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

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

#531

Post by kelnos »

madeofpalk wrote: post #380
rolenthedeep wrote: post #376

"just don't connect it to the internet" is such a typical HN response that completely misses the point. A smart TV with no internet connection is still a smart TV. It still has an entire operating system that needs to load wifi, ethernet, Bluetooth, usb driver stacks. It still has an awful, flashy interface that adds unnecessary steps between changing inputs. It still tries to load god knows what apps every time you…

meh, i think your response is more 'typical HN'. Nether are more correct than the other, but if you're annoyed or distrustful of all the internet connected factors of a TV, just don't connect it to the internet. I think that's a fine non-perfect, pragmatic solution.

Personally I'm more concerned about power consumption. My current TV, when it is off, it is off. It sips a tiny amount of power so it can listen for IR signals from the remote, but that's it.

Smart TVs never really turn off. If they did, they would take too long to "boot up" and consumers would be frustrated and angry. They're more like a laptop in a not-too-deep sleep state when they're turned off. Another commenter mentioned their smart TV consumes 10-20W when turned "off". That's just gross. It should consume milliwatts, at most.

And yes, I know that there are things in my house that consume far more power. But I actually get something for that power. A smart TV that I will of course never connect to the internet gives me nothing for that waste while in standby mode.

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

#532

Post by 1101010010 »

delecti wrote: post #405
rolenthedeep wrote: post #376

"just don't connect it to the internet" is such a typical HN response that completely misses the point. A smart TV with no internet connection is still a smart TV. It still has an entire operating system that needs to load wifi, ethernet, Bluetooth, usb driver stacks. It still has an awful, flashy interface that adds unnecessary steps between changing inputs. It still tries to load god knows what apps every time you…

A smart-but-disconnected TV can meet all of those functional requirements, and your nonfunctional requirements (low processing power) frankly don't matter to most people. My smart-but-disconnected TV turns on just as quickly as my PC monitors can return from sleep (a second or two); changing inputs is just as quick (input button on remote, left/right to select, okay to confirm), and the automatic input selection when…

It's only disconnected until your neighbor's AP decides to advertise an open guest network for it to automatically connect to.

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

#533

Post by kortex »

_emacsomancer_ wrote: post #442
pupdogg wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, going to take care of that. Thanks for the heads up. I really looked that one over...didn't think too much of it as the domain was available. It's hard to do anything the easy way nowadays!

how about WiseTV?

Might run into issues with Wyze electronics.

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

#534

Post by brucethemoose2 »

rolenthedeep wrote: post #376

"just don't connect it to the internet" is such a typical HN response that completely misses the point. A smart TV with no internet connection is still a smart TV. It still has an entire operating system that needs to load wifi, ethernet, Bluetooth, usb driver stacks. It still has an awful, flashy interface that adds unnecessary steps between changing inputs. It still tries to load god knows what apps every time you…

I agree with what you are saying ideologically, but practically:

- Streaming services often work better with native TV apps than external devices, especially in regards to frame consistency and HDR support.

- The upscaling/interpolation ASICs in TVs are really good. Until very recently, especially on streaming services, PC and Android upscaling was not good.

Hence I dont really want a "dumb" TV/Monitor anymore unless I will never watch any kind of video content on it... mostly because of streaming DRM, which is also awful, but still.

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

#535

Post by tmm »

pupdogg wrote: post #133

I've designed and built many such TVs for the commercial/industrial vertical. I am currently working on developing such a TV for the consumer market and launching it under the name DUMBO.TV Let me know your thoughts. Reference pix of 70" industrial display using Samsung LCD panel and in-house LCD controller with physical OSD menu buttons along with IR/RS232 control capability: https://imgur.com/a/k6zrH3s

That would be great.

My main issue with smart TVs isn't the network connectivity, its their horrible UI. The menus are universally confusing, slow and poorly thought-out. And because these TVs have to have some complicated OS to run all this stuff, they're slow to start up. My AppleTV goes from standby to on faster than my circa 2008[1] (only kinda smart) TV and receiver are ready to display an image. The AppleTV should not be the fastest device in the chain.

I assume your commercial displays have a time-to-first-image that more closely resembles a computer monitor. That's what I want in a TV. If Apple had a TV-version of CarPlay that TV manufacturers could license, I'd be pretty happy with that.

Given that embedded TvOS isn't coming any time soon, my ideal TV would have:

    * 70" - 80" screen
    * the smallest possible bezel
    * 4k HDR
    * capable of professional color calibration
    * one HDMI 2.1 input with ARC
    * TV tuner with auto-scan
    * any crappy speaker will do (I'm not going to use it)
    * IR/RS-232 control with distinct codes for on and off (i.e. not toggled)
    * excellent CEC support
    * time-to-first-image under 3 seconds, immediate audio
Nice to haves:

    * simulated snow for dead channels/no input (much nicer than blue IMO)
    * power, HDMI, serial connections should be down-facing
    * physical buttons on the back of the TV for power, channel, volume, menu
    * a rear or bottom-mounted red power LED that reflects off the wall/table
I would be willing to pay $3000 - $4000 for this TV, with the expectation that it would last at least 15 years.

[1] In December 2008, I bought a Samsung LN52A750 52" 1080p TV for $1937. That's roughly $2772 inflation-adjusted. It has a huge bezel; a modern TV with the same physical dimensions would be closer to 60" diagonal.

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

#536

Post by spicyusername »

disposition2 wrote: post #529

Pretty unrelated but something that has irked me is the lack of PIP on basically any new TV. I’m not even sure if you can get a TV with PIP anymore. I bought a 50” Samsung about 7 years ago and at that time I had trouble finding a TV with PIP. I upgraded to a 65” LG OLED about a year ago and the picture is absolutely beautiful, it took a while to get used to…seeing a fly on the video had me thinking I had a fly in th…

My Samsung frame has something kind of like PIP.

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

#537

Post by spacedcowboy »

prepend wrote: post #528
spacedcowboy wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My smart TV (not connected to the internet) is just a monitor - it switches on, detects the HDTV signal, and shows it. I'm not aware of any awful flashy interface (I think there is an advert for the manufacturer before it syncs to the HDMI connection - 4 big red letters). That's it. Personally I can live with that. In fact I was considering getting an 8K version of the same to replace the 3 4k monitors I have.

My dumb tv (sceptre) syncs to hdmi in a few milliseconds and there’s certainly no time to show anything other than the signal.

As does mine when it's going from sleep to live. It takes a little longer from cold-start, and you get the manufacturer name, which happens at least once per year.

As I said, it's not something I care about.

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

#538

Post by sealeck »

brucethemoose2 wrote: post #534
rolenthedeep wrote: post #376

"just don't connect it to the internet" is such a typical HN response that completely misses the point. A smart TV with no internet connection is still a smart TV. It still has an entire operating system that needs to load wifi, ethernet, Bluetooth, usb driver stacks. It still has an awful, flashy interface that adds unnecessary steps between changing inputs. It still tries to load god knows what apps every time you…

I agree with what you are saying ideologically, but practically: - Streaming services often work better with native TV apps than external devices, especially in regards to frame consistency and HDR support. - The upscaling/interpolation ASICs in TVs are really good. Until very recently, especially on streaming services, PC and Android upscaling was not good. Hence I dont really want a "dumb" TV/Monitor anymore unless…

In which case this question is not for you I suppose.

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

#539

Post by vorpalhex »

crazygringo wrote: post #516
TacticalCoder wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A smart TV with no internet connection And it's soon going to be impossible to dodge it going on the Internet anyway. Manufacturers are hard at work making sure that if any of any neighbor's Internet of Shitty Insecure Things [TM] device participate in the scam, the smart TV shall use your neighbor's device to escape and access the net. I forgot the name of the protocol / "feature", but it's a very real thing. So u…

That is total unfounded speculation unless you have evidence for it. Do you? There's been an urban legend going around for years that smart TV's automatically connect to unsecured wifi but nobody's ever been able to demonstrate it a single time. (Probably their kid had connected it intentionally or something.) So you might be conflating that urban legend with Amazon's network of Ring devices. But that's extremely low…

https://m.gsmarena.com/huawei_reportedly_working_on_a_5gconn...

https://patents.google.com/patent/CN111885330B/en

Your car already does this. It's trivial for your television to do so as well.

Sidewalk doesn't yet have a TV manufacturer onboarded but an ad profile is well within the size limit for their spectrum. We're talking kb of json.

So it's not unfounded, there are patents. It's not speculation, it seems to be a pretty active area of thought for manufacturers of televisions, and it's used now in your car.

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

#540

Post by gnramires »

pupdogg wrote: post #133

I've designed and built many such TVs for the commercial/industrial vertical. I am currently working on developing such a TV for the consumer market and launching it under the name DUMBO.TV Let me know your thoughts. Reference pix of 70" industrial display using Samsung LCD panel and in-house LCD controller with physical OSD menu buttons along with IR/RS232 control capability: https://imgur.com/a/k6zrH3s

How about having a built in open source capability that can be turned off/on (i.e. it has a basic firmware/OS, but can boot into essentially a linux distro)? To me that's what would be great, since it extends the main problem that's maintainability of the 'smart features'. Bonus points if the smart board is modular and can be swapped for a new version without much trouble.
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