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Comment by Robdel12 | Hacker News Reader

Is there any kind of “hook up” on wholesale large dumb displays?

I know I’m preaching to the choir, but I just want a giant dumb display from my Apple TV. I vaguely remember someone posting a link to tvs restaurants use but I don’t remember exactly what or if it was what I’m looking for.

(Sorry, being lazy here)

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I wonder about this every time I see a smart TV-related thread on HN. I recently purchased an LG OLED (C5 48") because my old TV died so I'll finally comment. As others have said, just don't connect it to the internet. But you knew this already, so I'll provide my anecdote on the experience of this since I wondered the same thing for years before getting this TV.

When the TV is never connected to internet, and you use a single HDMI source like me, the TV acts completely like a dumb TV. It gets turned on via my AppleTV remote and displays the picture 1-2 seconds later. No LG logo (I disabled this), and no smart interface shown whatsoever.

If you want to change settings, you can display the settings interface via LG remote control and it generally acts like a dumb TV (not blocking the entire screen, so you can adjust picture quality and see the result as expected).

I've had the TV for about two months and never been asked to update it or shown any ad. The only time I've ever seen the smart fullscreen interface is when you unplug a live HDMI source and the TV detects that nothing is there. (If you turn the source off, it tells the TV to turn itself off as well.)

Hope this helps since it's a lot easier to buy a nice smart TV and do it this way than find a truly dumb commercial panel.

Don't assume that because you don't connect something to the internet that is doesn't connect to the internet.

Things can use cellular modems to phone home. This is already done.

Walmart could also easily cut deals with cable providers for outbound access via WiFi and cover most of the country.

Totally correct and a good call out. I did check this as best as I could for this particular model of TV. But I'd have to do the same in a few years if it was ever to be replaced. I suspect I'll have to desolder the cellular module of my next TV circa 2036...

They could also make agreements with ISP's where their TV's can be whitelisted for access to a public or potentially unlisted WiFi, enabling them to connect that way, without the vast majority of customers ever being aware.

Similarly, these TV's could connect to any open wifi hotspot it can find and phone home/download updates that way. Cox for example proudly boasts how more than 4M of it's residential customers modem+router+ap's can be used for "WiFi Hotspots" by anyone - not just the customer/resident - if they have a cox account. I don't see why Samsung or any other manufacturer may approach said ISP's to use this network to update devices under some guise of "convenience" or "seamless updates" ostensibly for their less tech savvy users.

I don't know if these business deals exists, but "smart devices" will often try to phone home/update anyway they can, even if you don't manually configure it on a private network.

EDIT: Forgot the source on the cox hotspots claim: https://www.cox.com/residential/internet/learn/cox-hotspots....

Comcast/Xfinity does this as well.

Mine is a Vizio from Target that's never been online. I've gotten close to cutting its wifi antenna circuit to prevent this but I think I got it before they started programming anything like this in and I should be safe if it stays offline.

But then I still think about cutting it in case I ever have anyone over that would be stupid enough to sign in to the wifi on it. Better for it to have never happened.

Look for used 'Digital Signage' or 'Commercial' displays. They usually have dumb firmware and the same panels as retail models.

Most are also larger, heavier, with higher power consumption, and sometimes uncomfortably high minimum brightness. They rarely use the same panels as retail models because they have to support different operating conditions like extreme temperatures and 24/7 operation.

And the worst part, usually way more expensive too, seen some panels where the cost was double because the target market is "ad agencies" or whatever.

> the cost was double because the target market is "ad agencies" or whatever.

A TV capable of operating in those conditions has to be more expensive or else it'll need replacing twice as often and cost even more long term. Remember when Tesla used bog standard laptop screens in their dash because they were cheaper than automotive grade, leading to high failure rate?

This makes me wonder if my local McDonalds, which has three big screens mounted vertically in the drive-thru, ended up with not the commercial grade ones. They’re cooking in the sun in a hot climate all day, so they fail and turn into flickery messes, and it seems like they’re on a cycle of roughly 3 months newly-replaced & working, 1 year flickering.

They’re probably inside commercial displays - not outdoor rated, which are much, much more expensive (and usually look much worse).

Yeah, if you want a TV that looks terrible. They usually have terrible response times and focus on nits at all costs. Try watching anything HDR on a display panel.

Many (most?) "smart" TVs will work fine if their network connection is never set up. Many of those can be set to wake on an HDMI signal from, for example, an outboard streamer box. That means you can take advantage of the subsidy paid by the bloatware that comes inside your TV, for a price that I bet is coincidentally close to the same as the price difference of an unsubsidized dumb TV.

I wondered this as well when I was shopping for a new TV a few years ago. Unfortunately, not only is it really difficult to find a "dumb" modern TV, but the best display panels will always be on smart TVs because that's what sells.

That said, I ended up getting a Sony A95K 55" TV, and it's been great. It has Google TV built-in, but I immediately connected our Apple TV to it, and it's never seen the Internet since. No nags, either. Sony also made it really easy to disable motion interpolation, a feature I really dislike.

Dell has the P5525QC, a 4K 55 inch screen. Here in Denmark they sell it for 8846 DKK (~$1300 USD). I use a predecessor with my Apple TV and it works great.

Link: https://www.dell.com/da-dk/shop/dell-55-4k-sk%C3%A6rm-til-m%...

I bought a 60 inch Spectre tv from walmart and it works great as over the air and receiving video from my appletv.

I just googled “dumb tv” and that brand showed up.

Just use any TV but don't log into your WiFi or connect an Ethernet cable. It sounds like that won't work with these Vizio TVs, but they're likely junk anyway. This is what I do with my Sony and LG TVs in my house and they work fine as dumb displays attached to my AppleTV box.

I've said it before on HN, but I just want a somewhat trustworthy group to develop "DUMB" certification. I think enough people would pay extra for a certified DUMB TV for it to be worthwile. "Don't Upload My Bits"

I wonder if a "woot" style service could work. If 10K like-minded consumers made a group-buy every 2-3 years, a high-end panel vendor might be willing to provision a new SKU with a few firmware tweaks.

For a while, Costco had a reputation as the place where you could buy a TV and be confident that it was usable as a "dumb" TV. The rumor (unconfirmed as far as I know) was that, among the customizations that manufacturers would make for retailer-specific models, the Costco ones included firmware tweaks to pull back on requirements for things like mandatory connectivity, account creation and the like.

I'm not sure how true any of that is, but in any case Costco still has a reputation as a place where it's easy to return a TV, and they pay attention to the stated reason for return.

I would go in on a group-buy dumb TV, but not every 2-3 years.

I’ve been using my TCL Roku disconnected from the internet for 6 years

Somehow these dumb displays always seem to be cheaper than the smart ones. For some mysterious reason all the chips and stuff to needed run an OS have a negative cost.

Skim through B&H and you'll find commercial displays but also various other display formats that are sufficiently stupid.

NEC/Sharp commercial displays are great. Even come with a daughter board you can throw a Raspberry Pi onto to run your own OS.

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