121–130 of 215 posts
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That assumption is not reasonable at all. Not only are "dumb" TVs no cheaper, hardly anyone even sells them anymore.
Picking a manufacturer (Samsung) and size (32") at random, I see the smart TV for $499 and non-smart options for 219, 269, 299. http://www.samsung.com/us/video/tvs/all-products Just for example.
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I think his point is based on the (very reasonable) assumption that an equivalent quality Smart TV is going to be more expensive, which isn't worth it in general since you're not using the features that cause the difference in cost. There of course may be realities of the market to cause it to not work out this way, but it's a pretty sensible assumption.
Otherwise-equivalent Smart TVs are usually less expensive than displays (whether TVs or monitors) without the "Smart" features. This is a matter probably largely of economies of scale -- because that's what manufacturers think the consumer market wants, that's what they make most of and flood consumer channels with, and dumb alternatives are a specialty product.
They are more expensive than a best buy model. Not terribly so, however, otherwise the airport couldn't buy 200 of them.
They are incredible displays.
I was flying from Dublin to Newark on Saturday on a United flight. At some point during our flight the entertainment system needed to be rebooted. When it came back up, the splash screen hit me with a huge amount of nostalgia. It was RedBoot with a kernel build date from 2004. Obviously this is the entertainment system and not something more critical, but it's telling. There is a huge cadence mismatch between softwar…
This reminds me of the rumours that Apple would release a TV. Frankly I never believed it and (IMHO) you have to be pretty ignorant of Apple to think the rumours had any credence whatsoever. The upgrade cycles are simply too long for TVs. But more importantly, Apple's whole model is to treat things like this as just "dumb complements". Your mobile device is, from the carrier's perspective, is increasingly becoming an…
Not only does it make sense to put the smarts and connectivity in devices that are either cheap, that people already have anyway, and can be easily upgraded but the user interface in a phone/tablet/etc. tends to be far better than a typical remote.
In general, I tend to prefer the Chromecast model of just casting video from a general purpose device, but the Kindle stick and Apple TV are OK as well. By contrast, I rarely used the Smart TV features on my Panasonics because they were just so painful to use.
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You can also accomplish a one-way airgap using optics that can only pass data in one direction.
Can you elaborate a bit more please? This sounds almost as if you configured a network adapter to only send and not receive, but you used "optics", so I'm guessing you refer to some sort of fibre-based device that actually impedes light to go in the other direction, and thus the security is via physical means?
Thanks for all the useful responses. I always learn something new by reading the comments :)
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You can use a Chromecast with either, but one of them can also spy on you without your consent.
If you don't trust the TV manufacturer to include spying devices in their product, there is no reason to believe the "dumb" TV you brought from them is any less capable.
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Roughly OT: I have yet to have seen anything that makes me look forward to the IoT, and when I talk to the voices of vendors in my head I'm basically telling them "Stay out of my refrigerator, my furnace, my toilet and my smart doorlock that I'll never have." I just don't feel that anything relevant to the IoT is missing from my life. At all.
My guess is that for each person some small thing will make sense, which is sufficient to drive the costs down and the technology forward. For example, good sleep is really important to me. So I used the Philips Hue bulbs and a NUC to build a smart home lighting system that behaves much more like daylight. When I describe it to people, quite a number really want it. Not bad enough to get my code off GitHub and instal…
http://www.wired.com/2015/05/feds-say-banned-researcher-comm...
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Not if it isn't connected to your network.
Valid point. But then you're left with a bunch of crap in the UI that is unnecessary and annoying at best.
And if some manufacturer decides to clutter things, I just won't buy it. Problem solved.
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Not if it isn't connected to your network.
It's not too much of a stretch for smart TVs to start including cellular connectivity (and advertising it as "zero-setup").
This is getting well into ad absurdum (a common problem on HN). Smart TVs are perfectly fine for the person who doesn't want a smart TV. Just don't use any of the smart TV features and don't connect it to the network. Problem solved.
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This is the Achilles heel of the entire Internet of Things and smart appliance trend, and I think this will bite everyone bad. After 50+% of these vendors go out of business in the next decade, their products won't get updated, and people will wonder why their "smart" TV can't watch movies from whatever replaced Netflix/new whizbang video service. They won't be as likely to buy any "smart" thing again.
This is exactly why I prefer buying "dumb" tvs and simply adding chromecast/appletv/firetv, etc. Much better experience.