71–80 of 413 posts
My current Vizio is extremely sluggish for some reason.
Maybe that’s correlated with smart features…
I’ve kept my Samsung offline since I purchased it in 2019. I’ve kept my LG offline since I purchased it in 2016. As long as you have an AppleTV or similar connected to service your need for “smarts” it won’t be hard to leave the TV offline. (I recommend LG over Samsung - Samsung TV has native undismissable ads from 2019 still)
For example, imagine you want to keep a smart TV offline but you also want the latest greatest eARC features over HDMI 2.1; or you want that new Dolby tech to work with your PlayStation 5. That's stuff that came out in the last couple years. Assume it will take the TVs five years to work seemlessly. In the meantime you're gonna need firmware updates. It won't work out of the box. Or maybe it will, but with a noticeable lag.
Whatever smart TV model you're considering, read the patch notes and visit the fan reddits so you know what you're getting into.
An alternative is to get a gaming monitor; however these rarely reach TV screen sizes so if you're looking for 45"+ you're stuck with smart TVs
I want the tv to manage all of my bluetooth connections and hot swap to the appropriate “OS” when i reach for each bluetooth remote/controller.
This minimizes the role of the tv itself to a thin layer of sensor/peripheral management and routing the video feed to the oppropriate OS
Just don't ever give it the wifi password. Drive the TV from a PS4/PS4, xbox series X or home theatre PC. Use the youtube/netflix/amazon video/whatever client software on those platforms. I have a thousand times more confidence that microsoft or sony will keep their operating system patched and free from zero days than some random OS on a TV. And at least they're big enough that their telemetry and data collection pr…
> Just don't ever give it the wifi password This works for now but Amazon is already working on a way to share messages from devices through echo dots etc in the area. Even your neighbors'. It's intended precisely for this purpose :( To capture days from those trying to stay under the radar. It's called sidewalk.
Rtings maintains a list of ad-free TVs. This isn't the same as smart-free, but maybe that's what some people want: https://www.rtings.com/tv/tests/ads-in-smart-tv (The ones with a "10" in the ad-free column.) The often-given advice of "just don't connect it to the internet" is viable only sometimes. My TV shipped with some missing features that were enabled after a software update. Perhaps plug it in, update the soft…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
+1, this is great advice. I've been doing the same; get an AppleTV or GoogleTV dongle and never, ever attach the LG or Samshung TV to the network. Benefits of this strategy: * So simple, even non-savvy folks can follow the rule * Protects your privacy * Eliminates an unnecessary, highly invasive, and parasitic advertising vector (ads directly from LG or Samsung) * Protects your TV performance and functionality from s…
> It's unfortunate the manufacturers are in a position where such perverse anti-customer incentives exist. Why can't we have a consumer organization that protects us from having to buy stuff that we don't want. Wouldn't it be great if any product sold in mass quantities would have to pass a consumer/environment protection committee first?
https://www.newegg.com/Commercial-TVs/SubCategory/ID-3672 Try this. You’ll likely pay more but your TV won’t be subsidized by ads and such.
Many displays made for this market have atrocious picture quality and no video processing features because their target customers don't care about them, they only care about brightness and longevity.
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/samsung-55-class-be55t-h-led-4k...
It's one of the things that doesn't make sense anymore, like cars with manual transmission. Smarts in smart TV might cost $25 per unit, but OEMs get paid for streaming service placements on remote / home screen and a cut of revenue if users sign up. Even without streaming functionality, TV would still need some smarts to display tuner/inputs/settings UI and it's cheaper to develop Android apps than go custom route. P…
Smart TVs don't make sense when televisions both have inputs, and there exist multiple off the shelf solutions like chromecast, appletv, roku, etc. (I'm lame, I just use an Intel NUC with a full operating system.) Smart TVs are TV/VCR combos at best, and at worst a vector for your network to be attacked after the company moves on from updating them (or existing.)