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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?

#661

Post by Godel_unicode »

gruez wrote: post #619
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.

There's no evidence that smart TVs actually do that, aside from a few scant anecdotes from reddit.

I have tried pretty hard (I came up with 100 common Wi-Fi names by googling around) and have never been able to get it to happen. With enterprise grade Wi-Fi gear it’s pretty trivial to create a ton of AP names and route them all to a test VLAN.

If it sounds like the idea comes with a tinfoil hat, best to investigate with a skeptical eye.

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

#662

Post by fdgddggfddfg »

kalleboo wrote: post #587
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…

No, the typical HN responses are the "just pay three times as much for a digital signage display because we're all rich Bay Area types here right" and the "Just use a really cheap crappy panel since we're all old curmudgeons who can't tell the difference in image quality anyway, right" ones. "Just don't connect it" is the pragmatic option that normal people do.

I think we are all forgetting something here... Android smart TVs are just an android phone that is not pocket-able.... If all of us galaxy brains here stop arguing and made a crew to make ROMS for our TVs that remove all the spyware... the world would be a much much MUCH better place!

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

#663

Post by scythe »

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…

>A smart-but-disconnected TV can meet all of those functional requirements

One of them will. This thread is full of conflicting anecdotes: one user's smart TV turns on quickly and works like a dumb TV when it's not connected to the Internet; another user's TV takes a full sixty seconds to get going. The fact that one smart TV will do the thing does not at all imply that another one will.

And if you have to search for what kind of smart TV will act like a dumb TV when you want it to, you are already looking for a dumb TV! You still have to look at reviews and seek out the other people who didn't want any of this corporate surveillance catastrophe to find out what happened to them. It is the same search process with a slightly broader scope at the cost of a more complicated definition of that scope.

Meanwhile, I got a 40" Sceptre dumb TV from Walmart last year and it's been a very satisfying decision. It was cheaper than most if not all of the smart TVs, too. And I don't have to treat it like a contamination risk or worry about it finding an open WiFi network. Maybe I'm just one of those old curmudgeons who doesn't care about image quality. Couldn't tell you.

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

#664

Post by anonymouskimmer »

justinclift wrote: post #610
anonymouskimmer wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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)

> While much of TEMPEST is about leaking electromagnetic emanations, it also encompasses sounds and mechanical vibrations.

Damnit. They're going to embed signals in the harmonics of the sound system, and invert the sound systems of neighboring connected devices to act as microphones. So you'll need a Faraday cage and a fully soundproofed and seismically-proofed room.

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

#665

Post by josephcsible »

TechBro8615 wrote: post #655
josephcsible wrote: post #646

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monitors tend to be way smaller than TVs and can't be controlled with a remote.

What do you use your TV remote for? At my parents' house we have a TV and a cable box, each with its own remote. The only reason to use the TV remote is to turn the power on and off. All the other functionality is in the cable box remote.

Turning the volume up and down. Which leads to another point I forgot to mention: people expect TVs to have built-in speakers, but a lot of monitors don't.

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

#666

Post by fnordpiglet »

lesuorac wrote: post #659
singron wrote: post #645

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to be careful. My Samsung smart tv throws up a splash screen whenever any HDMI input is plugged in or wakes up, which can only be dismissed by using the remote. Sometimes it even shows a few frames of the HDMI input before switching to the splash screen. Infuriating!

This kills me about the Apple TV. It didn't used to display an ad for Apple's channels but now it does and it requires the remote to dismiss... Previously you could just blindly airplay something but now you have to airplay + dismiss the ad with the remote.

I’ve been using Apple TV since the first generation and haven’t gotten an ad in my experience - did something change or a new version of the hardware I’ve not noticed yet show up? Are you using the Apple TV app itself?

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

#667

Post by pupdogg »

tmm wrote: post #613
pupdogg wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very good and comprehensive list. Thank you! Our industrial displays already have most of your "must-haves," except for three: 1. Professional color calibration - this is doable, but it adds significant cost. When referring to color calibration, it is not the typical marketing gimmick used for consumer displays, but instead something equivalent to what you would get with Sony's BVM-HX310 reference monitor.…

Color calibration - I'm not entirely sure what would be involved here, TBH. "Professional" in this context would be what a pro home AV installer[1] would look for, not what a Hollywood color grader would need. TV Tuner - Yes. An ATSC tuner with a COAX antenna input that can auto-scan for receivable channels. If this isn't feasible anymore, then I guess the HDMI input doesn't need ARC. Connectors - looking at your pho…

In that case, I would say that color calibration is very easy to accomplish and having the connectors facing down is something I was already planning to do. Our industrial displays are typically mounted 15-20ft in the air, so customers have an easier time accessing them from the side while on their lift.

As for outdoor TVs, that's a whole other Pandora's box, but yes, we also make those displays, mainly for digital billboards, advertising, and rental purposes. They typically range from 5000 nits to 12000 nits in brightness, and their pixel pitch ranges from 3mm to 9mm. They're all IP67 rated. Displays with a brightness lower than 5000 nits are typically indoor LED displays with much finer pitch, ranging from 0.9mm to 6mm. A 0.9mm pitch would be very similar to Samsung's QN90A series TVs with QLEDs (a marketing gimmick for an actual LED pixel-based display). These displays may cost a pretty penny, but we hope that once semiconductor plants are up and running in the US, costs will start to come down. Here's a project we did with a circular 3mm display back in 2017. This unit is 7ft tall with a 4.5ft diameter: http://bit.ly/43keDD5

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

#668

Post by admax88qqq »

justinclift wrote: post #610
anonymouskimmer wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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)

Of course then you can't use your phone inside your house/living room.

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

#669

Post by Godel_unicode »

1101010010 wrote: post #584
chongli wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Any guides or recommendations on accomplishing this on LG equipment?

There are some videos around on the internet that show how to find the Wi-Fi module on an LG tv, for example the below. If you break your tv by trying this it’s on you.

https://youtu.be/gRrBZ2Eu5-I

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

#670

Post by TechBro8615 »

josephcsible wrote: post #665
TechBro8615 wrote: post #655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you use your TV remote for? At my parents' house we have a TV and a cable box, each with its own remote. The only reason to use the TV remote is to turn the power on and off. All the other functionality is in the cable box remote.

Turning the volume up and down. Which leads to another point I forgot to mention: people expect TVs to have built-in speakers, but a lot of monitors don't.

Maybe, but smart TVs - and dumb TVs too - have pretty bad speakers. It seems like having a "soundbar" or equivalent is more common than not.
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