I've been very happy with Sony smart TVs. They are Android based, and don't have "ads." (They do highlight promoted content.) It's very easy to go directly to Netflix, ect. Even the remotes give the services dedicated buttons.
I spent $3k on a Samsung Smart TV and all I got were ads and unwanted content
121–130 of 398 posts
Re: I spent $3k on a Samsung Smart TV and all I got were ads and unwanted content
#122never, ever give a TV an internet connection, wifi password or dhcp lease. I realize there are ads on the homescreen of an xbox series x, ps4 pro, ps5, etc but I would much rather deal with those than whatever shoddy operating system TV manufacturers put on their thing. I have a thousand times more confidence that microsoft and sony will keep their OSes patched and up to date (they have a strong financial/self-intere…
One thing I hate is when things like input switching are part of the TV OS. It can turn something that should be fast and easy into something slow and glitchy.
I want to skywrite this comment above Samsung's offices for a year.
I bought their brand-new-tech Quantum Dot OLED. I LOVE the screen, it's outperformed my every expectation... EXCEPT... switching inputs is a nightmare! How is that possible?!?! I still have no idea how to get to an input select screen. I use my Harmony remote to direct-select an input (impossible with the stock remote) or wait for the TV to say, "no signal, choose another input"
I'm completely flabbergasted at how ridiculous it is to do.
Re: I spent $3k on a Samsung Smart TV and all I got were ads and unwanted content
#123never, ever give a TV an internet connection, wifi password or dhcp lease. I realize there are ads on the homescreen of an xbox series x, ps4 pro, ps5, etc but I would much rather deal with those than whatever shoddy operating system TV manufacturers put on their thing. I have a thousand times more confidence that microsoft and sony will keep their OSes patched and up to date (they have a strong financial/self-intere…
Bought a samsung and a roku tv. I don't know which one it was - but, for one of them, I refused to install internet. And it had a red light that flashed like every 30-60 seconds. I looked up why? "Its the no internet" light and it couldnt be disabled. I had to cover it up with a sticky note on my nice tv until I finally gave up. Anti consumer patterns.
Get a roll of gaff tape, I block out a great deal of blinkenlights that way, it's great stuff.
Re: I spent $3k on a Samsung Smart TV and all I got were ads and unwanted content
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
Roku does tons of phoning home, has ads and analytics to see what you’re watching afaik. Using PiHole shows tons of unexpected traffic.
So put it on a VLAN with no egress. Smart TVs are annoying but there’s ways around it.
Kinda hard to stream if you don't allow egress.
Re: I spent $3k on a Samsung Smart TV and all I got were ads and unwanted content
#125I own this exact model -- the QN90A, though in a smaller size -- and have had exactly the same experience.
The most maddening advertisement is the one that is forcibly inserted in the menu between the apps and the settings. Using the remote, you must literally click past an ad to switch inputs.
You ... must ... click ... past ... an ... ad ... to ... switch ... inputs. Every time.
Unbelievable for a TV that costs this much. I almost returned it, but as the author notes, the alternatives have worse picture quality and often aren't any better in the ad department.
Re: I spent $3k on a Samsung Smart TV and all I got were ads and unwanted content
#126TVs also seem to consume way more power. I have 48" full hd Sony from 2016 that consumes max 58W. None of the TVs on the market come even close, some consume 3x as much! What happened? Is 4K really that inefficient?
Potentially more backlight power draw for HDR? But yeah, generally it takes more power to push 4x as many pixels.
Re: I spent $3k on a Samsung Smart TV and all I got were ads and unwanted content
#127https://github.com/RootMyTV/RootMyTV.github.io
> RootMyTV is a user-friendly exploit for rooting/jailbreaking LG webOS smart TV. It bootstraps the installation of the webOS Homebrew Channel ... At the time of writing (RootMyTV v2 - 2022-01-05), all webOS versions between 4.x and 6.2+ we tested (TVs released between early-2018 and late-2021) are supported by the new exploit chain.
Re: I spent $3k on a Samsung Smart TV and all I got were ads and unwanted content
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
One remote is inherently better than two remotes. It's objectively less hassle. The apps are actually mostly identical from experience. I actually use a PS4 at the moment, and it occasionally forces me to update before I can use the TV app, so even more hassle.
> One remote is inherently better than two remotes. It's objectively less hassle. My Apple TV can turn my TV on and off though, so I rarely need to use the TV remote
On top of that, people who used the old Apple TV remote with the touchpad might not even realize that there's a new one that fixes all the bad design issues of the old one.
Re: I spent $3k on a Samsung Smart TV and all I got were ads and unwanted content
#129I actually ran into this problem buying an Nvidia Shield Pro; they had just changed the UI to be packed with ads, so I was left wondering what was so great about it (from previous reviews).
Currently a Steam Link (old hardware), and Raspberry Pi running Plex/Kodi are pretty much my setup. Cast things to Kodi, use yt-dlp to download YouTube stuff, or remote into my PC with the Steam Link.
Re: I spent $3k on a Samsung Smart TV and all I got were ads and unwanted content
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you have links to blogs that show this happening, I see plenty of hearsay, but I know my LG doesn’t attempt to my honeypot wifi, I’d love to see proof.
Samsung (Dacor) discloses this behavior in their fridge manual; it says it will mesh with Samsung TVs to better target ads. I’m not about to buy a Samsung set to find out what it actually does in practice. The fridge has deep learning object classifiers and internal cameras; I assume that is a big part of its ad targeting capability. Note that the fridge has demand response / energy use time shifting features that do…
That's what you get for using a fridge with internet.
I thought they were to keep things cold? That requires internet?