad-free than virtually every built-in smart TV function. I don't understand how anyone, especially anyone remotely savvy, can stand to use them.

Even the "good" ones like the Android TV in my Sony is sluggish clunky garbage in comparison. I gave it a shot when I bought it, but couldn't stand it. Disconnected the TV from the network and just use the Apple TV and it's nearly perfect.

Just turn off the privacy invading features. LG’s options are pretty great, I’ve seen little bloat, and get the native apps for streaming services just fine.

However important, this is a niche problem. Most users will not be able use a dumb TV. Everything becomes more clunky for them. Instead of fighting the uphill battle of making legislation, more people should be made aware of the issue and the - not that complicated - ways to counter this.

Pihole, not giving internet (only local network) / and/or only use a trusted device via HDMI to display content.

Really? No legislation needed because people (that is, techies with network skills) can just set up piehole? (Until of course that stops working as well because the smart TVs use DoH, eSNI, certificate pinning, etc)

No legislation is desired because legislation implemented for this kind of purpose inevitably ends up co-opted by the very interests it's targeted against, who rely on it to create barriers to entry for competitors and roadblocks for DIYers, while entrenching their business model indefinitely.

Regulatory intervention will ultimately make things like PiHole difficult or impossible, while legitimizing "responsible" viewer tracking and mandatory internet connections for TVs.

I happened to notice this article in my HN feed a few minutes after cursing at my Samsung TV about how poor it's internal software is. It's shocking how slow and clunky it is. I have a shield connected to it to skirt it for the most part but it's impossible to avoid it entirely. Not to mention how confusing it is for the less technical persons in my family.

LG owner here. I won't connect it to wifi, lan or BT. Once in a while nags me to do it, I might do it eventually, in it's own VLAN and without Internet access.

Here in Portugal all ISP provide a smart box, most of them also have common services like Netflix and so on, no need to any "smart" feature from the TV itself. Completly useless.

> Completly useless.

Not enterely useless, since you payed a lower retail price on it based on manufacturers projected revenue from ads.

The best way to kill the business model is to buy them for the high end display tech but then keep them offline.

Aren’t the things all running Android anyway? How hard would it be to flash a ROM? I don’t have a TV to tinker with, but I saw some mentions of ADB on this thread.

Seems like the folks on XDA are doing something with this. Might be time for someone suitably inclined to do an FOSS TV distro

This is tangential, but I think TV in general, smart or dumb, is slowly becoming obsolete, especially with genZ.

Because of a similar post a few years back I learned you can buy kiosk TVs from commercial vendors. They strip the garbage apps and leave you with a dumb TV. It wasn’t really that much more either. Used them for new conference room TVs for an office build out. They work and last flawlessly.

Smart TVs are the reason I haven’t bought a new tv in almost 15 years. I would like to upgrade to a fancy 4K one instead of my old 1080p one. Dumb TVs back then weren’t more expensive than smart TVs today so I don’t believe price is the reason for smart TVs. Margins maybe…

I'm actually using a 47 inch LG 3D TV that I purchased in 2012 that's 1080p. I keep looking for an excuse to upgrade but it's been working fine. It's been almost 15 years as well and I thought they weren't going to last this long for some reason. I don't even use any of the 3D stuff!

Alternatively, we could repurpose smart TVs to run open source software.

https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html

HN is so disconnected from reality... No one in the real world actually wants a dumb TV.

Or if they would accept one they would not pay more for one. Minority who would actually do it is so small it is not worth it.

A little over a year ago I was checking my home network logs and realized my smart TVs were sending gigs of data to Roku servers - when the TVs were off.

I killed all internet access for my TVs, bought Apple TVs to attach to them and never looked back.

What’s my best bet if I just want a normal computer monitor hooked up to some sort of sound bar, and I’m happy using something like a Chromecast for all TV needs? Or are there monitors with good enough speakers now?

Soundbars are bad and there's better alternatives at soundbar price ranges imo. Spend the soundbar money on even a relatively humble set of logitech speakers for a really bare bones simple set up.

I use a short throw projector with an Apple TV. There’s also a little device called Micca which you can use to play video files you’ve downloaded.

If you're shoveling your data over to Google anyway then why not just get a smart TV and never use its apps?

get a seperate usb to audio adaptor and speakers. you can do better than a soundbar.

Big monitors (e.g., Gigabyte AORUS FV43U) are today's best dumb TVs.

Will a Roku stick work with one?

I have no Roku stick, but reviews mention that BluRay players and Apple TV work fine.

The point is tech savvy users can do all sorts of things like ublock origin, DNS, dumb TV etc

The majority of users in this world don't. So there will some people left out to suffer ads/tracking etc.

I only purchase Sony TVs, and I simply just connect an HTPC to them. If there are any smart features, I just choose not to accept the EULA and not to connect it to the Internet.

My Kogan is a dumb panel, but I think it was the last year model where they sold both a smart and a dumb version. I imagine if I went looking theres only smart available.

Every smart TV you don’t connect to the internet is a dumb TV.

I'm awaiting the LineageOS equivalent for Android TV. Is anyone on that?

Custom ROM to drive the TV, no ads, no commercial partnerships. Root your TV.

I am days late to this thread, but there's at least one person out there putting out builds of LineageOS-based AndroidTV for Raspberry Pis.

https://konstakang.com/devices/rpi5/

If you go to the devices menu there's stuff for older models as well. I haven't tried out the builds yet, but have seen reports around the Internet of other people using them with success.

Currently playing around with Android TV on a $20 disposable Walmart Onn-branded streaming box to see what apps and customizations are possible before taking the plunge and fiddling with on of my RPi 4Bs. Though you might want a Pi 5 for a 4K TV.

Long term goal would be to combine Raspberry Pi, reliable builds of AndroidTV which are downstream of either LineageOS, CalyxOS, or GrapheneOS, and then some kind of IR Receiver like the FLIRC and a remote control.

You can still buy "dumb tvs" tho - well a 2-3 years ago you could I guess.

I've never once considered buying a smart TV - nor would I ever.

Whenever I obtain a 'smart' TV, I never connect it to the internet. I don't want a TV that can phone home.

My new HiSense TV with Google allows to run it as a basic TV. I think this was added to Google TV in 2021. Problem solved.

Let me defend smart TVs for a second

I own a smart TV that was at least partially subsidized by the mess of ads I see on the home page. But when manufacturers make a high quality panel, I’m not really convinced there’s a market for dumb TVs - people just use their own box if they want, and the marginal cost of the electronics required may even be negative now that Android/Google TV can also handle TV settings while providing a new revenue source.

This sounds like Stockholm syndrome.

I've an old dumb 1080p Samsung TV. Apart from the panel not being up to date everything about it is better than the smart version that I bought 8 years later.

I've owned several lcd tvs and several tv boxes. A big problem with smart tvs is the difference in lifetimes between the two.

Tv boxes have a maybe 3 year lifetime before they get kind of junky. Lcd tvs go at least 5 years, sometimes much longer.

If you have a smart tv, around year 3 or 4, you're going to want to hook up a (new) tv box, but you're still going to have to fight the built in OS anyway, at least a bit.

Economics of ads subsidizing the tv aside, it makes more sense to have the tv firmware be focused on the essentials like responding to user input quickly and if it has a tuner not locking up on poor or malformed signals, and the user can choose between the tv box ecosystems they like.

Separately, it'd be nice if the tv box ecosystem got some more longevity... Maybe that will happen soon. 4k@60fps with dolby vision and/or hdr10+ seems like a likely plateau of streaming video for a while... if they'd start regularly putting in 1g ethernet to handle peak bandwidth of 4k BluRay rips, things would be pretty good. 8k seems unlikely to get mainstream adoption (but I could be wrong)

Ads come with the spyware to target them.

the smart TV is probably cheaper, but let me buy some pro grade version of the panel without it and vote with my wallet right?

If you want the closest thing to a dumb tv search for the hospitality version of a specific television brand.

I agree. Hacking a smart TV to bypass/replace its OS would make for an interesting project, though.

Oh I would love to have just dumb oled panel with only input cable without that bloatware installed.

I run airbnbs and would love a low cost dumb TV since I just equip each one with a apple TV box anyways

It's almost like there an agenda to allow for corporate and government control of all technology.

That was a really keyphrase-saturated article - they're really going for SEO capture!

I think they’re called “commercial displays” now (no malware subsidy like smart TVs tho)

My workaround is to use a computer monitor connected to a Linux box that I actually control.

Depending on your home setup, projector seems like a decent option as well.

It's not just TVs. I upgraded the appliances in my kitchen last year. Every "high-end" refrigerator required internet connectivity just to use the product. Most of the dishwashers and ovens had this same requirement.

I've replaced several appliances recently and while, like TVs, all have wifi garbage built in, I've never once connected any of them and they all function perfectly fine.

And on the topic of TVs, my Sony TV also works happily while disconnected and never nags about it.

The author already mentions the benefits of streaming devices. What difference does it make whether you have a dumb or smart tv if the only functionality you use is from a streaming device?

Dumb cars, dumb blenders as well

I bought a projector. "Dumb" as can be.

Now... when I decide to blow the money, it's going to be replaced with a 100" TV. For now I'm assuming that I won't have too big a battle to use it as a plain monitor.

But I bought a Harmony remote a while ago and returned it after finding out that, to maintain it, I had to set up a BS account with Logitech. A bunch of apologists on Reddit mocked those of us who called out this despicable nonsense.

Just a couple months later, we had the last laugh when Logitech pulled the plug on the whole thing.

I was just looking at some earlier because a friend was asking.

A lot of them seem to be integrating smart TV features for streaming and such. So your privacy is going away there too.

Yeah that’s never going to happen.

The vast majority of the buyer pool consider the smart stuff a feature.

So the only way the remaining fraction of a percent of buyer make economic sense is with insane markups. And when people hear about the additional +100% markup or whatever for their artisanal dumb tv the interested pool gets even smaller

Can we just get some physical buttons back! My tv came with a single multi-purpose button. It’s literally the premise of a dilbert comic. Then the button broke from over use. Just volume, power, change inputs. Not that complicated!

+1 for Sceptre

Still using my 2007 television. It's pretty ass dumb. I have new computer displays of course.

cars too

“Smart” things are basically just bullshit.

Don’t have a TV to begin with.

Tv content is actually dumb nowadays it makes you dumb, not the tv.

My cheap smart tv has a youtube app and it's all i need

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