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It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV

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Re: It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV

#301

Post by kube-system »

gonehome wrote: post #290
mrjin wrote: post #41

Smart 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…

> “So we are actually paying more” I suspect this is false and the ads and tracking enabled by smart TVs are instrumental in getting the price down . Price sensitivity on TVs I suspect is one of the main drivers of this. Still, I think there’s a real niche for someone to make a tv focused on the HN market. Call the company “dumb electronics”. db even has a pleasing symmetry to it for a logo imo. Focus on speed to boo…

> I suspect this is false and the ads and tracking enabled by smart TVs are instrumental in getting the price down.

They plainly are. They are a gigantic revenue stream for TV manufacturers. There’s a reason that TV prices cratered at the exact same time that they all became “smart”

https://www.engadget.com/vizio-q1-earnings-inscape-013937337...

Re: It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV

#302

Post by mst »

falcolas wrote: post #243
sgjohnson wrote: post #154

I 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.

What makes you think the price was discounted just because they found another way to monetize their users?

Last time I saw a TV vendor's margin breakout they were selling the hardware at basically cost.

So in that particular case it appears to be what happened.

(this was a year plus back so I've completely forgotten which vendor, sorry)

Re: It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV

#303

Post by perihelions »

matthewmcg wrote: post #294

I strongly agree with the sentiment in the article, but the comma in the title seems misplaced. Edit: I think there's just a typo on the HN title. The original title showing on the website is "It's Still Stupidly, Ridiculously Difficult to Buy a 'Dumb' TV" which is perfectly grammatical.

There's a vestigial comma because an automated script removed the word "ridiculously", which is (probably) on HN's list of blacklisted clickbait words.

Re: It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV

#304

Post by dancemethis »

sgjohnson wrote: post #154

I 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.

And then Apple getting a "monopoly" on your personal data and metadata is better, somehow...?

Nevermind that this data is then shared between them. And anyone and anything else getting in through the doors in the back.

Re: It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV

#305

Post by beckler »

lordnacho wrote: post #11

What's frightening is that I can see on my PiHole the huge spike of requests that happens when one of my TVs comes on. Just the standard graph in the front page is enough to see exactly when the kids have turned it on. Most of the requests are rejected though, maybe someone can say whether that is enough to protect me from corporate surveillance.

Dude, no joke. My TCL Roku TV is the nosiest device on my whole network, second to maybe my work laptop.

The difference though, is that TV is sitting in our bedroom mostly dormant, since my wife watches it maybe 1-4 times a week while she's getting ready for work.

Re: It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV

#306

Post by doldols »

superkuh wrote: post #287
doldols wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know all about this, my Plex server is rapidly approaching 200TB of content. Is it really convenient? Sure! As long as you ignore all the work that goes into setup and maintenance. I’d be deluding myself if I tried to pretend that this is anything but yet another part of a really expensive and time consuming home theater hobby. Even at it’s best DIY piracy is still miles away from just being able to open up Netflix…

I see this a lot. I've never understood my peers need for complex "plex server" (or related) setups. Why not just store the files on the hard drives of your normal computers? 200TB is why, I guess, but this is hardly typical nor does it require "plex". I do just fine with a handful of computers with ~30 TB between them and some network shares. No "maintainance" required.

Plex actually requires 0 maintenance, it’s the radarr/sonarr bit which deals with content acquisition that’s often a hassle. (Still infinitely better than having to manually choose and download torrents)

Even a network share would take more work to set up than Plex.

Why Plex? Easy set up, vastly better UI than a network share, works from outside the home. I travel often and frequently benefit from the transcoding feature when dealing with shitty hotel wifi. Friends love it too.

Playing directly from a regular computer isn’t a very good option due to shit format support.

Re: It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV

#307

Post by HonestOp001 »

Quick story. I purchased a Sony tv with android OS. In the store, the OS did everything I wanted.

When set the system up at home, it worked just like in the store.

Then five days later, an OS update forced ads onto the front page. The entire home page was changed from what I had purchased.

Fortunately, I could reset the device back to the previous OS version and not let it anywhere near a wi fi.

What I purchased and what I was having in my possession became antithetical to what I wanted with a software update.

Re: It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV

#308

Post by wintermutestwin »

philistine wrote: post #196
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not connected to internet From the article: “As a dumb TV fan who has bought several sets in the last decade, I’m usually told something akin to: “well, just don’t connect the TV to the Internet!” But that route locks you out of firmware updates, and some TV makers remove functionality if you refuse to participate in their online ecosystem. Many smart TV GUIs also need to load before you’re even allowed to swi…

I don’t get that point. A dumb TV would not need firmware updates. And if you’re already shopping like a madman, you should be able to figure out which TV locks out functionality. And the loading UI for the TV; I guess that’s the only fair point. But it’s clear there’s a hidden point in the argument; I don’t want functionality I won’t use. I don’t want the risk of connecting my TV. The temptation to see what it looks…

>And if you’re already shopping like a madman, you should be able to figure out which TV locks out functionality.

I recently spent way too much time trying to pick a new TV - mostly based on using it disconnected.

Someone needs to make dumbtv.com where smart TVs are reviewed based on using them as a dumb tv.

Re: It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV

#309

Post by next_xibalba »

readbeard wrote: post #298
next_xibalba wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The fact consumers love something doesn't make it a good thing. It does make it a good thing for them. Which begs the question: why is it that you get to decide what is or isn't a good thing? Or: why shouldn't people be able to decide for themselves? The answers against the latter are, at their root, paternalistic and elitist. > they love also facebook Ah, yes. The old "facebook is as bad as cigarettes" trope. It f…

> It does make it a good thing for them. Which begs the question: why is it that you get to decide what is or isn't a good thing? Or: why shouldn't people be able to decide for themselves? The answers against the latter are, at their root, paternalistic and elitist. I'm not clear on what your argument is here. Are you: * denying that there is a fact of the matter about whether, for any item X, X is beneficial or harm…

Are you engaging in good faith? Your reply seems a lot like [1]. I'll answer your questions if you first answer those that I posed (which you quoted):

> Why is it that you get to decide what is or isn't a good thing? Or: why shouldn't people be able to decide for themselves?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_question

Re: It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV

#310

Post by Havoc »

MiddleEndian wrote: post #232
Havoc wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just TVs...I can see my freaking lightbulbs in my pihole charts. What a time to be alive.

Why give your TV and light bulbs network access in the first place?

They need to be on the LAN so that Home Assistant can talk to them for automation.

They're firewalled off & the call home address is blocked on pihole

No TV in my case.

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