My TCL has not had any problems not being connected to the internet except it flashes a light on the front to helpfully remind me. I keep telling myself I’m going to take a sharpie to it but it doesn’t bother me that much.
It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV
151–160 of 434 posts
Re: It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV
#152We should have a law that says that any product sold at a large scale should first be approved by a consumer organization. Let's stop producing junk that works against the consumer's interest.
That sounds eerily like censorship.
Re: It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV
#153My TCL has not had any problems not being connected to the internet except it flashes a light on the front to helpfully remind me. I keep telling myself I’m going to take a sharpie to it but it doesn’t bother me that much.
Sharpies don't stick too well to slick plastic. Black nail polish is much more effective. Black hot glue also looks nice.
Re: It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV
#154I for one enjoy that my Smart TV is subsidized by all the morons who think that my data is worth anything.
It's not connected to internet. It's connected to Apple TV box. Thanks for the discount.
Re: It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
wouldn't be easier just not set internet connection in first place? I don't think TV can hack into secure WiFi network
they can still hack into open networks around you and monitor the SSIDs to get a sense of your position.
That sounds illegal and awaiting lawsuit to me, device connecting to unsecured network by itself without my knowledge doing there whoever knows.
Imagine my neighbor has unsecured WiFi network set for himself, I'm pretty sure he could call police on anyone connected to his network abusing his connection just because it's not locked.
By this logic you can steal unlocked car with key in engine or unlocked bike and that's what these TV would be doing.
You would be probably excused if TV done by itself, but it would land the brand lot of negative publicity and you could try to reimburse defense lawyer expenses on them. They would probably argue you agreed with terms of service when first launching TV, so don't do that if you want dumb TV.
Re: It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV
#156Smart TVs were created for all kinds of agendas but none were actually for us the consumers. All those agendas require an OS which takes time to boot. Making it worse, some of those TVs' CPU are crap and thus every operation takes much longer than those dumb ones. Lots of vendors also start to ship new remotes that removed all the essential buttons, especially the video source button, and I have to press 5 or more ti…
It sounds like you are out of touch with the average consumer. They absolutely love smart TVs and would consider a TV without apps and streaming to be broken. In fact, even the ideal HN approved setup is just a smart TV where the online bit is a removable stick on the back. The average consumer just doesn’t care about being able to swap it out.
I think many people just buy the biggest, cheapest thing they can. "Smart" is one of those scams that works because it doesn't enter into the calculus for most when making a product choice, so they get to slip it in. There was an article about the same thing recently with smart builder appliances in new homes.
My point is, I don't think many love them, I think they don't notice until it's too late and then they don't think about it too hard and just figure that's how the tv works.
(And I don't think what characterizes a smart tv is just the option of apps and streaming. This could be fine if done in an actual consumer friendly way. It's the other crap an upstream comment mentions)
Re: It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is exactly what we did. Our ‘television’ was never hooked up to actually receive broadcast signal, we’ve always just used it as a big screen for the media/gaming PC set up in the lounge, and at some point I realised if I’m going to spend my evenings staring at Good Screen I might as well upgrade from this 40” 1080p TV with a dead pixel row. So I looked around and eventually bought a Philips 559M1 55” monitor ins…
Monitors are now starting to go smart. Not just the Apple one. And you no longer always have the option to prevent a net connection unless you live in a faraday cage. The only way they won't all be smart eventually is if there is a market for dumb monitors that outweighs what the manufacturers make from putting remote agents into them. I doubt that will happen. The people that even know or care at all are few, and ev…
Uh oh... this comment brings it to the front of my mind and seems correct.
Re: It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
It sounds like you are out of touch with the average consumer. They absolutely love smart TVs and would consider a TV without apps and streaming to be broken. In fact, even the ideal HN approved setup is just a smart TV where the online bit is a removable stick on the back. The average consumer just doesn’t care about being able to swap it out.
But consumers would buy dumb TVs with dongles if that’s what they made. We used to buy digital set top boxes. Antennas. VCRs. DVD players. Manufacturers definitely jumped on the chance to add software and an internet connection to TVs. Why sell a product once, when you can do that and then sell your customers to ad agencies?
No they wouldn’t because those would cost more. Connie Consumer is looking at two TVs and buying the less expensive one (that is the right size) most of the time.
Re: It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV
#159Aren't those called nowadays "computer displays"? But I guess it can be problem with larger size, 43-55 are way more expensive than TVs, like 3-4X more than same size smart TV with same resolution. I mean if you worry about spying just don't connect smart TV to internet, but yeah, the interface will be usualyl slower than dumb TV. If you are frustrated by outdated software nothing stops you from plugging whatever And…
> But why would you want TV without speaker I mean, you can grab some dedicated speakers or a sound bar or something? In fact, some people do this instead of using the TV speakers anyways since it usually results in a better experience/higher audio quality.
Yes, but most of the people expect watching TV with sound without buying extra device. Nobody stops you from hooking it up, but speaker cost is such low it would be more expensive to make special small series without speaker than with speaker. Personally I also use speaker only for minority of time when kids watch TV, in evenings we watch TV with wife through headphones to enjoy experience without disturbing kids/anyone.
You can also always disconnect the speaker if your religious belief is against speaker in TV, though you might void your warranty and I would understand more, if you would have issue with built-in microphone than speaker.
Re: It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
Blocking the MAC address from making connections outright seems like a more sensible way to prevent surveillance. Assuming of course you are using it as a truly 'dumb' TV and not as a client for Netflix etc.
wouldn't be easier just not set internet connection in first place? I don't think TV can hack into secure WiFi network
If they did it sounds like a great way for someone doing something nefarious to get off the hook. Some smart TVs are even able to act as wireless access points.