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Comment by giancarlostoro | Hacker News Reader

I never connect my smart TVs to the network, I just plug in my Apple TV and move on. It's frustrating because it takes longer to turn these devices on than it should because of all the additional overhead I don't want or need. I wish someone would make a painless gadget to flash the software with dumber software that loads instantly.

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They're also cheaper because they're subsidized. I did the same thing with a FireTV but understood the extra crap they want to boot and use is part of why they're so cheap, they're hoping for information to sell or puchases they can monetize.

The most insane thing which I wouldn't believe if I hadn't experienced it myself, but Samsung will periodically just install random apps and games on your phone. You delete them, then a month later, new apps show up. It's one of the most aggressive anti-consumer thing I've seen and it's coming from such a large player.

I'd guess it's happening during silent updates to your android OS. Those can come packaged with anything Samsung wants. I had a similar fight lately with HP's printer software which insists on waking your computer up for a printer health check and reenables the scheduled task randomly even without updates. Finally excised it from my PC.

The frustrating thing is the lack of options. If you buy a $300 TV or a $3000 TV it will still come loaded with bloat/ad/spyware built in.

I'd pay $3000 for a 85" OLED panel that doesn't have anything except an on/off button and a HDMI 2.1 port.

(Yes, and options to adjust the image a bit, but I'll turn on "filmmaker mode" anyway, so even those can be cropped by 90% vs regular TVs)

We just bought a vizio to replace one that broke. Once you skip the setup process, all you need to do is remove the solder from the 'home' button on the remote or whatever it is and you'll never see their pop up crap again.

I get why people like this, though. It takes all of your accounts and puts them in one place. Honestly, if I could run Plex and my own media through it, it would be tempting to just block it from dialing out and get rid of my Nvidia shield.

I have a chromecast with google tv plugged into mine. Not sure what it's called these days. Chromecast Home?

It comes with a super minimalist remote that does volume and a d-pad and on/off and a remappable netflix button. My tv's original remote is... Somewhere. It's been more than a year since I've needed it.

Both the chromecast and my xbox uses hdmi-cec to instruct the tv to "switch your input to me". The chromecast remote controls the tv volume directly.

I have an Emby media server on the network, and I use the emby app on the chromecast to play content. I'm also a sellout so we have the standard streaming apps on there as well.

It's a truly god-tier setup and it works so well.

Yeah, the current Chromecast on an HDMI port is far superior than anything the TV vendors offer. I think you pretty much get access to every service you might want except Apple TV (no surprise, Apple gonna Apple).

Apple tv is available on my chromecast?

Yeah there's an appletv android app.

That's my main setup too. Sometimes still need to main TV remote but not often.

Yeah, I don't connect my TV to WiFi at all; as long as TVs have HDMI ports I'll just use an Nvidia Shield TV (or something similar). If I do that I have access to more apps, a snappier interface, and it's easier to upgrade if I need to later.

I've looked into flashing it to use a dumber firmware, but it got into technical documentation that I don't really understand really quickly. I haven't looked into it since I got a Claude Code membership though, so it might be worth revisiting with AI assistance.

I've got a Sony TV with Google TV (not connected to internet) that turns on pretty quickly.

If it's going from a cold boot e.g. where it was unplugged or if it's doing a full reboot it takes a bit longer and shows a splash screen, but if it's turning on from a regular "off" state it takes about the same amount of time as the rest of my dumb screens and goes directly to the last used input.

My google dongle got progressively worse and worse. Frequent disconnects, I found out you had to like orientate it a special way, youtube kept having issues. Dumped it and switched to my built in LG OS (WebOS based I think). Works fine, does basically the same thing as my Google dongle did without the slow degradation march

Some TVs have an “instant on” feature that uses some more watts but only ever turns the backlight/screen off.

Same here! none of my home Tvs, most LG and Samsung, have ever seen w Wifi password. Always putting firestick on it and call it a day. At least firestick I can unplug throw away, God only knows what updates TV does that I obviously cannot revert.

> Always putting firestick on it and call it a day.

Aren't you just letting amazon collect and monetize your viewing habits while allowing them to push ads at you? Avoiding ads and data collection are the reasons I'd want to leave my TV offline in the first place.

Option A: use Amazon Prime Video to watch shows. Share your viewing habits with Walmart/Vizio and Amazon.

Option B: use Amazon Prime Video to watch shows. Share your viewing habits with Amazon.

Using a firestick means amazon collects data on what you watch regardless of the platform you view it on. Also ads.

I have more control over where Amazon shows me ads versus my own TV. Someone will always collect the data, I prefer USA's Amazon does it than Singaporean's Samsung. And I never seen Ads on Firestick, BUT that could be because I'm prime member, which actually works very well in my zip code (there is Amazon distribution Hub about 10 minutes away from my home)

> I never connect my smart TVs to the network, I just plug in my Apple TV and move on.

You're not alone.

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