Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why is everyone so confused that smart TVs are popular? Also the real reason that they're popular: there are no non-smart TVs available.
There are, they are called monitors
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Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse
481–490 of 727 posts
Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse
#482This thread feels very...Hacker News Bubble? Why is everyone so confused that smart TVs are popular? Being able to just turn on your TV and open Netflix without messing around with inputs/other devices is a huge benefit for non-technological people. And it probably costs <$50 for the manufacturer to include whatever chip is running linux in the TV, its a no-brainer.
My non-tech extended family members all use separate Roku and/or FireTV devices instead of the built-in TV functionality, because I've seen the devices. I don't know why, but they do.
I was pretty happy with my old LG TV's smart apps, but it seemed to get more and more sluggish with each update, until finally it got annoying enough that I bought a Roku.
Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse
#483Earlier quoted context omitted.
Monitors generally don't have remote controls or speakers. The latter solved with soundbar but former is important use case.
My company has monitors for video conferencing and they all have remotes and speakers. I think they are LG's... like this one: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1526262-REG/lg_55ut64...
> LG UT640S 55" Class HDR 4K UHD Commercial Smart IPS LED TV ;)
(Although the key here really is the commercial - different standards of what customers are expected to tolerate there)
Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse
#484> reinstated once proof of purchase and a valid TV license
So they will start disabling TV's for the government when the yearly TV licences expire next?
TV's drive economic growth and social welfare, they network communities quite effectively. Having TV license's in a country like South Africa is the definition of stupid.
Lucky they have the internet and Facebook to turn to now. Maybe that will help the 44% (Including the ones who have given up) unemployment rate - https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/8/24/south-africas-un...
But to be on-topic as a rich person running a Linux server I too are outraged people still buy/steal smart TV's
Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse
#485Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why weren't TVs with built in VCRs and DVD players more popular?
They were mostly small TVs and not the highest quality. And separate VHS or DVD players had more features.
They were great for a child's bedroom or similar but a big screen with a VHS would just look sort of silly.
Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse
#486Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ice makers are notoriously flimsy. Serious race to the bottom by the manufacturers. The good news is that they're easy to replace (undo a couple of bolts and unplug a cable and they usually come right out), bad news is the replacements are ridiculously expensive, like $100 each and come with all of the same design flaws the original had. There is also surprisingly little standardization which makes the replacements e…
I have never heard about anyone having trouble with an ice maker until I read this. My ice maker has been working fine for over 15 years. My mother's ice maker has been working fine for about 25 years.
The Icemaker in my Frigidaire refrigerator has never worked since I bought the house, the problem is that the coils keep freezing over (the icemaker is in the refrigerator compartment so has its own freezer coil to make it cold)
I spent a weekend pulling it out, thawing everything out, and then replacing the defroster coil, thinking that would fix it. It didn't -- it worked for about a week afterwards until freezing over again.
Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse
#487Gonna be a lot of fun one day when hackers target out-of-maintenance but otherwise fully functional devices one day and the manufacturers make the decision to brick them in order to save money then pretend like nothing happened.
Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse
#488Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most were up to a few years ago, but the big players went out of their way to make dependable ice makers--I thought. The last two refrigerators I bought had dependable ice makers. I just overheard an installer talking to a neighbor while installing his refrigerator. The tech said most modern refrigerations only last 10 years at best though.
10 years is actually quite good for major appliances. If you're warrantied for 3 and manage to get 10 years out if it you've exceeded the design parameters. Environmentally, replacing a broken fridge is usually the only time someone will even research something more energy efficient.
Wow. So the idea is that we want them to wear out more quickly so that they buy a new product that's more energy efficient? That strikes me as terribly wasteful. What about the impacts of a discarded appliance?
Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse
#489Who lets TVs connect to the internet?
Re: Samsung remotely disables TVs looted from South African warehouse
#490Earlier quoted context omitted.
Color TVs superseded black and white because it was objectively an improvement for the customer. There wasn't any benefit to the manufacturer besides selling a new unit. the "Smart" TVs of today are riddled with spyware and telemetry that provides a second revenue stream to the manufacture since 95% of the population is too lazy or uninformed or doesn't have the time to turn it off. Yes, there benefits to the consume…
The average customer doesn't even know what spyware or telemetry is. I'd even argue that broadcast TV is dying making some form of video streaming service necessary which the smart TV accomplishes in a nice form factor.
What do the smart ones in possession of a smart TV do? Because I constantly bleed time fine tuning pi-hole to limit telemetry and retain functionality…