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).
