isn't it easier/cheaper to just buy a "smart tv" and never connect it to the internet?
Ask Wirecutter: Can you recommend a not-smart TV for me?
871–880 of 1001 posts
Re: Ask Wirecutter: Can you recommend a not-smart TV for me?
#872Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are other attack vectors of a TV. For example, most TVs have a usb. Imagine an attack in which an attacker gains physical access to your TV and loads malware onto your TV via USB. Now the infected TV is communicating with a nearby WIFI hotspot to upload the audio recordings from the TV's microphone (that exists for voice commands). I think the TV is malware out-of-the-book if connected to a network connection.…
In this theoretical scenario where there’s an evil person in my house that wants to record what I say, it would be way easier for them to just put a microphone behind one of my paintings
And cut the eyes out so they could also watch
Re: Ask Wirecutter: Can you recommend a not-smart TV for me?
#873Earlier quoted context omitted.
The good business reason is that Bluetooth etc cost essentially nothing compared to the $$$ they make selling your privacy.
I doubt it's actual nothing, rather I think the added cost in absolute value is used to improve operating margins in ratio. This would also drive internal incentives, and it's rendering the cost to the manufacturer irrelevant so long that the capitals at hand and market demand can absorb it. e.g. $150 TV + $75 chips - $100 rebates = $125 -> negative cost and +10% margin to add chips! And the problem is that we as cus…
I do Bluetooth hardware for my job. At the scale that TV manufacturers operate at, I would be extremely surprised if Bluetooth cost more than a dollar for them to implement.
I operate on the scale of hundreds to thousands of units, and Bluetooth adds less than $5 to each unit. At millions, I assume it's more or less free.
Re: Ask Wirecutter: Can you recommend a not-smart TV for me?
#874Earlier 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 IDIOT? Edit: Damn, there is 'IOT' in it.
The Id10TV
Re: Ask Wirecutter: Can you recommend a not-smart TV for me?
#875Earlier quoted context omitted.
Children are complaining, but this is exactly right. Yes, I can work around the device connecting me to the internet. What I’d really prefer though is to exchange whatever cost went into the shit add ons, the Bluetooth, the speakers, the wifi, the usb, and put that into a better display. Done. I’m sure there’s a good business reason why this simple, obvious project is not what’s in the market.
Suppose economics of scale make it cheaper to produce the smart devices than the specwise-equivalent dumb devices, just like how it's cheaper to produce microcontroller-based electronics today than the "simpler" analog electronics which came before. Then what is the argument for the dumb devices?
That is really not how that works.
A smart TV is a dumb TV with an extra processor. No matter how you shake it, the smart features are extra hardware added on to the dumb TV.
And besides, smart TVs are already much cheaper, because the manufacturer is spying on you and selling that data in perpetuity. They're injecting ads into your TV menus and keeping that profit.
Your smart TV is priced so low because it's subsidized by the manufacturer selling your privacy.
What you're talking about was a paradigm shift in the fundamentals of electronics. Silicon wafers in the trillions are cheaper to make than vacuum tubes in the thousands. It was a radical shift in the way the industry worked. It literally revolutionized the entirety of global society.
Meanwhile, Samsung took the guts out of the cheapest android tablet they could find and stuffed it in a TV. It's really not at all comparable.
Re: Ask Wirecutter: Can you recommend a not-smart TV for me?
#876"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.
Did you read the comment you replied to? Because it was a direct response to comments exactly like this one.
Re: Ask Wirecutter: Can you recommend a not-smart TV for me?
#877"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…
Just because a problem doesn't affect you personally doesn't mean that it isn't a problem.
Re: Ask Wirecutter: Can you recommend a not-smart TV for me?
#878Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is essentially what I've done. The TV has never been connected to the Internet and my Apple TV drives everything. I would still have payed 2x to support a good dumb TV project and would love to do so in the future.
But isn't a dumb TV + Apple TV pretty much the same as a smart TV? (I know, you avoid dealing with two "smarts," but still...)
Apple TV has no ads. Many (most?) smart tvs are full of them or tracking software
Re: Ask Wirecutter: Can you recommend a not-smart TV for me?
#879Re: Ask Wirecutter: Can you recommend a not-smart TV for me?
#880Earlier quoted context omitted.
How about IDIOT? Edit: Damn, there is 'IOT' in it.
PRIMITV
Hi lagrange77, I like this name too. Thank you for the suggestion. It's a bummer that primi.tv is already taken, but I'm fairly optimistic that I can find another easy-to-remember domain. Also, I'll do some digging beforehand to make sure that I'm not overstepping any existing trademarks or copyrights. If everything works out, I'd like to give you one of these displays if and when I get the prototype unit off the ground. Would that be okay?