Ask HN: What's the best hackable smart TV? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What's the best hackable smart TV?

#111

Post by esperent » Fri, Oct 10, 2025, 8:04 PM UTC

paulgerhardt wrote: post #45

Do recommend the LG C series (C5 or C4 are new or the C1 series if you want a deal on classifieds - same hardware as the higher end models but needs a firmware bit flip). The OS is very rootable and it makes a great TV that doubles as a monitor. Supports free sync / g-sync. OLED is nice at this scale. Text is very readable, refresh rate is good. It uses the same panels as the fancier G series in the larger sizes. One…

> same hardware as the higher end models but needs a firmware bit flip

I have a C1, and I got the technician's remote to try this. But it didn't work in my case - it seems that only some of them use the same hardware, probably based on supply chain needs. Still though, amazing screen. Takes a bit messing around with picture settings (there's some good guides online) but I've never found the "TV" parts to get in the way, just connected it via HDMI, put it in PC mode, disable wifi, and it's good to go. I guess I've been using it around 4 years now.

The only serious issue is the shininess of the screen. It's not terrible but I did have to rearrange my office a bit to make sure it wasn't facing a window.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best hackable smart TV?

#112

Post by dec0dedab0de » Fri, Oct 10, 2025, 8:07 PM UTC

chatmasta wrote: post #62

Why does it need to be a TV? Why not a monitor? I don’t know why we even differentiate between the two of them these days… basically the only difference is that a TV might have an IR receiver for a remote. I’d go with a basic monitor and factor out the “smart TV” into whatever device you prefer – Apple TV, Chromecast, Firestick, any SBC with Kodi loaded onto it… an Xbox… why couple the smart features to the display?

Because I need to be able to plug in an antenna to watch football

Re: Ask HN: What's the best hackable smart TV?

#113

Post by kjkjadksj » Fri, Oct 10, 2025, 8:08 PM UTC

paulgerhardt wrote: post #45

Do recommend the LG C series (C5 or C4 are new or the C1 series if you want a deal on classifieds - same hardware as the higher end models but needs a firmware bit flip). The OS is very rootable and it makes a great TV that doubles as a monitor. Supports free sync / g-sync. OLED is nice at this scale. Text is very readable, refresh rate is good. It uses the same panels as the fancier G series in the larger sizes. One…

How much pause should oled burn in give you though? Both from the buying used perspective and using as a secondary monitor where there might be fixed ui elements?

Re: Ask HN: What's the best hackable smart TV?

#114

Post by zdware » Fri, Oct 10, 2025, 8:10 PM UTC

paulgerhardt wrote: post #45

Do recommend the LG C series (C5 or C4 are new or the C1 series if you want a deal on classifieds - same hardware as the higher end models but needs a firmware bit flip). The OS is very rootable and it makes a great TV that doubles as a monitor. Supports free sync / g-sync. OLED is nice at this scale. Text is very readable, refresh rate is good. It uses the same panels as the fancier G series in the larger sizes. One…

++ for the LG homebrew community. The homebrew store literally has an app now that will auto refresh your dev token so your TV doesn't go out of devmode and uninstall all of your home brew. Used to have to setup a cron job to renew/refresh dev mode.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best hackable smart TV?

#115

Post by Atomic_Torrfisk » Fri, Oct 10, 2025, 8:11 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #19

RajT88 wrote: post #4

Craigslist an older 1080p TV. People are getting rid of old "dumb" TV's, and sometimes you can get them free. I see seemingly undamaged LCD TV's out by garbage bins all the time. I sourced one such a TV for my wife for $100 a few years ago to use as a monitor - works great. No apps or anything - dumb as they come.

You're missing out on resolution (4K) and picture quality (HDR, contrast ratios, color gamut) improvements by doing this.

Yes, but I think you are missing out on the part where it is close to free. I have a nice monitor for photos and other crap, but most of the shit I do is text. I do not need 4k.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best hackable smart TV?

#116

Post by puskavi » Fri, Oct 10, 2025, 8:12 PM UTC

You could score some insane screens from recycling centers, but at least in Finland, its fucking illegal to repurpose (steal) "electronic waste" However, depending where you're located, all that stuff might go to somewhere else than smasher and smelter, so please check such places around you! Good example is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbqOvBHVpbw ,he found old tobacco ad display (ips!) for cheap!

Re: Ask HN: What's the best hackable smart TV?

#117

Post by zdware » Fri, Oct 10, 2025, 8:13 PM UTC

stavros wrote: post #37

hamdingers wrote: post #20

For "fun and interesting" consider an LG WebOS TV. Many can be rooted[1] which allows installing a homebrew channel[2] of unauthorized apps or writing your own. I initially did it for Jellyfin before they made it into the official app store, but the Moonlight game streaming app has unlocked many hours of entertainment. 1. https://cani.rootmy.tv 2. https://www.webosbrew.org/

Moonlight is really fantastic. It's worked better than Geforce Now for me. Amazon's thing worked best, but they don't have as many games as my Steam does.

Moonlight is great, but be careful about overestimating how fast video decoding is. I would get 10-40ms additional latency, jitter doing moonlight from tv, vs running it on Linux on my mini PC homelab hooked up to the TV, my decoding/network latency was like 1-2ms for a frame

Re: Ask HN: What's the best hackable smart TV?

#118

Post by boydYVR » Fri, Oct 10, 2025, 8:18 PM UTC

I have a 10yr old Insignia 1080p TV. One of the 3 HDMI inputs is a Roku stick and I have Home Assistant watch for it and load the Jellyfin app whenever the TV gets turned on. Works most of the time and it's nice to avoid the Roku ads.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best hackable smart TV?

#119

Post by batrat » Fri, Oct 10, 2025, 8:19 PM UTC

kelthuzad wrote: post #101

paulgerhardt wrote: post #45

Do recommend the LG C series (C5 or C4 are new or the C1 series if you want a deal on classifieds - same hardware as the higher end models but needs a firmware bit flip). The OS is very rootable and it makes a great TV that doubles as a monitor. Supports free sync / g-sync. OLED is nice at this scale. Text is very readable, refresh rate is good. It uses the same panels as the fancier G series in the larger sizes. One…

I bought the Samsung Frame TV and I love it, but you're correct about Samsung's OS (it's sluggish, filled with ADs and by far the worst TV OS that I've used so far)

Ads? I thought HN crowd already know how to use a pihole or at least adguard dns. I got Samsung TV's in every room because they are easy to use with a Galaxy phone, using it as a remote and a keyboard. Also wireless DEX is soooo underrated. Want a specific app on tv? no problem. I'm basically using them as displays for my phone.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best hackable smart TV?

#120

Post by nomel » Fri, Oct 10, 2025, 8:22 PM UTC

trenchpilgrim wrote: post #6

You probably want a computer monitor rather than a TV; monitors will prioritize latency which is important for music production.

Related, many modern TVs have "game mode" which prioritizes video latency, with the loss of some of the algs being available.

RTINGS actually tracks this, with most being comparable to monitors at the same refresh rate, while in game mode (around 10x faster than non-game mode). [1]

4k@120Hz with VRR is even available in And, for audio latency, unless you're using the built in speakers, it's fairly trivial to make the video and audio paths independent.

[1] https://www.rtings.com/tv/tests/inputs/input-lag