131–140 of 727 posts
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Why isn't the alternative to keep your TV off the network?
For now, that works. It's easy to imagine a time when the TV includes it's own 5G modem or that Samsung would make a deal with Amazon or Comcast for access to their wifi mesh networks so the TV can get online without user intervention.
"Should a customer’s TV be incorrectly blocked, the functionality can be reinstated once proof of purchase and a valid TV license is shared to serv.manager@samsung.com or click here for more information" Fuck off. This is a wake up call for us to make free and open source Smart TV operating system so we can stop this tyranny.
Or to just stop buying "Smart" televisions.
People on HN like to say that buying a regular display panel without any of the "smart" features is cost-prohibitive, but it isn't.
A few months ago I did some comparison shopping on B&H, and the price difference was very small. Sometimes within sales tax range.
My next TV will be a regular display panel, and it will be the "smartest" decision I can make.
This is why i only buy "Dumb" TV's and connect a third-party "smart" device to them (Firestick, etc) Smart device wants to do some crap like this, in the recycle bin it goes but the TV which cost far more is still good. Many of these manufacturers also have a well documented history of not supporting anything they sold, in an attempt to push new products (buy an android phone and see how many updates it actually gets…
Honestly, I'm not a big one for regulation, but I think those TVs should have a large print notification somewhere that says they're spying on you - although people would probably accept the convenience tradeoff.
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Or.....against thieves. As someone who had stuff stolen, I'd pay money for electronics that catches fire once reported stolen, thieves are literally scum of the earth and only one step above murderers and rapists in my books. Great step by Samsung here.
You'd install a firebomb in your own home? I think you need to rethink this position.
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I bought a high-end Samsung 4K tv in 2015 or so for about $3000. I picked it after a week of research that showed it had the highest quality panel. After taking delivery of the TV, we noticed it had bright lower left and right corners that we later found out were due to new packaging that pinched the TV and caused most of the TVs in that batch to be ruined. Samsung claimed that the corners were "in spec" and refused…
What do you expect Samsung to do, throw away a $3000 product for a defect most consumers wouldn't notice?
That is how defects like this normally work, if I buy a $$$$ monitor, you better bet I expect not to have dead pixels, if I do I want them to replace it.
Then they sell it has Open Box or B Grade Referb to a customer that is fine with a few dead pixels in order to get a deal on the unit...
I bought one of Samsung's smart televisions a couple years ago. I think I paid $1500 for it. Anyway, it started showing me ads and the TV eventually became sluggish less than a month after owning it. Returned it as defective. Ever since that experience, I swore of all smart televisions and will never buy another Samsung television or smartphone again if I can help it.
I purchased a Samsung tv, I connected it to Wifi one time to download any 'updates' then I disabled WIFI and all of the smart features via the menu and went the extra mile to block its MAC Address on the router. I never once touched any of the smart features and it has been fine so far. This has been my rule for any devices that requires WIFI. I should really setup a special guest network for them and disable WAN acc…
The larger question for society is do we even want smart everything? I rarely see this issue debated. Undoubtedly, software enables complex/rich functionality for what were hitherto relatively "dumb" devices, but the same flexibility can also lead to exploits, backdoors, bugs and place too much control in the hands of the manufacturers and many other nameless parties. The most important aspect here is remote connecti…
However not like this: "Should a customer’s TV be incorrectly blocked, the functionality can be reinstated once proof of purchase and a valid TV license is shared to serv.manager@samsung.com [...]".
That's flipping the burden of proof around. Clearly not the way to go about this.
Also of course things should work by default and not require you to go online.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I bought a high-end Samsung 4K tv in 2015 or so for about $3000. I picked it after a week of research that showed it had the highest quality panel. After taking delivery of the TV, we noticed it had bright lower left and right corners that we later found out were due to new packaging that pinched the TV and caused most of the TVs in that batch to be ruined. Samsung claimed that the corners were "in spec" and refused…
What do you expect Samsung to do, throw away a $3000 product for a defect most consumers wouldn't notice?