Reposting this from here from 2023, after I stumbled across it tonight and it hits hard.
The text in the image:
I love my smart TV. I love the way it takes a long time to boot up because it’s trying to refresh the advertisements on the home screen. I delight in the way it randomly restarts because it’s downloaded an update without asking me, each of which makes the TV slower and slower with every subsequent install. I adore the way it buries the apps that I want to use, and that I use without fail every single time, below the apps that it’s being paid to promote and which I have never touched in my life and would never use without the cold metal of a glock pressed hard against my sweating temple. I am infinitely thrilled by the way the interface lags constantly, due to the need to have one thousand unnecessary animations rendered on hardware ripped wholesale from a ten year old phone. I feel myself borne aloft on wings of pure joy when I am notified that my data will be collected and analysed to determine my usage patterns. Even now I am writing this from a field of beautiful flowers and soft luscious grass as I lie and look up happily at the bright blue sky, smiling happily to know that this is the future of technology
You must log in or register to comment.
Last I looked, we could still buy commercial displays. They’re dumb TVs. They cost more, of course.
We have a Samsung “smart” TV, hooked up to an AppleTV box. The TV’s original remote is in a drawer somewhere, forever unused.
I have the apps that I need, the tiny Siri Remote turns on the TV and handles volume, and, apart from the aggressively, insanely, mind-blowingly horrible on-screen “keyboard” / text input (we don’t have Apple phones we can use to mitigate this, sadly. Also, what the fucking fuck, Apple?!) we’re happy. For now. I trust Apple to make the experience incrementally worse as a fact of life.
Not perfect, but leagues better than dealing with Samsung’s interface.
Can you give a recommendation? I too looked for big displays and found commercial ones to be used as digital billboards but the specs weren’t all that good (no oled, no hdr).
Ah! I was reading that post yesterday https://lemmy.world/post/22309068 as I am looking for a 55’ 4K oled dumb display.
So far no joy.
Apparently some manufacturers makes internet mandatory at first boot and even if you block or disconnect it later it will nag you for firmware update every now and then.
The only possibility I have found for an EU customer at the moment is Sony Bravia. Yup Sony sucks but apparently Bravia’s let you choose to refuse the terms of service and not use the smart things, thus making them dumb tv.
But maybe I’m wrong, maybe it’s not the case anymore or maybe they will decide to change that.
That sucks, if any of you knows about a commercial display/computer monitor/dumb tv in oled 4K hdr 55’ available in Europe, I might fall a little bit in love with you.
AFAIK, LG still do not require internet access on first startup.
At least on their medium/high end lines (C and G series).
This was a hard requirement for me. Mine has never been on the internet.That’s good to know, thanks.
But after my message this morning I decided to try out my xgimi projector in the living room instead of the bedroom.
It is perfect like that and I will give the tv (old LG 1080p). A bedroom is not a home cinema anyway, because you don’t want crumbs in the bed 🙄
I love having a projector in the living room.
I won’t lie, it gets used far less than I’d like.
But it cost me almost nothing, and it’s just fun to have a massive wall of video.To have a massive wall of video, you need to have a home spacious enough for a whole spare wall first! I haven’t seen a <1m screen that would fit in the kitchen corner my TV occupies on an arm - I don’t even think a projector would work with a screen this relatively small. And where would the projector itself go if opposite of that corner is the couch/bed? Sit on my lap?
I remember the ancient times when you could buy something, turn it on, then have it do what you want it to do. Setting the clock was the difficult part. Other than that, it just worked.
Learning ESPHome has been the most liberating thing. Take back control of your home. Local first. Privacy respecting.
I may never recover from this rabbit hole. ESPhome works with so much of the crap I already have.
I spy a research rabbit hole in my near future … 🐰
Edit: ESPHome is a system to control your microcontrollers by simple yet powerful configuration files and control them remotely through Home Automation systems.
I wish there was a company like Fairphone or Framework laptops but for TVs.
I’m surprised nobody has yet jail-broken Samsung and LG TVs and made a custom Tizen ROM
Probably too many models with too many varying components for anyone to bother trying…
I honestly wonder how hard it would be to do a full lobotomy on a smart TV and if there would be a big enough market for that kind of service.
best thing is to never hook 'em up to the internet. provided the manufacturers don’t all start requiring internet to ‘set up’ a tv.
next best thing would be a revert of firmware or a full ‘reset’ of settings; if possible. to return it to an ‘out of box’ state–then above, never connect it to the internet.
replacing a cheap streaming device is a hell of a lot cheaper than replacing the tv once the software gets obsoleted for whatever reason.
my coworker (and boss, technically) just casually mentioned that her inlaws ‘updated’ their tvs when they were visting over the holidays. i cringed so fucking hard because i have the same model, just smaller–so i know what happens.
they had just recently hooked-up wireline internet and could actually stream stuff now… so i had just given them a new streaming stick to use instead of connecting their now 3 year old tv to the wifi.
You’d still have the TVs default OS running on a potato. I’m thinking more along the lines of replacing that with a bare bones old school OS that was responsive.
I have heard that some TVs attempt to connect to every WiFi they can find using default credentials even if you never connect it yourself
default credentials
Wifi doesn’t have default credentials any more… These days, there’s legislation (at least in California) that requires default passwords to be randomly generated, but it’s recommended to have no default password at all and instead prompt the user for a password when setting up the device.
That’s why some access points have the default password either printed on the box or on the bottom of the device.
I have mine disconnected from the network, but a certain non-techie member of my household (who doesn’t understand this stuff) keeps re-connecting it when they want Netflix to work, even though I’ve shown them how to do this without connecting the TV to the network.
I connected it once, then set it in the router as „enable child protection -> disable internet access“, gave it a static IP address and also blacklisted that address on my pi hole so that DNS won’t work for it. Then I immediately disconnected it. The router recognizes the TV with its MAC address when it gets reconnected and immediately bans internet access when it gets reconnected.
There is a brand that makes dumb TVs.
https://www.sceptre.com/TV/4K-UHD-TV-category1category73.html
I’m in the market for a new tv and all this crap just makes me want to scream in frustration. But prolonging the decision will just make it even worse.
On top of that my 2017 shield is starting to show its age and there is really no comparable 4k (streaming) alternative thats not a security risk. I feel more and more pushed towards piracy, so that I can use my linux box and decide how and where to watch content. I hate it…
smart TVs mostly can be used as a dumb TV if you reject the terms of services when you set it up. I understand they are annoying, but people making such a big fuzz about them are clearly just fabricating drama.
You don’t even have to reject the terms of services, just never connect it to the internet. Not even once.
Won’t even be able to send rejections to a server.
I can recommend TLC, they can be used as a dumb TV and never need an internet connection if you just use it as a screen. Wouldn’t recommend them with internet though since the remote literally has a microphone build-in.
But I want to use the Internet. I want it to be able to access my network files and to cast video from my phone. Why does it have to be either all or nothing?
And the next generation my well have capability to connect to cell towers or something (for your convenience!). Or just refuse to work without internet access (for security!).
Consider an Android TV device. Fire TV Stick at the low end, Shield TV Pro at the high end. Not much point to anything in between.
Or a Raspberry Pi. Is more expensive ($60 for my Pi 3), but I think it was worth it due to versatility and privacy. Stock Android TVs would be uncomfortable as they spy on you.
I never understood why people hated smart TVs until one day mine decided to install an update that presents me with advertisements and a hub screen when I turn it on. If I don’t select something in time, the screen disappears, which locks all of the controls, and I can only reset it by turning it off and on again. Why??? Just why?!?!
