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Ask HN: Is there a TV on the market without “Smart TV” features?

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Re: Ask HN: Is there a TV on the market without “Smart TV” features?

#201

Post by taejavu »

Koshkin wrote: post #159
teirce wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a nit. > AppleTV or similar Pick your poison. Doesn't have to be Apple TV, you could use anything from a Roku to a kodi stick to plugging a computer into the TV and playing things locally. What you're criticizing isn't the point.

I guess, the point here is, why disable the smart features in your TV only to plug another, just as “smart”, device (i.e. one that watches you ) in it?

…because it has less/no ads, and without some smarts somewhere I can’t watch Netflix?

Re: Ask HN: Is there a TV on the market without “Smart TV” features?

#202

Post by fragmede »

b112 wrote: post #137
jsjohnst wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> white hat flooding Very curious definition of “white hat” you have

A white hat works for the public good, yes?

traditionally, white hat means working with companies to help identify weaknesses in their systems, and getting inside with their consent.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a TV on the market without “Smart TV” features?

#205

Post by MR4D »

You want to buy a “monitor”, not a TV.

For instance there is this from LG [0] or this from Dell [1]. Just do a search for “large 4K monitor” and you’ll find more.

[0] - https://www.bestbuy.com/site/lg-43-ultrafine-4k-uhd-monitor-...

[1] - https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/dell-55-4k-conference-r...

Re: Ask HN: Is there a TV on the market without “Smart TV” features?

#206

Post by anonymousab »

Grazester wrote: post #28
sathomasga wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't give it WiFi credentials. (I've got a 5-year-old Samsung that's never connected to any network and it works fine.)

One would think this would have been more obvious.

> One would think this would have been more obvious.

Devices can refuse to function without a network connection, and the profits to be made from simply including a cellular connection of some sort for ad refresh + tracking are too high to be ignored forever.

So this isn't a reliable, long-term solution.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a TV on the market without “Smart TV” features?

#207

Post by throwaway81523 »

sam_bristow wrote: post #190
throwaway81523 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I have to narrow down a specific definition of "smart feature" I would say voice input of any sort. So my take on OP's question is: can I buy a TV that has no built in microphones? Maybe OP meant something different but that is what I would want. Simplest though is to just not have a TV at all. If there is something important, it will be online.

I ended up buying a cheap TCL brand TV a while ago. It still had all the smart features (which I didnt want) but at least it did have a physical switch to disable the microphone.

Better check for more microphones. They are like potato chips. Bet they can't install just one ;).

Re: Ask HN: Is there a TV on the market without “Smart TV” features?

#208

Post by molszanski »

dmitriid wrote: post #41
metadat wrote: post #25

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…

> Protects your TV performance and functionality from surprise degradation due to "updates" Instead, it will have its own upgrades which will degrade performance and/or UI. A recent Android TV update on my Xiaomi Android TV brought ads covering a 1/4 of the screen from services I'm not subscribed to. Had to revert the upgrade and stop it from updating.

No ads on AppleTv. Or I don’t see them. Also used PS4 as a TV. But it wasn’t super convenient without a remote. But overall the TV dongle is the way forward IMO

Re: Ask HN: Is there a TV on the market without “Smart TV” features?

#209

Post by account-5 »

keerthiko wrote: post #121

This is why large monitors are so expensive, because they aren't subsidized by the ads large TVs force upon their users for the most basic usage. But if you can afford it, there are 40+" 4k and 8k monitors to which you can plug AppleTV/Chromecast/a small PC with a budget discrete graphics card. Or you can get a conference projector if no monitor on the market meets your size needs.

How did TV manufacturers do this before they created "smart" TVs that forced advertising on us? I still have a dumb TV that was cheaper than contemporary monitors that couldn't force adverts on me.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a TV on the market without “Smart TV” features?

#210

Post by 323 »

keerthiko wrote: post #191
323 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because they aren't subsidized by the ads That's a myth, even if subsidies do exist. Monitors were always more expensive than similar size TVs because they have better specs, more features, and longer warranty. Linus Tech Tips on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWH1zXmFgl8 1997 Baltimore Sun article about this: https://archive.ph/mhxET

The technical advantages of monitors are valid reasons for higher cost (refresh rate, response time, color accuracy, gsync/freesync), but as mentioned in the video itself, TVs do have enough tech that monitors don't to offset those differences (size+resolution, brightness uniformity, OLED/curved/thinness options), so it should be a wash. However, the video you linked doesn't really address the advertisement subsidy p…

The point of the 1997 article was to show that even before Smart TVs and advertising revenue existed monitors were still more expensive than TVs, so nothing changed.

Your parent post implied that if advertising revenue wouldn't exist, TVs would not be much cheaper than monitors.

There are cheap no-name TV producers in China which sell ultra cheap TVs without them making any advertising revenue.

I don't deny that ad revshare is very lucrative, but it's not the reason TVs are cheap. You can have them both, sell TVs at tiny margin above production cost and get extra ad revshare.

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