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Sick of smart TVs? Here are your best options

arstechnica.com

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Re: Sick of smart TVs? Here are your best options

#81

Post by sidewndr46 »

jeremy151 wrote: post #10
deafpolygon wrote: post #2

tl;dr: don’t connect it to a network, and/or use a computer monitor.

My work health insurance recently offered a free scale and blood pressure monitor, I thought that's a nice perk, I'll use that, so I ordered with the intent of never using their app, just using it for my own tracking. The first time I used it, I got an email from my insurance company congratulating me and giving me suggestions. Both devices have a cellular modem in them, and arrived paired to my identity. I destroyed…

Why not just remove the cell modem?

Re: Sick of smart TVs? Here are your best options

#83

Post by EnPissant »

tormeh wrote: post #80

What I'd really like is a TV with DisplayPort. How is this not a thing? IIRC you cannot buy a display with DP that's larger than 45 inches, give or take - they just don't exist. I think this is really weird. Like, I'd pay an extra $100 for that port, but I'm just not allowed to have it.

Why would you want such a thing? HDMI 2.1 does HDR 4k @ 120hz without compression. The entire TV ecosystem uses HDMI. If you want to connect a PC to a TV they always have at least 1 HDMI out, and some have a couple.

Re: Sick of smart TVs? Here are your best options

#84

Post by willis936 »

EnPissant wrote: post #83
tormeh wrote: post #80

What I'd really like is a TV with DisplayPort. How is this not a thing? IIRC you cannot buy a display with DP that's larger than 45 inches, give or take - they just don't exist. I think this is really weird. Like, I'd pay an extra $100 for that port, but I'm just not allowed to have it.

Why would you want such a thing? HDMI 2.1 does HDR 4k @ 120hz without compression. The entire TV ecosystem uses HDMI. If you want to connect a PC to a TV they always have at least 1 HDMI out, and some have a couple.

Oh, I know this one. It was recently on the HN front page. Open source software stacks are locked out of high end pixel clocks.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46220488

Re: Sick of smart TVs? Here are your best options

#85

Post by MarsIronPI »

EnPissant wrote: post #83
tormeh wrote: post #80

What I'd really like is a TV with DisplayPort. How is this not a thing? IIRC you cannot buy a display with DP that's larger than 45 inches, give or take - they just don't exist. I think this is really weird. Like, I'd pay an extra $100 for that port, but I'm just not allowed to have it.

Why would you want such a thing? HDMI 2.1 does HDR 4k @ 120hz without compression. The entire TV ecosystem uses HDMI. If you want to connect a PC to a TV they always have at least 1 HDMI out, and some have a couple.

Because HDMI 2.1 uses a proprietary protocol that's not implemented in any free OS[0]. If you want to use HDMI 2.1 features right now, your only option is to use a non-free OS like Windows or MacOS.

[0]: This came up recently with Valve: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46220488

Re: Sick of smart TVs? Here are your best options

#86

Post by 0x457 »

nickthegreek wrote: post #56
M95D wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They nag.

Maybe some brands do (feel free to name them). My Samsung does not.

However, if you do connect, then Samsung pushes so many updates (more ads) than anyone else. My ancient samsung tv in the garage was getting weekly updates for some reason.

Re: Sick of smart TVs? Here are your best options

#87

Post by lazyeye »

HiroProtagonist wrote: post #21

Pi-hole

Often devices will have the DNS server hard-coded and never connect to the pihole DNS server. This is not just to avoid ad-blocking but to make the DNS more reliable and avoiding having lots of potential support issues around faulty DNS.

Re: Sick of smart TVs? Here are your best options

#88

Post by andrewf »

tzs wrote: post #78
anonym29 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd have tried to disassemble it, locate the SIM card or cellular modem, and see if it could be used for other traffic. A wireguard tunnel fixes the privacy problem, and I can always use more IP addresses and bandwidth. Until people start abusing these "features", they will not go away.

Be very very careful if you do that. The data plans on some embedded modems are quite different from consumer plans. They are specifically designed for customers who have a large number of devices but only need a small amount of bandwidth on each device. These plans might have a very low fixed monthly cost but only include a small data allowance, say 100 KB/month. That's plenty for something like a blood pressure mon…

Example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2509967 (the original source is gone and not in the Wayback Machine)

Re: Sick of smart TVs? Here are your best options

#89

Post by no_wizard »

tormeh wrote: post #80

What I'd really like is a TV with DisplayPort. How is this not a thing? IIRC you cannot buy a display with DP that's larger than 45 inches, give or take - they just don't exist. I think this is really weird. Like, I'd pay an extra $100 for that port, but I'm just not allowed to have it.

As far as I am aware, after having done exhaustive research on this, its licensing costs and popularity. Display port simply isn't popular enough. The vast majority of TV manufacturers (not brands mind you, many white label their manufacturing to different brands) also make monitors, and adoption of HDMI across both tvs and monitors not only was much higher, it was overall cheaper in cost since you could share the same components across lines. This being driven by cheaper licensing costs for accessory manufacturers (like blu ray players).

Its also easier to implement, if I recall correctly

This is the essential core of it, as I have come to understand it anyway.

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