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

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

#171

Post by hellotheretoday »

rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #163
IshKebab wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Less evil than Sony? I have an LG TV. I can't recommend it purely because they have the audacity to omit a play/pause button from the remote control. Pausing requires pressing the "centre" button one, two or three times depending on which app you are in. Pure insanity. WebOS is trash too. Probably going to buy a Sony next time.

What's more devastating is that the CX and C1 actually had pause buttons, then they took them away around 2021/2022. It kills me that they have a dedicated button for Alexa and another for Sling (whatever that is) but none for pause. You can disable most of the WebOS trashiness by Googling and digging through the settings. Once you get all the ads fully disabled, the OS is extremely clean and snappy. And FYI Sony's O…

At least on the cx (I don’t see a point in upgrading for years) if you root webos you can redefine buttons on the remote. It’s great because I was getting infuriated by accidentally starting streaming apps that I never use and the cell phone apps as a remote alternative are utter trash from a usability standpoint.

I just can’t understand why there is a need for a remote app to do anything besides start to a tv remote. Well, I can, the poison apple of advertising as an additional revenue stream, but it’s still infuriating. I have an older Roku TV and that app has progressively gotten worse. it used to just be ideal, start, auto connect to the last connected tv, and immediately go to the remote. Now it’s a bunch of promotional content by default and you have to tab over to the remote. LGs is far more obnoxious and difficult to navigate. Absolutely inexcusable for displays that can cost $2500+

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

#172

Post by metabeard »

BozeWolf wrote: post #125
kelthuzad wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

Contrary experience from me: i hate my samsung frame, especially because of the ads. And more especially because of that samsung tv channel which autostarts. And I hate it even more because these ads change the menu in such a way that you cannot navigate it blindly because it inserts itself as a button mid way in the menu bar. You cannot disable or disable those things easily. Built in airplay is unstable. Bought and…

If you disable internet access for the device at the router level, the ads, the autostarting tv, etc all go away.

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

#173

Post by kelthuzad »

EvanAnderson wrote: post #165
BozeWolf wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contrary experience from me: i hate my samsung frame, especially because of the ads. And more especially because of that samsung tv channel which autostarts. And I hate it even more because these ads change the menu in such a way that you cannot navigate it blindly because it inserts itself as a button mid way in the menu bar. You cannot disable or disable those things easily. Built in airplay is unstable. Bought and…

I got my Frame with the house we bought. I never put it on my network. It's irritating that it powers-on many times to the wall art display function versus just being a TV. I definitely wouldn't have bought it standalone.

>It's irritating that it powers-on many times to the wall art display function versus just being a TV.

I personally love the Art Mode, but while browsing the service menu I've noticed that you can permanently disable it. You can make the secret menu appear by pressing some special combination or by pressing 2 buttons on the service remote[0].

[0] https://www.amazon.com/AA81-00243A-Replaced-Service-Control-...

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

#174

Post by drnick1 »

Best hackable smart TV should be a Linux box connected to a monitor or to a "smart" TV via HDMI without Internet access. The best thing about this setup is that you can stream Youtube ad-free though clients like VacuumTube. You can also open a browser and head straight to the high seas. Plus countless other things that are arbitrarily restricted or made difficult in locked down environments, all without your viewing habits being sent to the mothership, data brokers, and possibly the government.

The main downside is that there is currently no great "ten foot" UI for this use case on Linux. But the KDE Bigscreen project is being revived and could offer a definitive solution for free TVs.

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

#175

Post by throwawayk7h »

drnick1 wrote: post #174

Best hackable smart TV should be a Linux box connected to a monitor or to a "smart" TV via HDMI without Internet access. The best thing about this setup is that you can stream Youtube ad-free though clients like VacuumTube. You can also open a browser and head straight to the high seas. Plus countless other things that are arbitrarily restricted or made difficult in locked down environments, all without your viewing…

one should use a mini pc or similar for this; raspberry pi won't handle video so well imo.

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

#176

Post by drnick1 »

throwawayk7h wrote: post #175
drnick1 wrote: post #174

Best hackable smart TV should be a Linux box connected to a monitor or to a "smart" TV via HDMI without Internet access. The best thing about this setup is that you can stream Youtube ad-free though clients like VacuumTube. You can also open a browser and head straight to the high seas. Plus countless other things that are arbitrarily restricted or made difficult in locked down environments, all without your viewing…

one should use a mini pc or similar for this; raspberry pi won't handle video so well imo.

Agreed, I don't have first-hand experience with Pi's, but I have seen reports that they struggle with 4K playback, even at 30fps. An advantage of the Pi however is that it supports HDMI-CEC.

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

#177

Post by agile-gift0262 »

slipperybeluga wrote: post #97
matt_heimer wrote: post #40

I have Sony Bravia TV that has Android TV so I went looking for the docs to confirm you can enable developer mode, access adb, and sideload apps. While looking at the docs I discovered I can load HTML5 apps from USB! I never knew that but I'm going to do some experimentation in the near future. https://pro-bravia.sony.net/develop/app/getting-started/inde...

best thing i ever did with my bravia was install a custom launcher via adb to finally rid myself of the endless ads, upsetting news, and terrible suggestions constantly shoved in my face without my consent. nice to be able to uninstall the misc bloat that you can't get to with the gui and just have a simple interface. all i want is to access jellyfin and maybe one or two other apps. much better all around experience…

OMG! thank you! I was unaware this was possible. I can't stand the fact that my expensive TV came with ads built-in. I use it in "only apps mode" so at least the only ad id showed is the top third of the screen one, but not the "recommended" content tiles. I'll do this instead once I go back home

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

#178

Post by patrickk »

FloatArtifact wrote: post #158
patrickk wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This, this, this. Just never, ever connect the TV to the internet. Connect up an Nvidia shield, or a mini-PC/raspberry pi configured with whatever apps you desire, hidden behind a pi-hole. Connect a steam deck if gaming/linux desktop usage is your thing. I only touch the TV remote to switch on the TV, and even that could be automatable with home assistant+CEC if that's of interest.

In theory, this seems great, but you won't be able to use the majority of streaming applications nor get the same quality out of those applications. Like Netflix, they purposely downgrade the streaming quality on desktop.

The NVIDIA shield doesn’t suffer from those issues in my experience. It’s far superior when browsing menus for example versus on a smart tv as the hardware is still decent even for a relatively old product. I just hope NVIDIA continues to support it for a while more.

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

#179

Post by Kon5ole »

atmanactive wrote: post #160
Kon5ole wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Agree, but also, much worse image quality. I managed to grab a 55" 8K LG before 8K went out of fashion. I run it at 4k120 for games and 8k60 with doubling for productivity. I've never had a better monitor and if one should exist it's not available in any store I know about. Monitors costing 2-3x as much as this TV did back then are worse. When it dies I will have to downgrade. :-/

Hmmm, I'm confused now: aren't 8K displays just becoming a thing? Your perspective sounds like they are a dying breed. In the meantime, for me, they are still prohibitively expensive.

>aren't 8K displays just becoming a thing? Your perspective sounds like they are a dying breed. In the meantime, for me, they are still prohibitively expensive.

I'd say yes and no - they are becoming a thing - again. And you're right that they are prohibitively expensive this time.

Some 5 years ago 8K tv's were heavily marketed and displayed in many electronics stores, but consumers apparently didn't bite - basically no 8K content available and for "normal" TV use you can barely see a difference between 4k and 8k anyway.

So these TV's were very cheap for a short while before they basically disappeared.

And they make for great PC monitors. At normal working distance from a monitor you definitely notice the difference between 4k and 8k.

The screen area is basically the same as a 2x2 grid of 27" 4k monitors, but in one screen. For productivity work it's absolutely glorious, text is super-crisp.

I think there is a market structure problem that blocks progress here. Most people who work all day at a monitor would love to have such a screen, but the people paying for screens buy what the producers are selling, based on price.

So we end up with dual or triple small-monitor setups even in the wealthiest companies. If a few of the FAAMGs started asking for a 50" 8K maybe something would happen, but it hasn't yet. :(

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

#180

Post by heavyset_go »

batrat wrote: post #119
kelthuzad wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not 2015 anymore, advertisers aren't relying on DNS requests that a Pihole or AdGuard can block.
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