It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV • Hacker News Board

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

#421

Post by ahaferburg » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 2:16 PM UTC

LinuxBender wrote: post #316

Somewhat off topic... Has anyone started developing alternative firmware/OS for these things much like the alternate OS for cell phones GrapheneOS for pixels and related alternatives? There are a few dumb TV's remaining but options are very limited. Is it even feasible to just replace the firmware and OS on these things? Is there a JTAG or similar interface over USB or ethernet? [Edit] Upon thinking about this a bit…

I found this [1] for LG firmware but couldn't figure out much about what it actually is or does or how it works.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29338658

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

#422

Post by iamevn » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 5:54 PM UTC

rosndo wrote: post #218

xg15 wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would be interesting to know why consumers want smart TVs so much. Some smart TV features are indeed necessary if you want to watch anything via streaming (i.e. any halfway relevant modern series). But as GP said, you can usually get those via some kind of HDMI stick. So one explanation might be that most people want to watch Netflix but don't know this is possible with a dumb TV + stick as well. Or they know this bu…

Consumers want to be able to just plug in their TV and press the Netflix button, nothing wrong with that. Even after spending tens of thousands on home theatre equipment I struggle to understand why I should want to use some kind of stick to watch netflix from.

Why would you want a TV to be needlessly tied to an online service that can be turned off tomorrow? When Netflix stops providing its streaming service (or makes breaking changes to its API) a TV with Netflix support integrated now is wasting compute, menu space, physical buttons on remotes, etc. on a dead service. I would expect just about every TV to outlast Netflix unless it's treated poorly.

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

#423

Post by civilized » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 5:57 PM UTC

mvanbaak wrote: post #194

civilized wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use a projector. They're cheap and dumb.

cheap ... depends. If you want good quality, brightnes and lifetime ... they are at the same price or more expensive then tv's (4k hdr projector is quickly over 4000 euro)

I think you can get one with acceptable quality for $100. Your threshold of acceptability may be different!

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

#424

Post by bradknowles » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 4:36 AM UTC

kwatsonafter wrote: post #399

lotsofpulp wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume there are capable people working at these large TV companies who can ascertain reasonably well what kind of demand there is for a dumb TV. Also, TVs went from dumb to smart, so empirically, sufficient buyers voted for smart even when they had an option for dumb. The alternative is all the manufacturers simultaneously pulled all dumb TVs out of the market even though selling them would provide a competitive a…

I love how you refer to buyers as, "voting."

Citizens United says that $1 = 1 vote, right?

Isn't that the same across the entire world?

/s

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

#425

Post by emendation » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 11:45 AM UTC

rosndo wrote: post #201

scns wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have been caught trying to connect to unsecured WiFi before.

I bet you aren’t going to be able to provide a source for this.

> I bet you aren’t going to be able to provide a source for this.

They can't, but I do have this saved

https://web.archive.org/web/20191224122714/https://www.reddi...

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

#426

Post by wrycoder » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 11:57 AM UTC

andybak wrote: post #182

jolmg wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't much different to open YouTube, pick whatever's recommended, and just let autoplay pick the next video to play. You get better tailored content.

It is different. YouTube is deep in my filter bubble whereas channel hopping TV channels is a moderately curated selection. (and YouTube in private browsing is just a firehose of automated recommendations). There's probably about 10 channels worth watching on UK Freeview and the hit rate is fairly high when my standards are low but I want something easy and engaging.

> firehose

And that common denominator is appalling!

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

#427

Post by cassianoleal » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 2:05 PM UTC

Gigachad wrote: post #398

cassianoleal wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not too different from when they stop updating the OS and apps stop supporting the version you have on your "smart" TV.

At that point the users just buy one of those nvidia TV sticks and move on with life.

Which is the equivalent of getting an external VCR to the TV with an embedded one. Different tech, similar problem, similar solution.

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

#428

Post by ZeroGravitas » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 2:45 PM UTC

Samsung (and other) smart TVs have begun the evolution towards the "brains" of the TV being a dongle.

The key is probably to get that interface standardized so you can buy one of their smart TVs and plug in your own, dumb dongle for nerds and hackers.

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

#429

Post by tremon » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 9:59 PM UTC

JohnBooty wrote: post #286

lotsofpulp wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's no reasonable way for consumers to know how shitty the inbuilt OS/apps of a "smart TV" will become over time, or what onerous software updates the manufacturer will pump out, etc. A lot of this stuff is difficult or impossible to know even for savvy, educated people looking for a TV. Maybe, but it has been a decade since smart TVs became prevalent, and I would bet everything I have that if you put a dumb TV…

Right. Capitalism often leads to suboptimal outcomes (everybody owns a TV somewhere between "mildly annoying" and "downright terrible") because there's no reasonable way to know better, so consumers choose based on the one thing everybody understands: price. There is also more data out there than ever before in history about TVs, but I doubt most people would ever care enough to read in depth reviews on rtings or wha…

> Capitalism often leads to suboptimal outcomes because there's no reasonable way to know better

Also known as the market for lemons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons

Akerlof's paper shows how prices can determine the quality of goods traded on the market. Low prices drive away sellers of high-quality goods, leaving only lemons behind. In 2001, Akerlof, along with Michael Spence, and Joseph Stiglitz, jointly received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, for their research on issues related to asymmetric information.

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

#430

Post by SixDouble5321 » Tue, Apr 19, 2022, 10:42 PM UTC

csa wrote: post #103

For a tech periodical, this seems to be a stretch for content. Thirty seconds poking around the interwebs led me to this Samsung 65” 4K “digital signage” for $1125: https://www.samsung.com/us/business/displays/4k-uhd/qb-serie... 43, 50, 55, 75, and 85 also available. I assume that these are as good as or better than most people have in their homes (esp. with Vizio), but probably not as good as what home theater enthu…

It appears you made no attempt to understand the problem.

People want a decent TV. They want the alphabet soup 4K UHD OLED QLED etc. They want to be able to pick the size of the TV. And they don't want their TV to spy on them or show them additional advertisements.

My experience with digital sign TVs is they are much more expensive than the equivalent TV. They add on small business tools to display advertisements and in some cases still come with "smart" features. You generally can't get them in a big box store either.

When I bought my "dumb" TV I couldn't get all the features I wanted and I couldn't get one larger than 45".

The jist is that adding and cheap computer to the TV subsidizes it by allowing unlimited data mining and advertising opportunities for the manufacturer. There is little incentive for any company to cater to the crowd that doesn't appreciate this trade-off.