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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?

#571

Post by mcherm »

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 a mailing list I can sign up for to let me know when your product is ready for market?

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

#572

Post by kalleboo »

derefr wrote: post #509
jader201 wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was actually pleasantly surprised to see the "just don't connect it to the internet" comments, as most of these smart TV threads are usually full of comments complaining about them on principle, even though most of the world doesn't care (connected to the internet or not), and in this case, I think it does solve most of the issues. It's more common for HN to argue against something on principle, even when there's a…

I have a smart TV (in fact, the very one recommended in the article), connected to a Sony sound bar, and an Apple TV. I wake the whole assemblage from sleep by prodding the Apple TV remote — and then it takes fully 60 seconds before I can use it, because it seemingly 1. Wakes the TV up in SDR, syncs with the Apple TV; 2. Starts playing audio; 3. Which wakes the soundbar up; 4. Which forces a re-sync as the TV switche…

None of those things have anything to do with the TV being "smart" though, it's all up to the crappiness of modern HDMI.

Removing app support from the TV would not fix it. Actually, it sounds like using the smart features of your TV to watch video instead of an Apple TV would actually reduce the bugginess?

I have a 10 year old non-smart TV. It predates HDR, but just basic ARC and CEC still regularly trips it up. To the point my 5 year old knows how to re-select the sound bar output to fix when the audio breaks.

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

#573

Post by fire »

pupdogg wrote: post #166
lostlogin wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you survive the lawsuit from Disney, I’m in. I’d prefer a much smaller tv (32-40”) but I’m weird like that. All I’d want is an input for an Apple TV and maybe 2 more hdmi plugs. Doesn’t even need a remote. Good luck.

Wait, this Disney lawsuit thing is news to me. What's up with that? You're right, in the consumer market, there's a much higher demand for 32-40" display. Our UHD controller can easily handle that and comes with 5x total input ports [ 3x HDMI(V1.4a), 1x HDMI(V2.0), 1x DisplayPort(V1.2) ] and can run 3840x2160 or 4096x2160 resolutions @ 120Hz.

I hope to god the edid on your displays doesn't include 4096x2160 for 3840x2160-native panels the way LG TVs do; it's such a freaking nightmare to deal with any sort of gpu scaling or DSR resolution type options on my LG CX due to that

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

#574

Post by olyjohn »

chongli wrote: post #569
1101010010 wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Best solution for that is to open up the TV and disconnect the antenna.

I think that's why people are just asking to buy non-smart TVs.

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

#575

Post by nerdix »

potatolicious wrote: post #551
delecti wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> "A smart-but-disconnected TV can meet all of those functional requirements, and your nonfunctional requirements" Ehhh I beg to differ. I got a Sony TV a year or so ago with Google TV built in. It's been a nightmare - the GUI is basically unusably slow (literally 5 entire seconds from button press to response) and the whole experience sucks. So I did what most reasonable people did - plug in some HDMI device that do…

Are you using HDMI-CEC? You shouldn't be touching your TV remote at all. You shouldn't need to set a default HDMI input. All you have to do is press any button on the AppleTV remote and it will turn on the TV with the correct input device selected. I have a 2 year old Sony TV with GoogleTV and it works fine. I can go directly to a PS5 and Switch by just turning on the respective controller.

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

#576

Post by aix1 »

wholinator2 wrote: post #473
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.

Maybe my ignorance here but a 70 inch monitor? At what point is it just a dumb tv? Like is monitor a term used to describe its actual engineering and functionality or just how it's used. Also if engineering, is there a substantial price difference?

In addition to what others have already mentioned, it would generally be completely acceptable for a monitor to not have built-in speakers. For a TV, not so much.

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

#577

Post by 1101010010 »

Larrikin wrote: post #567
1101010010 wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Networks with no password and no captive sign in portal are extremely rare nowadays. They are on by default and anyone with the IT ability to go in and change it will already know the dangers of letting anyone use the Internet you are paying for. But also are there any actual confirmed cases of TVs doing this? The comment section here always fear mongers about it (kudos for not mentioning Amazon sidewalk), but it isn…

> Networks with no password and no captive sign in portal are extremely rare nowadays.

In my suburban-American experience, they are in fact they are more common these days as more consumers purchase and own ISP-provided equipment.

> But also are there any actual confirmed cases of TVs doing this?

Given the nature of proprietary closed source software, I am willing to accept a less than charitable assumption of what they do.

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

#578

Post by artdigital »

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.

I use NextDNS/Adguard to cut out all the telemetry/tracking and have mine on a separate VLAN. I don't use the TV ui often, but this worked for the rare occasion

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

#579

Post by nmeagent »

nickthenerd wrote: post #298
lr1970 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is Amazon SideWalk [0] that could potentially allow devices join mesh WiFi behind your back. [0] https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Sidewalk/

Yes. I was looking for this comment before saying the same. This is the biggest selling point of Sidewalk to appliance/product companies. All the usage data, ad data, analytics, even remote control of devices can now happen even if your devices are completely disconnected from your home WiFi. If your neighbor has an Amazon Echo... now its basically connected to the internet. Even if you don't have neighbors, there co…

Well, we still have physical access at least. Let's see these weasel devices try to connect without a functioning antenna.

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

#580

Post by n0zmer »

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…

Exactly this. More than 7$ a month leave my bank account every month on so many random things, subscriptions I forget to cancel, virtual machines I forget to destroy etc etc. I'd rather have my TV shutdown / turn on quickly over sweating about a random $7 savings on an electric bill that I wouldn't even see anyway.
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