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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?

#602

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…

>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.)

Your neighbours' smartTV might take on an AP role for yours.

There's no escaping the ads and tracking with these devices.

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

#604
post #576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ugh, opportunity to rant a bit. As of some iPadOS release last year, I can no longer connect my iPad to a monitor while simultaneously using Airplay to send audio to my HomePod. I assume this is a DRM-imposed bug, but it’s frustrating as hell.

I finally bought a cheap speaker with a 3.5mm input because none of my existing Bluetooth speakers have one, so I could plug it into my monitor, but it’s crappy audio and a crappy workaround for a crappy limitation.

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

#605
We've been a projector household for a decade - started with a A$1000 short-throw, then upgraded to a A$1500 long-throw 4y ago after moving to an apartment where the layout didn't lend itself to short-throw, and I also needed bluetooth (audio) cast.

For anyone happy with up to 1080 (prices go a bit silly above 1080, at least in AU) and substantially less-than-vanta-black blacks, but appreciate viewing size (about 2 metre diagonal for us) and not having furniture obviously / perversely oriented around a rectangle that's almost always blank, it's an absolute boon.

Plug it into your RPi, NUC, etc - where the OS / UI 'smartness' is at your discretion - job done.

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

#606

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of my friend in the 2000's that would say "I don't have email" when stores asked for his email address. Even at the time, quite unusual unless you were over 70 years old.

Apples ‘hide my email’ is gold for this crap. It’s less cringy than ‘oh, it’s .com’

That's more cringy than just saying you don't have an email address.

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

#607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$7/month is a really high amount. Especially for nothing. Or something I actively don’t want. I have lots of dumb devices in my house I don’t want piling on $7 so the manufacturer can try to earn $0.30/month in data fees. I have multiple TVs, a washer, a dryer, a fridge, a cryo tank, lots of things. I don’t want them to waste $7 each.

cryo tank?

A tank you go in and cry every evening after work.

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

#610

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…

> And it's soon going to be impossible to dodge it going on the Internet anyway. To the tune of the Sesame Street song: Faraday cage, sweeping the signal away I don't know if transparent Faraday cages are possible, but there's apparently at least one company that will EM shield entire rooms.

> I don't know if transparent Faraday cages are possible

Depending on your budget, you could faraday enclose the whole room / building rather than trying to do an individual device.

As related reading from back in the day: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_(codename)

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