CostCo sells several brands, but in particular Sony, that they have arranged to ensure that these TVs are fully functional when you decline the T&Cs and never connect it to the Internet. It is the only reason I currently own a "smart" TV, is because I could be reasonable certain that this was controllable. Otherwise, I'd probably only use projectors right now because these are still commonly purchaseable at consumer pricing without "smart" features that are unskippable.
> CostCo sells several brands, but in particular Sony, that they have arranged to ensure that these TVs are fully functional when you decline the T&Cs and never connect it to the Internet.
Do you have a reference for this? I guarantee that it would be interesting for people.
I had seen it on Hacker News in the past, and so I ended up buying a Sony A80CJ 65". The CJ vs the J is that the CJ is the CostCo model. It has three differences, as far as I am aware:
1. CostCo models have 3-year manufacturer warranty instead of 1 year. (mine bundled coverage through AllState to make it 5 years warranty total)
2. CostCo models have a physical switch for the built-in microphone (used for Google Assistant, Alexa, and tuning audio for the built-in speakers) to turn it off. Mine is turned off and left off out of the box. [2]
3. In the fine print on superscript 2 in the spec sheet[1]: "Use of TV without connecting to a Google account allows only basic TV features and certain apps."
So #3 there, basically means if you don't accept the T&Cs and connect the TV to the Internet it acts like a dumb display with just support for HDMI, etc inputs. I am using mine with an Xbox Series X connected to it and that's how I watch Netflix, as an example, or play games with Game Pass. The TV itself has never had an Internet connection, and all /display/ features work perfectly fine, it just doesn't do anything "smart" in basic mode. In basic mode it basically reverts to a dumb TV. It also doesn't nag you after you make a choice.
This differs from the non-CostCo models, which in some instances /force/ you to connect to the Internet and accept the T&Cs within some time frame in order to be useable. As far as I am aware, CostCo has agreements with most manufacturers to produce CostCo specific SKUs and always enforces points #2 and #3 for these TVs. It's the primary reason I bought my TV through CostCo.
I almost can't believe that there's a place where you can specifically buy a product that's not (or less) user hostile (there's a reason all the manufacturers have jumped on this train).
Does Costco do stuff like this in more instances? Are they for real some kind of consumer super heroes?
> Are they for real some kind of consumer super heroes?
I'm reluctant to call any company a super hero, but, costco does some fairly great stuff aside from this TV thing (which I wasn't even aware of).
Costco are fairly famous for cost optimizing with their vendors, but, in contrast to how others do it they have a much different model from what i've read and heard. They try to help their vendors to optimize their own costs and thereby sell things cheaper by using their extensive operational knowledge to help them both understand their own cost structures and what they can do to reduce their costs. Unlike most other brands they then just pass that savings on to members. Many other companies would chose to use this information gathering to undercut their vendors and eventually supplant them and/or force them out of business (I'm looking at Amazon as the prototypical company here for this bad behaviour) but costco seems to value their relationships more and doesn't really do this (see https://www.trendymatter.com/fast-gallery/these-big-name-bra...).
Anyway, i'm hesitant to canonize any corporation but I do love their food.
I really like costco, but I'm not sure if they are that mindful.
I bought a treadmill from costco, a proform 2000 pro.
It said stuff in a weasely way 1-year iFit membership included (internet required for ifit).
I didn't care about that at all.
I just plugged it in and after a bunch of "now lets set up your treadmill" screens and asking for wifi access... you can see "manual mode" in the corner of the screen.
That's all you get. You can press start and then press the speed or incline buttons but nothing really useful.
I called them and they said there are canned workouts that will unlock if you connect it to the internet, but without doing that, you only get manual mode. jerks.
I also got an A80 in Europe and never accepted the TC and never signed in with Google. Have an Apple TV and a console. Even if the whole Bravia Sync doesn't work by any chance, if the TV is on and the Apple TV or console are not, I only see the Sony screensaver and nothing else. The whole home screen is empty because I'm not signed into Google, but I don't even remember how to get there, because you can just use the Apple remote or PS controller to turn it on and off - meaning that I also never used the TV remote.
I do exactly the same thing. My remote was used once to adjust the picture when I first bought it but has never been used since. I've never connected it to Wifi and it more or less acts as a dumb display.
Sounds pretty much how I use mine. I just turn on the Xbox Series X, and via CEC it turns the TV on, once I'm done, I turn off the console and the TV turns off. In basic mode it doesn't even list the "apps" on the TV, so you can't even accidentally click on them. From the Sony remote its just input controls, settings, and the home screen which is just a list of inputs.
My girlfriend just bought a Hisense Fire TV from Amazon and it has a basic mode you can choose at setup. Choosing basic mode allows use of OTA, HDMI inputs and a limited number of apps. She enabled basic mode but not because of any privacy concerns. She just doesn't like Fire TV and uses a Roku 4K streaming device which she moved from her dead Samsung TV to it.
> I guarantee that it would be interesting for people.
I second that. Will need a new TV soon and before buying a much more expensive signage display I would consider a SmartTV that would work as "dumb" screen without complaining, or worse, forcing me to connect it to the Internet.
Without internet there is no guide data for off-air TV even though it is not only part of the ATSC stream, Sony is decoding it. I know this because the pop up menu for the channel line has the name and time of the program being watched. That had to come off air if the internet is disabled.
Declining everything and setting up the TV as “basic” still has the underlying Google TV OS reaching out to the Play store, Android update, plus something in the Google IP block in China. Yes, China. And three net blocks from Microsoft.
Carefully selecting and permitting only the AWS Cloudfront net block will restore guide data, but it will cause the Google TV OS to howl loudly about no internet access. Allowing it to hit www.google.com shuts most of it up, but I will be poking at the OS to find out what needs to be shut off. Developer mode is available.
Sony is not using anything to report what the user is watching, network traffic is non-existent when viewing something on HDMI inputs.
This was not a cheap TV, Sony promised they would honor my requests not to be monetized, but my need for their guide data suggests otherwise (PSIP is not entirely broken, just slow). That doesn’t matter, Google is there to pick up the slack on the over the shoulder browsing.
It will be relegated to HDMI use only, just like the Samsung it replaced.
I was unaware of this, as I haven't had "TV" service in more than a decade. In basic mode, connected to HDMI, it allows for all display features. Good information, and a good thing for folks to consider if they intend to actually use TV directly.
TV's have 5g modems and activated sim cards in them? Has anyone taken one apart and tested if the sim card could be used elsewhere? Seems like a great target for people who want free internet access.
I too have a LG C1 55" from Costco but it did have a few nag screens to connect to the internet during setup. I ignored those and eventually an image appeared on HDMI 1 but the process wasn't really clear. That's my recollection.
I have an LG C8 OLED. I wanted the convenience of a smart TV without being tracked so I carefully went through every setting and turned it all off. I followed an article detailing what all the tracking settings were, how to disable them, etc.
I deliberately disabled all tracking options years ago.
Imagine my surprise a couple of weeks back when I looked in the settings. All of it was magically enabled again. Personalised ads, screen recognition, you name it, all switched on. How long for is anyones guess.
Thats why I use a cheap external box. Doestnt matter whether its firetv, appletv, chromecasr or anything. Unplug the power when u r done watching. Its so easy this way.
You just have to be aware of what your external boxes are collecting. Roku for example takes multiple 4k screenshots every second and uploads them to their servers to analyze so that they can see and track what you're watching and when.
I'd assume firetv, appletv, even the PS5 I use to watch streaming services on my TV is doing basically the same thing.
Apple collects much of the same data (and more) and they use it to push ads at you and for whatever else they want. They also sell that data to third parties including "information about your transactions and viewing activity, as well as aggregated user demographics such as age group, gender (which may be inferred from information such as your name and salutation in your Apple ID account), and region"
Remember, what companies consider to be "non-personal information" is often extremely personal. It's often trivial to identify an individual based on "anonymized" or "non-identifying" data, and even aggregated data my not be enough to prevent individuals from being identified.
It's not clear what "disabling ACR when Apple services were in use" actually means in practice. I'd guess it means that Apple TV+ content isn't being snooped on directly by anyone except apple, but it's hard to say.
Personally, I believe Apple is the "least worst" in this regard, and I'm willing to accept that they provide "some non-personal information" to "Apple TV strategic partners, such as content owners, so that they can measure the performance of their creative work, meet royalty and accounting requirements, and improve their associated products and services."
We may receive information about the browsers and devices you use to access the Internet, including our services, such as device types and models, unique identifiers including advertising identifiers (e.g., for Roku Devices, the Advertising Identifier associated with that device), MAC address, IP address, operating system type and version, browser type and language, Wi-Fi network name and connection data, and information about other devices connected to the same network. We may also gather the WiFi MAC addresses and broadcast signal strengths of your router and other Wi-Fi routers in your area. For Roku Devices, we may also collect the name of the retailer to whom your Roku Device was shipped, various quality measures, error logs, software version numbers, and device status (including the status of battery-powered accessories). When you enable Bluetooth while using Roku Services, we may collect your Bluetooth usage, such as connection quality, the name of the device connected to your Roku Device, and the start and stop time of your connection.
Quoting from B.3:
If you use the Roku Media Player to view your video or photo files or listen to your music files, Roku will collect data about the files viewed within the Roku Media Player, such as codecs, and other metadata of the local files you play through the Roku Media Player.
When you use a Roku TV with the Smart TV experience enabled, we use Automatic Content Recognition (“ACR”) technology to receive information about what you watch via the Roku TV’s antenna (including live television content and ads), and via devices connected to your Roku TV (including streaming players, consoles and cable and satellite set top boxes). For example, we collect TV viewing information such as the programs, commercials, and channels you view, the date, time and duration of the viewing, and how you use the on-screen TV guide. We collect TV viewing information both when you access live TV directly through your Smart TV’s interface and when you access live TV from within a Third-Party Channel. If the Smart TV experience is enabled on your Roku TV, we will use this information to personalize your TV viewing experience and ads.
Or quoting III.B:
We may disclose personal information (including Roku account registration information when you sign up with the channel or content provider, and information about your interactions with their content and the Roku Services), with partners whose services are available through the Roku Services such as providers of Third-Party Channels, Roku Direct Publisher Channels and other content providers on the Roku Services.
No doubt apple is better than Roku. Roku is possibly the worst when it comes to privacy. A while back Mozilla reviewed some products for privacy and even then it wasn't pretty:
> One of the researchers working on this guide said, "It had such a scary privacy policy, I didn't even connect it to my TV." Another researcher referred to Roku as a "privacy nightmare." (https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/roku-st...)
That's unavoidable. Unfortunately to watch 4k hdr videos you have to use some tv boxes. You can't do it on pc. By physically limiting the tv box usage, they only have the data just about the video that I am watching with. I guess that's fine
If you give the TV internet access it will still identify the content and share it with advertisers, even if you are using an external box. If you don’t give it access, some have been observed connecting to open networks nearby.
Beware of any nearby open WiFi network, as the TV will try to use it, and don't forget HDMI cables with Ethernet compatibility; if the TV doesn't connect to the Internet, the external box almost certainly will, and the TV would immediately use it to get online as well.
What good does unplugging it when it’s not in use provide? Surely it wants to share information about how you use it not how you weren’t using it. I guess if it has a built in vouce assistant or something but that’s not something hard to avoid.
I've swapped my RPi 4 with a "liberated" (0) used Chromebox with Kodi (1) installed and I couldn't be happier; the performance gain compared to the RPi is huge while power consumption isn't much higher.
I have one of the GoogleTV dongles. It was great for the first 6 months in 2021. Nowadays it's laggy and user-hostile, constantly pushing paid streaming options. The input lag and app startup lag began after forced system updates. I cannot recommend such a piece of trash device.
Thinking of getting an AppleTV instead, haven't gotten around to it yet.
They have "smart" power strips that have this functionality, they watch a "TV outlet" and when that stops drawing significant power (Tv turned off) they shut off the other outlets (I think it was designed for dvd players and surround sound amps/ cable boxes).
though doing this with a raspberry pi is more fun.
i've had the belkin version of this for some years, the Conserve Smart AV (unfortunately discontinued): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0085Q722A . i have my tv as the master switch and my apple tv on an always on outlet so that it's the only other device that can wake my tv via CEC (it's my home hub as well, so need to keep it powered continuously). (edit:) oops, just remembered my A/V receiver is also plugged into an always-on outlet and can turn on the tv via CEC as well.
both have been handy and going strong. i'm still puzzled why belkin basically discontinued the conserve line of products. seemed like the logical launch off point for their smart home stuff (now under the wemo brand name).
I've had an LG C2 OLED for almost a month. Turned off all those settings. So far so good, but will be keeping an eye out.
Before this TV I just used a first gen 4k Apple TV, but I noticed it was a bit stuttery and didn't support as many formats so I've been using the native TV apps. Maybe I rushed too quickly on that.
LG C1 OLED here, and my setup is rather simple and has been going just fine with zero issues for over a year now (with no update requests or anything like that).
I set it up normally at first, but software updates and such were annoying. LG TV has been connected to my router using wifi, so I simply clicked the "block internet connection for this device" in my router settings, and that was the end of my issues.
As for how I deal with outdated apps and such on the smart tv, I have never used them in the first place. AppleTV has been hooked to the LG TV the entire time, and all apps are used from the AppleTV side. Haven't had a single "update your tv software" dialogue even once since then.
This isn't limited to smart TVs. Every internet enabled device can do the same thing. When you allow someone other than yourself to remotely access and modify the software running on your devices they stop being "your" devices and companies will happily disregard your stated preferences and make whatever changes are beneficial for them.
The only way to have any control at all over your devices is to make sure that nobody else is able to modify them without your consent. Keeping our devices offline isn't always possible. Our computers and phones typically depend on internet access to stay useful, but you can at least make sure your TV is never connected to the internet.
It probably gets reset when it loses wall power. My TV resets some of the settings every time, I have to go back and edit it - it's very annoying. Sony Bravia.
Yeah, that'd be my guess too. Either that or an update.
Regardless it's convenient that it forgets my tracking preferences, defaults to the most permissive options possible, and doesn't forget all my other settings.
Of only the humanity could invent something what could store the settings even in absrnse of power. Maybe it could be called like a non-volatile random acess memory, or something like that.
I have been reading tech folks lament the disappearance of dumb screens for years.
I finally bought my first new TV in 2020, a Sony with Android TV. I have never connected it to the Internet. Instead, it displays an AppleTV or a gaming machine.
It has been an amazing reliable display at a reasonable price, every bit as good as the imagined ideal dumb TV.
So why all the pearl clutching? Do other brands require Internet to turn on and display HDMI?
I bought a new Samsung TV about a year ago. It has smart stuff that I don't care to use as I have a PC connected and a Chromecast w/ Google TV. I just want it to display HDMI signals generated by one of those devices.
On initial power-on, the TV aggressively pushed me to set up internet access and accept a terms & conditions statement. It took some degree of dancing to find a way past the setup wizard without completing these.
I am very careful when I select inputs. If I hit the Input button on the remote to switch between devices, I need to make sure I go no further than one step left or right to select the other input. If I go too far, the next selections will tell me that I have still not set up internet and accepted the t&c's and I must do so before I use the feature. This happens regardless of whether I press 'Enter' to actively select them.
I've actually had much your opinion for years, but the TV manufacturers really are stepping up their game. My previous Samsung smart TV I was able to use the "just don't configure it" approach and everything was peachy. The landscape is changing.
I specifically bought a Samsung 'digital signage' display instead of a 'TV' because that was the closest I could find to a dumb TV, and I have the same experience. There is an accept terms & conditions popup that requires the internet that takes up the bottom third of the screen which comes up basically when doing anything with that involves the TV remote.
Even if you do accept the terms the conditions, it comes back as soon as you are disconnected from the internet. I am extremely disappointed with the experience.
I do volunteer IT work for a private school. One of the TVs quit working. It would turn on, but you couldn't select any of the inputs (eg HDMI). It wouldn't work until I registered it online with a verified email address and went through a long (multi-page) process on their website, where it asked me for all my favorite TV shows, used dark patterns to imply I needed to give them a Credit Card, etc.
Heh, I can't wait until one of these 2-bit TV manufactures goes out of business and the update website gets co-opted by some hackers that write a new firmware update that asks for things like peoples CC to use it.
Because it's part of a trend of our possessions turning hostile to us. It's hardware that you pay for and supposedly own, that betrays you, spies on you and acts against your interest, covertly or at least discreetly.
That you are for now able to prevent it is besides the point. An implementation detail, that will change as soon as our corporate masters want it to.
This sort of business relies on the normalization of these practices through slow, incremental, change.
Unfortunately, it seems to be working. Younger people see being measured, tracked, and advertised to as table stakes for having access to anything.
I don't blame the younger folks for this, as much of the motivation for acceptance is the economics involved. They may not be able to afford all the 'requirements' of modern living if they had to pay the 'i am not the product' premium.
I once worked on part of a project for a certain kind of set-top streaming box (no, not one you've likely ever heard of).
In discussions with the client they explained that it was impossible to get lower than about double the cost of a comparably-powerful Roku and still turn a profit, without supplementing with income from spyware, advertising, and various "partner programs" on the box. Which makes it damn hard to sell the things unless you've got some other angle to work (so, Apple can pull off $250 streaming boxes, but some new company? They better have a really good pitch, and they're gonna struggle more than they otherwise might to get on store shelves, which is a whole other thing). In our case they did have a niche they were targeting that meant they didn't want or need advertising and such, but the price point still hurt, and they couldn't do better without getting into adware and spyware.
There are tvs that will stop working if they don't get an active connection to update/get new ads/send telemetry after some period of time. There are tvs that will simply connect to any open wifi network that they can.
These traits are slowly but surely becoming unavoidable if you're looking for a higher quality screen.
Cached ad insertion in front of the video signal from connected devices is inevitable.
> These traits are unavoidable if you're looking for a higher quality screen.
That is not true. For TVs is an inverse relationship between quality and how aggressive the "smart" parts are.
The open WiFi thing was some low end Samsung, and it's been a long while since I've seen an open WiFi network that doesn't have a captive portal that would block the connection.
And I've never seen a TV that would refuse to work without an internet connection, and I can't imagine anything but the most bottom end no-name TV trying to pull that.
How frequent are such hackers running such experiments in the general population? I'd say you have better odds having your house robbed and smart TV stolen.
> There are tvs that will simply connect to any open wifi network that they can.
Don't bring it to the airport or out shopping? Who has an open wifi network in range of their home? (I'm out of touch though, I live in the woods, and can only occasionally see my neighbor's networks, I get to use all the channels for myself, muhahaha)
> Cached ad insertion in front of the video signal from connected devices is inevitable.
Nobody is willing to run an ad program with cached ads. I tried to set one up at my previous job, because it made more sense than live ads, but nope... not going to happen; advertisers want real time control and stats.
As a data point, I run an open SSID with QoS limiting throughput to 1.5 Mbps that permits only ports 80 and 443. It's enough for someone to check their email (or homework).
I have open WiFi. If you are close enough to receive a signal from my WAP, you are already on my property (or intentionally using a high gain directional antenna.)
There are stories of TVs just using open wifi, for one. Two, cheap 5g will probably let the TV manufacturers have a cheap way to get ads without wifi and send back screenshots of what you're watching like they do now over wifi. So the workarounds you mention are probably short term.
this is surprisingly simple to countermeasure, just pull the SMA antennae leads from the board, and cap the connectors with a few drops of metallic fingernail polish.
for surface-mount antennae (which cant be used for 5g or 5ghz wifi) you would just brush the same metallic fingernail polish on the trace :)
And this is why I have avoided buying a smart TV for almost ten years now. A TV is a consumer product. I should not have to open it up and modify the fucking hardware just to make it work how I want.
You didn't buy a smart TV for ten years because of a (frankly unlikely) hypothetical?
I've bought smart TVs, not connected them to WiFi, and that was the end of it.
You can hear whispers about all kinds of sneaky things like refusing to work, but some of the best TVs out right now are LG smart TVs that will function completely identically to a dumb TV if you don't connect them to the internet.
No, this is just one of many reasons I haven't yet bought a smart TV. I probably will give in this year, but only because I can finally afford something much larger than what I have today.
Here's the thing: At the end of the day, a smart TV has capabilities that I don't need or want, including to change how it functions without warning or consent. However unlikely the possibility is, a smart TV still has the capability to connect to an open network, phone home, and start doing shit I don't want, which means I have to trust it to not do that.
On the other hand, my old dumb TV has none of those capabilities, so I can trust it precisely because I don't need to trust it. I know it can't do anything except display what it receives on its inputs.
Therefore, any time I've considered replacing my TV with a newer one, I've always weighed predictability against uncertainty and opted in favor of the predictability of what I own.
Maybe that's overly paranoid of me, but at the end of the day, I just haven't wanted a new TV as much as I've wanted something I can trust.
I can also vouch for LG not doing anythign scummy. Do you even have open wifi near your TV? I don't, all the dozens of neighborhood routers are all password protected by default from the telecom. You'd have to intentionally make an open network these days, unlike 15 years ago when the situation was the opposite.
I live in an apartment complex with a lot of neighbors and a fair amount of churn, so I have actually seen open networks nearby. I also can't be sure that someone won't move in and create a new one.
What are you odds for living near a 2 bit hacker wannabe? Plus if they were actually malicious, I'm sure there's worse things that are more effective they could do than making your TV update its firmware without your consent.
Name and shame them then. Everyone says these things about certain smart TVs but no one warns which ones they actually are that are doing these things. Mine doesn't, LG 40" 1080p LED smart tv, so put that one in the good list.
My vehicle has a cellular internet connection that I cannot easily disable. My insurance company is among the many that would love to get at that data. TV's are valuable enough that such a connection will be coming to them too eventually.
Because the idea that a TV can spy on me is pretty repulsing. To be in compliance with the GDPR I suppose it should be pretty easy to disable, but the fact is that some moron thought that this was ever a good idea to begin with is infuriating. I don't think it's pearl clutching, it's anger, directed at both the manufacturer and the rest of the population that either doesn't know or care that they viewing habits are being tracked.
Still I just take the same route as you, my TV is just never going to touch the internet. The angry part in me just want the EU to force TVs to display a small blink light in the corner of the screen anytime viewing data is leaving the TV.
Everything is being tracked anyways along with personal identifiable information on the internet, smartphone, security cams, HDMI box etc. Why the hate towards TV's? Is it bad or do people just hate ads?
I bet all the people crying here would agree to sell their info for tracking for $20 amazon gift card.
> I bet all the people crying here would agree to sell their info for tracking for $20 amazon gift card.
That's a foolish bet you would loose then. Some of us already directly pay extra for privacy.
It's not just TVs, it's tracking in general for ad or for anything else. If you want to be tracked then I have no problem with that but I just want to be left alone.
Privacy is an illusion at this point if you connect to the internet and do stuff. It's just who has your data and how they are using it.
If you want to be left alone then start using usb drives and air gapped laptops. Still you can't stop your personal data like bank details,addresses,SSN etc to not be available since you probably use a public/private banking system.
Once people figured out they can become billionaires off of other peoples data and governments got involved for national security the individuals privacy online is all but a myth.
I have one of the TVs mentioned in the article, a TCL Roku TV, and I do the same as you: Apple TV only, never hooked the TV up to the internet. Very reliable, cheap, and dumb.
I think most people just balk at the price of an external media device when their TV has “it” (but of course not the same quality “it”) built in, and so they end up with a crappy, data-mining, ad-riddled, experience. You get what you pay for.
Did you pay cash for your TV? If not, then the retailer knows the serial # of the TV they sold you and who you are. If they partner with the manufacturer and share the sales data back to them (why wouldn't they? More $$$) then the TV maker has your identity.
What do you think is the probability of somebody random sitting in front of a TV right now being the person who bought it? I'd think it's fairly low. At some point of uncertainty, targeted advertising stops making sense and becomes counterproductive.
On the other hand I bought a smart TV for youtube and other movie streaming apps.
I am in UK and don't even need live TV and pay its licencing fee. Smart TV where I can watch movies, songs, play videos from my phone or computer is the TV i need.
My major gripe is that my smart tv updates its software all the time. When it does, it always seems to break some functionality. I often consider going back to my smaller "dumb" TV just to get away from the constant headache of wondering how to fix an streaming service that was previously working just fine. I am probably an outlier in the HN community in that I don't generally spend a lot of time customizing my electronics. For the general user like me, default settings in a smart tv can be a bad time.
Because we are going back to feudalism in terms of personal rights and freedoms.
In 15 years will own no major possessionns - your electronics, car and appliances can be shut down remotely at any time because you make a tweet elon musk didn't like. And Asset Inflation will ensure noone owns a house. Na dyour door lock will be smart, so if you are behind on rent they will lock you out same day.
And people on here will be chanting 'they are a private conoany they can do what they want'
Also privacy-preserving practices and behaviors already nowadays flag or shadow ban the user assuming one is a bot or profile them as bad actors. Sometimes more content and services are exposed once the user reveals more personal data (e.g. browsing web through mobile phone vs. through PC with ads blocked). We are aiming into a very evil reality and there doesn't seem to exist anything stopping it.
AppleTV, by dint of being a product of a hardware company that has made privacy a part of its appeal, doesn't monetize your data. I have no doubt Apple can tell what we watch, but since they're not selling the data or using it to run ads on the device it doesn't bother me.
How can you tell in advance if a TV needs to be connected to the internet to work? We just plug computers/iPhones to ours via HDMI, and we never connect the TV directly to the internet.
The last thing we'd want is to get a TV home, get it unwrapped and plugged in, and then have to take it back because it won't turn on without an internet connection. And I wouldn't trust a Best Buy salesperson to be knowledgeable/honest about this.
I realize there are some signage brands that never require this, but often there are great deals on Samsung/Vizio/etc. units at Best Buy/Costco, and I'd rather get one of those if I can use it in offline mode.
I wish a reputable manufacturer would just make "dumb TVs" (aka monitors). I don't even need a TV tuner, just a display panel with the latest HDMI, ARC and CEC support such that I can control all features from my media player's remote (including turning on/off the TV, sound, etc.)
There are things like AW5520QF, but they tend to cost 3x - 4x as much as a TV with the same exact panel because of all the "gamery" features.
The article says that regular "smart" TVs are being sold at or near cost. That means conceivably sone manufacturer could sell a dumb TV at just 50% markup and still make a nice profit. I think that's what the grandparent post is wishing for. It's true there are those expensive reference monitors and so forth, but those are overpriced because they're geared for the corporate market. There's nothing comparable geared for the ordinary consumer. Honestly despite the frequent calls for their production, there probably isn't enough demand to sustain a dumb TV consumer market. It's like how small-screened smartphones never sell as much as you'd expect given the Internet's seeming love for them.
Anyway, I know nothing about the project but there is a WebOS root/jailbreak that works on some LG models. GP might want to look into it.
Is it possible that all the software that makes a TV "smart" is near zero marginal cost, but it can be used to market and sell a lower quality panel. Whereas the higher quality panel will sell itself due to being higher quality.
I have also never been bothered by the "smart features" of Sony TVs. I just do not connect it to a network.
Pretty much this. The "smart" features of a TV really don't cost much at all, and make a TV a LOT more marketable. Given that perspective, why would a TV manufacturer choose to remove the smart features from the TV? This wouldn't enable them to sell the TV for a lower price.
I've found the opposite to be true, gaming monitors have a ton of specs that their buyers will sacrifice panel quality for, and manufacturers take full advantage of it.
You won't find normal users willingly playing the panel lottery for example
(for those not familiar, that's buying $1,000+ monitors knowing there's a good chance you'll need to return them because of panel defects, and just returning them until you find one that's acceptable)
I wonder if this is going to be a market. I would also like "dumb" options, to more than just TVs, and I'm hearing the sentiment elsewhere. Probably expensive and considered niche or high end?
Why not just buy a dumb TV and not connect it to WiFi?
There's been a bunch of gnashing of teeth about how they'll connect to open WiFi networks, but I can't remember the last time I came across a public WiFi network without a captive portal that would block their attempt to phone home. That seems to have died off in the last few years.
And if you're prone to tinkering you can just as easily connect one through an SBC and block all traffic
> I can't remember the last time I came across a public WiFi network without a captive portal that would block their attempt to phone home.
Better yet, how many open WiFi networks are there around your house? For me, the answer is currently 0. People don't leave their WiFi open today like they did 15-20 years ago. Even the wireless hotspot feature on your phone makes you use WPA.
Yes they do. From my 1st WRT54G to my latest AX mesh, I have never had a WiFi password. My friends and family that were visiting over the Holidays apricated it. Everyone used it, no one asked me for the password.
Are people still Wardriving? Even if they are, the odds of a malicious hacker coming to my neighbored is up there with getting stuck by lightning. Not losing sleep over it. Why should I?
1) Besides access control, having an unencrypted WiFi network is not great because your entire internet/local traffic is open to be sniffed. High-gain antennae, etc. You are essentially screaming the contents of (what would be) your ethernet cable into the void.
2) Access control is exactly the point. I suppose you could ban the TV's MAC address from your open network (and I suppose a sufficiently malicious TV firmware could randomize its MAC address), but your stated purpose (allowing open network access) is not exactly compatible with what you presumably wish to do (disallow network access to a smart TV).
Wifi encryption is the wrong layer anyway. Point to point tls is what you want to depend on. and sometimes I dream of the never realized ad-hoc ipsec connection, the actual correct layer to do encryption on. but ipsec was killed by it's own incompatible complexity, so tls is a good second best.
I run an open access point and depend on tls or ssh to protect my traffic.
The amount of risk people will subject themselves to in exchange for a marginal at best increase in convenience never ceases to amaze me.
There are a dozen good reasons why every piece of consumer grade networking hardware released in the past 15 years is not configured this way by default.
Sounds like its time for a wifi password unless you want all your neighbors smart TVs using your bandwidth to update firmware and send telemetry and download ads :)
Amazon is working on things like Matter which is just turned on by default on all Alexa devices and I'm sure they'll sell access to this "backchannel" if they're not already using it.
And there is precedent with Apple for example using everyone's phones to send airtag location data (enabled by default), or Xfinity / Comcast opening a second SSID (hidden or not) if you use their modem / gateway combo.
You don't need to have any of those things, it's enough that your neighbors do for future "unconnected" smart TVs in your home to piggyback on.
I monitor my TV and it attempts all sorts of dirty tricks, calling home via HTTP on different ports, large DNS packets to random AWS IPs, all sorts of things that might work on a captive portal network.
Subcategories of this include things like "digital signage monitors" and "hospitality monitors". For example, here's a B&H search for those subtypes which support 4K and are 65" or larger.
Commercial displays often omit consumer oriented features like "gaming" / low latency modes and modern display technologies like microled carry even larger premiums than the consumer alternatives.
ATSC is a pretty awesome standard. There's parts of the newer ATSC standard that even supports 4k over the air. Other parts are more concerning from the data tracking perspective but it seems like there's an opportunity for a SmartTV that actually acts in the user's interest that is actually desirable and has a tuner.
I have a smart LG connected to a blu-ray player and a computer for gaming/streaming. It has never been joined to the wifi. It is hooked to the network for firmware updates via cat5 wire, but that wire is physically unplugged all the time. If I want something streamed, I stream it off the computer. I've not seen any degradation from the TV, it just works. Problem solved?
LG TVs can be updated from a USB drive. This lets you get firmware updates without needing to do a factory reset to remove the ads that would otherwise be downloaded when you connect to the internet.
If a TV is being used only as a display for external devices such as Apple TV or gaming consoles, it is a reasonable assumption to assume the TV will never need a firmware update.
At least in my 15 years of using flat panel TVs, I have never seen a need for a firmware update.
> At least in my 15 years of using flat panel TVs, I have never seen a need for a firmware update.
Never had any HDMI negotiation issues or CEC issues or OTA demuxer crashes, I guess? Or adaptive backlight dimming issues... Lots of software in TVs these days.
HDMI version updates may cause machines with older decoders to not work without an update. Its no biggie until you attach a streaming service dongle and it can't send its encrypted HDMI.
Smart TV companies are going to begin to move to tech like this to pick up the telemetry when a jogger comes by with an airtag type device in their wallet:
It could happen with one of the firmware updates you plug in for, and when you plug in it could also dump stored telemetry, in some cases (Samsung) including screenshots of your desktop if you use your TV as a monitor.
I have an LG C2 OLED that I have never connected to the internet. It's not cheap, but it's got a killer UI and works incredibly well. I dig that the remote is kinda like a wii controller in that you can physically move it around to use it like a pointer device. I stayed at an Airbnb this last week which had a similar LG model that was connected to the internet and while it was great to have all the streaming services online and available, it was kinda irritating to see all kinds of alerts and popups once in a while. Modern TV's are good as long as you keep them in the dark, at least I can say that for LG.
I have the same experience with my LG C2. One thing that I can recommend is buying a decent router that can segment LAN traffic. This way you can connect the TV to your local network to utilize the Homekit functionality, but block all outbound internet traffic.
I bought this same tv a month ago. I ended up connecting it to my wifi, actually. I hadn't planned to since I have an older 4k Apple TV but decided to try the native apps.
With ads and tracking turned off, I haven't seen any ads other than a single one on the homescreen, which I rarely use as it is, for a $25 off thing for LG's website.
Is there any concrete research on the behavior of smart TVs when you've disabled telemetry? I leave mine disconnected but I'm curious to what extent different brands actually honor the opt out settings that are available.
For those who are able, a pihole is a must when connecting a smart TV (or any other “smart” device for that matter) to the internet.
It’s shockingly disturbing the amount of traffic my Samsung TV produces, even when watching OTA stations. It easily queries Samsung cloud domains more than any other device on my network. Thankfully I am able to sinkhole all those requests without totally breaking tv functionality, but after paying hundreds of dollars for a television, I don’t need to give them any more of my data for financial gain.
Our TV is a 3-year-old Samsung that tried pretty hard to get us to let it on the network. We let it, for a little while, to get cool active wallpaper features, but eventually did a reset and disabled it. We've never used the built-in clients at all; we drive it from the home media receiver, so its ultimate source is the AppleTV, the BluRay player, or the cable box.
I don't think it's tried to get online on its own; it still shows outdated movies for streaming on its startup menu, and I assume those would update if it had newer data.
I expect this TV to last a while, but realistically I guess I'll probably have to buy one or two more. I'm 52; it's only my 5th TV in about 30 years of having one (and I guess we're mildly odd in that we only have one TV at a time).
Now that I'm thinking about it, I think I'm kinda surprised at which of my TVs was the longest-lived:
1. I bought a 27" tube TV in 1991 for a few hundred bucks. Still a student.
2. When it developed financially terminal issues, I bought a MUCH NICER 27" tube tv in 1996 for about a thousand. Picture was amazing. Flat TVs didn't really exist yet.
3. I won a big drawing at work in 2000, and used the proceeds to replace #2 with a 55" rear-projection MONOLITH of a Mitsubishi (about $3300), which was great because I'd moved and the 27" was too small for the new room.
4. Only 8 years later that Mitsubishi developed the Convergence Problem of Doom. Fixing it wasn't a good move, plus hang-on-wall TVs were available. We got a 47" Vizio LCD for about $1400.
5. A really good Black Friday deal in 2019 convinced us to upgrade to the 65" Samsung I mentioned above.
My understanding is that #1 was repaired and used for another year or two by a FOAF before dying the true death.
#2 I gave to my old roommate, who used it until like SIX YEARS AGO, no kidding. It was a fancy enthusiast TV (RCA's upmarket line), so I guess that tracks. Even then it was still working fine at nearly 20 years old; it just didn't have the connectors, capabilities, or the dimensions to be that guy's living room TV anymore.
#4 is, I think, still being used by a friend of our housekeeper, at 14 years.
The premium manufactures realized they would make far more money by selling spyware then an actual premium product. "Pay" for Windows and it still spys on you these days.
(I really wished they made an 85" when I was in the market a couple of years ago, instead I bought a TV from Costco and opened it up and disconnected the WiFi module before powering it up for the first time.)
> This all means that, whatever you’re watching on your smart TV, algorithms are tracking your habits. This influences the ads you see on your TV, yes, but if you connect your Google or Facebook account to your TV, it will also affect the ads you see while browsing the web on your computer or phone.
Definitely sucks that consumers don't really have alternative brands to choose from but personally, I don't have an issue with ad targeting and am happy to take the discount. What does bother me is that "smart" devices invariable take longer to start up than their "dumb" predecessors.
This sounds really crappy, from France perspective (and Europe, generally).
Our "smart" TVs are where the "smartness" is useless applications (mostly) but there is no requirement to be connected anywhere (that would be illegal), no ads (that would be illegal) and there are no options to get a TV that would be cheaper because it would show ads.
I thought that customer protection was stronger in the US, or that at least the customer needs where taken into account (like the whole buy-try-return (which we did not have until a dozen years ago))
What happens if you buy a used TV and the previous owner agreed to a bunch of TOS already? Should you just assume that a used TV has all imaginable tracking enabled?
After switching to Roku for my TVs (so much better than FireTV, at least), I find it easier to just get the TCL Roku TVs now. They're cheap, and have the Roku built right into them. Plus it's all in one remote, and I can even turn on my TV from my phone (handy when the kids misplace my remote). Heck, I can turn _off_ the TV from the other side of the house.
Just get a "display". See https://youtu.be/-epPf7D8oMk where Jeff Geerling talks about how great a TV his non-TV is. He has an NEC UHD Professional Display M551. He gets to control the software on the embedded Raspberry Pi. It's about $1700 but I think it's worth it.
Product link https://www.sharpnecdisplays.us/products/displays/m551
Anecdata: I bought a Toshiba 55M550KU a month or so ago. I've never plugged it into my wired network, and didn't give it my WiFi password. Yes, the main menu is focused around all the things I could do with Internet access, but all I have to do is choose "inputs" and I can configure it as I like with no "CONNECTION REQUIRED" barriers. This means I've never updated the firmware, but I'm guessing those updates would mostly benefit the complex (and changing) apps that I don't use.
My Sony Bravia never connected to the internet and has never been used to login to netflix or youtube. Though I use it regularly as a screen for a media center it isn’t smart enough to stay on for more than three hours at a time without me prodding the remote control which is only used to switch it on. As annoying as that sounds I imagine the only metrics it could be recording is how long it was on for as well as having nowhere to send the data to.
At least it's encouraging we're seeing more and more articles and awareness of these data collection practices. I'm hopeful we'll reach enough outrage (always seems to need to come to that).
The last "smart" tv I purchased (Costco) is working fine without an internet connection. Pihole blocks much of the telemetry being sent from the attached XBox. XBox has a Hauppauge USB tuner with OTA antenna for when I want to catch a local sports broadcast, etc.
>"Unlike in the smartphone market, which is dominated by a handful of big companies, low display prices allow more TV makers to enter the market:
They just need to buy the display, build a case, and offer software for streaming."
From a purely manufacturing perspective -- that does sound a whole lot easier than spec'ing out complete smartphone hardware -- sourcing and assembling those parts -- and coding a company's own in-house OS for it...
I wonder how much data traditional cable companies collect these days. Their services sure haven't gotten any cheaper.
I was very happy to ditch Comcast a few years ago but the streaming landscape has become so confusing that I am about to give up on trying to figure out what subscriptions I need to cobble together to watch the sports I am interested in.
I was excited to read about the new ultra wide monitors Samsung is announcing at CES, but to my dismay I read they come with "smart" features and apps and a "game center"... in a MONITOR. I hope this stuff is optional and able to be disabled, but I don't have a lot of hope.
I bought one of these. I needed a new screen and went to the local store.
Its a large 42" 4K Samsung monitor and it comes with a remote to use the built in youtube/netflics.. if I had given it internet access.
Its been a few months and even with not internet its still fine and hasn't tried any tricks (that I know of..).
The speakers are good, but its annoying to have to pay for a computer inside the monitor I'm not using.
The amount of research I had to do to buy my mother a new television that would work for regular antennae television and not require internet access was just ridiculous.
A lot of people asking why quality TVs, that don’t spy on you or force you to watch ads in their interface, aren’t available for those willing to pay more.
But these TVs are available [0] - I’ve recommended them many times on this site. I have one myself and been really happy with it for a few years.
The trouble is finding them for sale - they can no longer be bought anywhere directly here in Sweden, for instance.
That’s due to the biggest problem of all: finding buyers willing to pay more for a TV.
You can check (1) for a swedish conpany selling reasonably cheap TV's without all the smart stuff (they don't even have TV-antenna receiver). They are more or less just monitors with HDMI etc. Perfect for connecting an old linux laptop or something and make it a smart TV on your own terms (btw I'm not affiliated to the company by any means)
Loewe is expensive, I am pretty sure Sony doesn't make over 1k€ for each TV sold, also I have a Sony smart TV that is ~6 years old, it doesn't show any ads.
> That’s due to the biggest problem of all: finding buyers willing to pay more for a TV.
Looking at one dealer's website in the UK, they're selling a 65-inch LG OLED C2 for £1,700 which is on sale marked down from £2,700. The 65-inch Loewe OLED is £3,900 - more than twice the cost. The price differential isn't just a couple hundred more. It's a couple thousand more.
I think specialty items like this become tough because there isn't the same market pressure. With the LG OLEDs, there's pressure from Samsung, Sony, Vizio, and others on the price. Likewise, there's supply chain pressure - if LG and others start making more TVs, there is pressure to lower the price.
I think the issue is that there usually isn't an option for one to pay a small additional fee to opt-out of this garbage. For example, I don't think Roku, LG, or anyone is making £220/year off each customer (assuming a 10-year TV lifespan). That's the up-charge for the Loewe TV: £220/year for 10 years. If it were just an additional £100-300, I think some people would go for it. Instead, it's more than the price of a second TV.
I think the issue is that these TVs are way more than the revenue that spying companies are making off the data. For example, the article says that Roku makes around 83% of its $2.7B in revenue as "platform revenue". That includes both the ads and spying, but it also takes a cut of subscription revenue from services you sign up for. Let's generously say that two-thirds of that 83% is ads/spying. We're talking about $1.5B/year. Roku has 65M active accounts and I'm guessing an average of 2 TVs per account. So they're making maybe $12/year per Roku device. I'm not saying it's insignificant revenue. It's huge revenue when we're talking about all the users.
But there's no option for me to say "I'd rather pay the $12/year and avoid all the ads/spying." Instead, I need to spend 20x that to get away from the ads/spying.
To an extent, Apple fills this niche a bit, but not entirely. It would be great to see Loewe start selling Loewe os7 devices separate from their TVs. I think there could be a market for a $150-200 smart-TV device that wouldn't be so ad-driven - or maybe a $50 smart-TV device with a $15/year fee. It's hard to sell anything without recurring revenue in a world where you need to keep updating and supporting software. Still, $15/year is a tiny amount compared to the £3,900 TV.
Yes, a smart TV could still possibly do content recognition on what is displayed on the screen, but presumably HDCP should prevent that and I don't think a mainstream TV manufacturer would want to draw that amount of ire defeating copy protection. It would also be a lot of work on identifying the content without the ability to act on it. Sure, you now know what someone is watching, but they're using a platform that you don't control and can't serve ads on. If I'm using a Fire TV and they're spying on me, they can use that information to serve me ads, suggest other content someone has paid them to suggest, etc. If I'm using Loewe os7, they can't do the things that would earn them the money.
