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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

#321

Post by wiether »

saalweachter wrote: post #309
wiether wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly! I have to have a kettle for other purpose (including heating water for other mugs than mine), and no self-heating mug is going to be as efficient as a kettle to heat water. Furthermore, I also put cold or room temperature liquids in my mug. With a self-heating one, I would be carrying the heating parts for absolutely no reason. Same goes for a TV. By keeping things separated, I can decide what I do which eac…

But like, a coffeemaker is a thing. You can make coffee with a kettle, but if you are making enough coffee often enough, it does make sense to bundle a second kettle into a dedicated coffeemaker, even if you are reducing the functionality of it by doing so.

It's a thing and it's convenient as a smart TV is convenient for people who don't care much.

But as a "power user" of a TV, I want to compose my own setup.

In the same way, "power users" of coffee don't use a coffeemaker. They use things like French press.

(I use instant coffee myself in my non-heating mug so in this comparison I would be the person not owning a TV and watching everything on their phone?)

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

#322

Post by gary_0 »

xg15 wrote: post #310
kevin061 wrote: post #274

A while ago I had a discussion with my friends that it is possible that in the future if 5G is sufficiently cheap, smart tvs come with a 5G SIM so they can force ads and updates even if you refuse to connect it to WiFi. I wonder if this will ever be a real thing. Either 5G, 6G or whatever comes next.

I fear this won't even required SIM cards. I'm worried that Apple's Find My and Amazon's Sidewalk networks are the precursors of this: They're effectively company controlled p2p networks that lets the company use their customers' internet access points like a commodity. If one customer refuses to give a device access to the internet, they could use that network to route it through the access point of another customer…

If it had Ethernet ports I'd be tempted to just use my own wifi router and put the ISP's Trojan horse in a Faraday cage. All ISP-controlled hardware should be treated as just another untrusted WAN hop.

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

#323

Post by rokoss21 »

The Vizio litigation is encouraging, but hardware-level hacking is still the most reliable way forward. Been running Linux on an old TV with HDMI-in for years - basically a dumb display with full control.

For budget-conscious setup: even older plasma/LCD displays that predate the "smart" era are increasingly available secondhand. Pair with a Raspberry Pi or similar and you get a system you actually own.

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

#324

Post by itopaloglu83 »

kevin061 wrote: post #274

A while ago I had a discussion with my friends that it is possible that in the future if 5G is sufficiently cheap, smart tvs come with a 5G SIM so they can force ads and updates even if you refuse to connect it to WiFi. I wonder if this will ever be a real thing. Either 5G, 6G or whatever comes next.

Add a camera and microphone, and you have yourself a utopia that can control masses.

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

#325

Post by hopelite »

shlip wrote: post #26
AshamedCaptain wrote: post #18

Spoiler: this is Ars Technica. Obviously they suggest you to instead get an Apple TV so that you send your data to Apple and watch Apple ads instead (with the only argument being that "so far they do less ads").

Yup, from the Apple TV article linked in the article[1]: > According to its privacy policy, the company gathers usage data, such as “data about your activity on and use of” Apple offerings, including “app launches within our services…; browsing history; search history; [and] product interaction.” [...] transaction information, account information (“including email address, devices registered, account status, and age”…

The only way to have privacy from the matrix is to not participate in the matrix. That’s in fact your best option. Does one have to consume the drug of movies/tv? I realize that just suggesting something coming in between the addict and their drug causes consternation, but that also makes the point more salient.

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

#326

Post by ThatMedicIsASpy »

AshamedCaptain wrote: post #18

Spoiler: this is Ars Technica. Obviously they suggest you to instead get an Apple TV so that you send your data to Apple and watch Apple ads instead (with the only argument being that "so far they do less ads").

A box that can't run Kodi would never be my choice.

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

#328

Post by hopelite »

lelandfe wrote: post #128
JayGuerette wrote: post #96

I'm confused. Every TV is a dumb TV if you don't give it your Wifi password.

My recent TCL TV forces you agree to Google's terms and conditions, and you aren't even provided the text of what you're agreeing to unless you connect the TV to the internet. It felt illegal.

It is technically illegal if that is how it is configured. Go get ‘em.

But kidding aside, who are we even really kidding anymore, even if you were provided the TOS would you simply not use the device of there were something in the TOS you disagreed with? How about when you’ve been using the device and all the sudden they change the TOS and force agreement as you are about to start a tv evening with the family?

The people simply accepted their enslavement, the taking of your agency, because we all allowed or were overwhelmed with it.

They take our agency through process just like they’ve taken our freedom and rights in so many different ways, just like through YC funded Flock, where treasonous mass surveillance cameras just show up over night and most here seem unaware it’s a YC company that now provides a mass surveillance network to the government and global government tightening its noose around humanity’s neck.

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

#329

Post by wltr »

PaulHoule wrote: post #112

As a Plex user I'd recommend a used last-gen game console as a TV source. In my AV room upstairs I've had an XBOX ONE S for a long time and more recently I got a PS4 Pro for the spare room downstairs -- both at Gamestop. I have some games for both of them but I am more likely to game on Steam, Steam Deck or mobile. Every Android-based media player I've had tried just plain sucks, the NVIDIA Shield wasn't too bad but…

Do you mind elaborating on plasmas? I have entirely missed this technology, and wonder what’s about it.

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

#330

Post by xg15 »

gary_0 wrote: post #322
xg15 wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fear this won't even required SIM cards. I'm worried that Apple's Find My and Amazon's Sidewalk networks are the precursors of this: They're effectively company controlled p2p networks that lets the company use their customers' internet access points like a commodity. If one customer refuses to give a device access to the internet, they could use that network to route it through the access point of another customer…

If it had Ethernet ports I'd be tempted to just use my own wifi router and put the ISP's Trojan horse in a Faraday cage. All ISP-controlled hardware should be treated as just another untrusted WAN hop.

When I signed up with them, they were actually trying to withold access to the config web UI from customers and then charge extra just to enable Wifi. My response was exactly that - "fuck that" and put my own router in front of theirs.

(That was years before the other incident - since then they had dropped that idea and "generously" given customers access to the config UI)

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