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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?

#541

Post by machrider »

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://www.theverge.com/2023/3/28/23659191/amazon-sidewalk-...

I mean, bandwidth doesn't really matter if we're talking about whether the device is sending home private information about what content you watch. It doesn't need to stream video back to Samsung to be basically malware.

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

#542

Post by deadbunny »

gpanders wrote: post #235
lfkdev wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a Pi4 with Kodi etc. is still way better for privacy.

Probably true, but the Pi4 is not up to the task of transcoding 4k video.

Why would the Pi need to transcode video it's outputting to the TV?

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

#543

Post by kelnos »

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

Do you have some sort of mailing list I can subscribe to? I'm very interested in something like this, but I expect that I'll forget your post by tomorrow and never hear of it again unless someone sends me an email about it once it's available.

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

#544

Post by cat_plus_plus »

excalibur wrote: post #262
cat_plus_plus wrote: post #214

Like one with physical nobs to adjust channel and volume? Ebay should be good. Want a remote control and on screen menus? That's a smart TV. The difference is that the price of embedded controller to run built in UI and live guide is no longer any lower than one needed to stream Hulu. Someone also needs to develop TV firmware and Android development is much cheaper than creating new embedded UI from scratch. And Hulu…

> Want a remote control and on screen menus? That's a smart TV. This is factually incorrect. The defining feature of a Smart TV is internet connectivity. You wouldn't know it from the selection in your local Wal-Mart, but there are a great many TVs in the world, with flat panels and menus and everything, that lack the physical ability to connect to the internet. I have one hanging on my wall.

There is no commercial advantage to skip $5 WiFi module and forego easy upgradability, app placement revenues and a segment of users who want Netflix out of the box. At least for consumer products, defense displays without radios are obviously important. But they are going to cost you.

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

#545

Post by colinsane »

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…

this kind of comment is exactly what GP was speaking against…

you’re allowed your preferences, but recognize that they aren’t universal and try not to steamroll over someone else’s divergent preferences.

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

#546

Post by samtho »

actually_a_dog wrote: post #512
harry8 wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a 75" Sony bravia smart tv and it draws 10-20 watts in standby. I have a 70" dell monitor used as a a tv in another room it draws 0 watts in standby.

20 watts standby is only about 14.7 kWh per month. Even at on-peak, summer PG&E rates, we're only talking about $7/month. Granted, I'd much rather pay $0 than $7, and I'd rather not waste energy, but we're probably not talking about anything close to the amount of energy the average household wastes. I'd be looking at refrigerators and other large appliances for energy savings long before I'd be thinking about how mu…

I would argue the TV is the most wasteful thing you mentioned. The refrigerator, even if it is inefficient, still does it’s job by cooling food. That ~15kWh monthly to your TV to exist in an off state does nothing for your quality of life. It’s not like the energy is uses somehow charged the TV for future use, it’s just running internal systems that we have no insight into and most likely does not benefit us.

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

#547

Post by deadbunny »

Terretta wrote: post #407
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.

Another way to "keep it off the Internet" without keeping it off the Internet is: Perflyst and Dandelion Sprout's Smart-TV Blocklist https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Perflyst/PiHoleBlocklist/m...

Or just block it in your firewall.

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

#548

Post by notatoad »

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

what would you be doing that i couldn't get by just buying a display from one of the big name's "digital signage" lineups? like, for instance, any of these:

https://www.cdw.com/search/computer-monitors-displays/large-...

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

#549

Post by throwaway2190 »

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…

If Amazon can't do it 5G will, one of the advertised aims is to allow many more types of device to connect without overcrowding the networks.

> When fully operational, 5G networks will have the capacity to connect 500 times more devices than 4G. This is the foundation for the future of Massive IoT—a world with a million or more connected devices per square kilometre.

https://www.rogers.com/business/blog/en/understanding-massiv...

Now for the sentence that will ruin my credibility: they've done a pretty good job of immunising (ha) everyone against any criticism of 5G by associating it with antivaxxers etc.

> By injecting people with a severely weakened dose of fake news (the virus) and refuting it in advance, over time people can develop mental antibodies – psychological immunity – against misinformation.

https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/foolproof

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

#550

Post by nabilhat »

stinkytaco wrote: post #469
nabilhat wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's where it became clear that the article was taking advantage of the question to frame the source as an out-of-touch weirdo. "If you can find one manufactured recently that isn’t smart" implies they didn't try to find one and made up this content to avoid doing so. The assumed "missing salient features" are smart features; this statement framing the article's thesis is tautological. It's a disingenuous response…

Do that search with Google and you will see that Wirecutter recommends a number of Vizio TVs. I've personally bought and been happy with a Vizio TV they recommended. I do not connect it to the Internet and it works fine. EDIT: here is one article in which they recommend a vizio model: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-lcd-led-tv/

Yikes! Thank you, I regret the error.

I know it varies by user but I got nothing back from Google. I posted the DDG link assuming it would be a little less variably tailored for others. That's the first time I've seen DDG overfilter rather than overselect. That's disappointing. On to Startpage I guess?

https://www.startpage.com/do/metasearch.pl?query=site%3Anyti...

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