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Ask Wirecutter: Can you recommend a not-smart TV for me?

nytimes.com

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Re: Ask Wirecutter: Can you recommend a not-smart TV for me?

#121

Post by lr1970 »

was_a_dev wrote: post #4
ed25519FUUU wrote: post #2

The approach I’ve taken is to just keep my TV off the internet (never join a WiFi network) and make it smart via an Apple TV, which I personally believe to have the strongest privacy protection of any smart TV device. Another bonus is my TV UI hasn’t changed despite changing and upgrading TV brands.

Hasn't some models (thinking Samsung) been shown to connect to any WiFi network they can? edit: Appears to be an urban legend, with not much substance to back it up!

There is Amazon SideWalk [0] that could potentially allow devices join mesh WiFi behind your back.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Sidewalk/

Re: Ask Wirecutter: Can you recommend a not-smart TV for me?

#122

Post by felurx »

endisneigh wrote: post #94
amiga-workbench wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My TV is either off to save energy, or because Android has gone completely insane again and it needs rebooting. If you do a full hard reset of my particular TV, it can't even run its own OOTB setup smoothly. Sony have got it playing some ambient chimes in the background, but the audio constantly breaks up and glitches. Its got an 8 core processor and it can't even handle audio playback in a bit of the UI which should…

I get that. the point is that turning a TV on, even if it took 30 seconds, is basically nothing given the amount of time you spend watching it. it's not the right thing to optimize. do you know how long it takes to turn on an iPhone? you may have a stroke if I tell you.

Turning on a TV is something you usually do everytime you want to use it, and it's just plain annoying to have to wait. The comparison to an iPhone is bad, because you rarely reboot it. Imagine you had to wait for the iPhone to boot every time you want to read some stuff on the internet or call someone.

Re: Ask Wirecutter: Can you recommend a not-smart TV for me?

#123

Post by syntheticnature »

flangola7 wrote: post #69
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ethernet was added to HDMI https://thehometheaterdiy.com/hdmi-with-ethernet/

But why. HDMI is a video transmission format.

To reduce the number of cables, in theory, though as noted it's not really implemented.

Re: Ask Wirecutter: Can you recommend a not-smart TV for me?

#125

Post by retrac »

ed25519FUUU wrote: post #2

The approach I’ve taken is to just keep my TV off the internet (never join a WiFi network) and make it smart via an Apple TV, which I personally believe to have the strongest privacy protection of any smart TV device. Another bonus is my TV UI hasn’t changed despite changing and upgrading TV brands.

> make it smart via an Apple TV

I repurpose the old laptops that I seem to accumulate for this. Just about anything made in the last 10 years can handle at least 1080p video, and will have an HDMI output. I add a small wireless keyboard and use my regular desktop environment. But you can add a remote and use one of the open source media centre suites.

I do wish more TVs had a monitor-like sleep mode and accepted the command for it over HDMI. And were actually low power when they sleep. That seems to be pretty spotty.

Re: Ask Wirecutter: Can you recommend a not-smart TV for me?

#126

Post by Rebelgecko »

nrp wrote: post #80
CameronBanga wrote: post #14

A couple years ago, I bought the domain "DumbTV.com" and considered looking to source my own television sets from China to sell at a premium with no added features besides HDMI ports. Should have followed through on that.

If you’re not planning to do it, we may be interested in that domain.

55 inch framework gonna be lit, imagine how many expansion slots it could fit

Re: Ask Wirecutter: Can you recommend a not-smart TV for me?

#127

Post by DominikPeters »

fideloper wrote: post #13

From a (cynical?) content and affiliate point of view, I like the style of taking user questions (bonus points if H.B. is a real person) and answering it - rather than just a bland list of products by "expensive but good, less expensive but less good" that wirecutter is. This lets the authors also recommend extra tangential items ("get a projector!"). On another note, my trust in these types of things have gone down…

I thought the answer was terrible. It’s wrong in saying you must buy a smart tv to get a reasonable display panel (this comment section does provide good non-smart options), condescending to the question, needlessly verbose (sounded like early versions of chatGPT to me tbh), and is uncritical in its assumption that opting out of data collection means that you won’t be tracked.

Re: Ask Wirecutter: Can you recommend a not-smart TV for me?

#129

Post by nvr219 »

djaychela wrote: post #110

Since getting pi-hole on my home network, I've been amazed at the amount of phoning home my old (7 years+) smart TVs are trying to do. All of the domains are about content matching, which I'm thinking is no longer happening since getting pi-hole as the domains are never bring resolved for them.

Check this out:

https://imgur.com/VJVmDd3

This is from 2 days when there was literally nobody using anything in the house because I was out of town.

Re: Ask Wirecutter: Can you recommend a not-smart TV for me?

#130

Post by samgranieri »

ed25519FUUU wrote: post #2

The approach I’ve taken is to just keep my TV off the internet (never join a WiFi network) and make it smart via an Apple TV, which I personally believe to have the strongest privacy protection of any smart TV device. Another bonus is my TV UI hasn’t changed despite changing and upgrading TV brands.

this 100%. When I had my TV installed I explicitly told the geeksquad guys who mounted it on the wall to not connect it to the internet because I'm driving it with an apple TV
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