171–180 of 377 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
With TCL TVs, it's not hard to remove the wifi card. In the ones I've taken apart it's always just connected with USB internally.
Unless they implement some kind of hardware check against removing it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I tried, it was from Amazon and neither they nor Oneplus cared how or why it happened, I tried arguing that it was ridiculous that it happened but again, deaf ears, so I just let it be.
For that kind of money, you might want to get a bit of advice on the right words to use before giving up. The thing about "Your statutory rights are not affected" is that your statutory rights are not affected, whether they care or not. Even if you decide not to fight this one, please consider informing one of the major consumer rights organisations so if there is a design flaw and others are experiencing the same pr…
I had a case on the phone which I removed just an hour earlier because it was dirty underneath, and wit lockdown and working from home I wasn't leaving the house, I saw no need to put it back on, felt like Karma.
Yes I believe the design contributed significantly to it breaking, it just wasn't the time for me to add more stress trying to fight it.
I'm a strange way, it was a good thing, I'm a perfectionist, and having a broken screen put me off wanting to use my phone, that's a good thing in a weird way.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you missing an /s or are you saying that it shouldn't be done because it would enable e.g. use of radio hardware that goes against radio regulation? If you're really expressing concern, what do you think of e.g. modem modules for regular computers or SDR hardware?
> Are you missing an /s or are you saying that it shouldn't be done because it would enable e.g. use of radio hardware that goes against radio regulation Great question. I'm intentionally not answering it because I am not sure what I think. There are valid points on both sides. In part what I think depends on how evil evil people get.
Not even mentioning the hardware bits, I have been collaborating with postmarketOS for a while now, and believe that the main thing we need to make those devices longer-lasting would be an unlockable bootloader by law. This sounds so logical (why cannot I run, by voiding the warranty, any code I want on my machine, whatever it is?), yet apparently so hard to make openly illegal, since the problem is barely acknowledg…
In the US, at least, unlocking devices is legal as of 2015(?) through DMCA exemptions, which has been huge for recyclers and refurbishers. Still couldn't get game console unlocking through, but at least phones / tablets / other devices that are locked can be unlocked and resold. https://resource-recycling.com/e-scrap/2018/11/01/digital-de...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am sure there are plenty of qualified people doing the necessary due diligence to figure out which features, or perception of features, customers are willing to pay for. I doubt the executives at Sony, Samsung, LG, Vizio, Hisense, etc are sitting there and consciously choosing to keep people away from fast, dumb TVs for the hell of it. It is a cutthroat business with razor thin margins, no one is obviously making m…
> I doubt the executives at Sony, Samsung, LG, Vizio, Hisense, etc are sitting there and consciously choosing to keep people away from fast, dumb TVs for the hell of it. It is a cutthroat business with razor thin margins, no one is obviously making much money, so after all these years, I would surmise they are making decisions that allow them to stay in business after all these years. Again, at least part of why this…
Whoah. Can you imagine trying to make sure your iphone 4 still worked today?
I'm all for right to repair, but that seems a bit excessive, no?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am sure there are plenty of qualified people doing the necessary due diligence to figure out which features, or perception of features, customers are willing to pay for. I doubt the executives at Sony, Samsung, LG, Vizio, Hisense, etc are sitting there and consciously choosing to keep people away from fast, dumb TVs for the hell of it. It is a cutthroat business with razor thin margins, no one is obviously making m…
You would think that somewhere in the market there is a price point that means you get more powerful hardware in the TV. It really seems like the TVs at the entry level have the exact same hardware as TVs that cost 5 times as much or more. Surely that markup should afford hardware that is slightly faster and still produce a profit margin. If people are willing to pay 5x more for a panel their eyes can barely percieve…
Apparently not? That's my point, that these large TV manufacturers must have enough insight to know if something simple like that would be economical.
Why journalists don't call it as fraud? They spent money on drafting this legislation and this is not fit for purpose. But by the looks of it, big money must be behind it so it ticks the box, but does not actually change anything.
Because it's not fraud.
Fraud requires obtaining a valuable security by deception. That's not what's going on here. So it's not fraud.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Automatically connecting to an open WiFi network without being instructed to do so seems reckless to say the least. Are you aware of any TVs that are doing that?
Last I heard Samsung devices were doing this, I'll need to see if I can find the source again. Found it: https://old.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/bpr6xs/if_you_choo... Ugh. Looks like the contents of the post got deleted. But here's another example of devices getting sold with their own cellular connectivity preinstalled. https://venturebeat.com/2019/05/01/huawei-reportedly-plans-f...
Fortunately, some thoughtful person saved it in the Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20201003141448/https://old.reddi...
Contents:
So I just had a rather annoying experience. I own two Samsung Smart TVs, which honestly gave me the heebie jeebies to purchase. With that said, at the end of the day I decided that as long as I didn't hook it up to the net, I'd be good to go. I've been using them for a few years, and have felt pretty comfortable with the situation, so imagine my surprise when I sit down to watch something on the living room tv (which I don't use all that often) and my show is interrupted by a notification that "SmartHub" had updated.
After digging around in settings for a moment, I realized that one of my next door neighbors had installed an open router with internet, and my tv had silently automatically connected to it and began doing its normal internet stuff. I have no idea how long it was connected like that.
After looking though the settings and a few Google searches later, I realized there was no actual way to disabled the wireless connection on that TV. It expected an internet connection, and intended to get one. Ultimately, I managed to get it to stop what it was doing by letting it connect to my router and then blocking it via access control. I then followed up by going into "IP Settings" and setting that to manual, while leaving all the values at 0. It complained, but allowed me to keep the setting.
Anyhow, figured I'd share, since I imagine quite a few people here are also not keen on a smart tv connecting to the net, given some of the history surrounding them.
Not even mentioning the hardware bits, I have been collaborating with postmarketOS for a while now, and believe that the main thing we need to make those devices longer-lasting would be an unlockable bootloader by law. This sounds so logical (why cannot I run, by voiding the warranty, any code I want on my machine, whatever it is?), yet apparently so hard to make openly illegal, since the problem is barely acknowledg…
In the US, at least, unlocking devices is legal as of 2015(?) through DMCA exemptions, which has been huge for recyclers and refurbishers. Still couldn't get game console unlocking through, but at least phones / tablets / other devices that are locked can be unlocked and resold. https://resource-recycling.com/e-scrap/2018/11/01/digital-de...