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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

#351

Post by scosman »

djoldman wrote: post #337

For the tech-savvy, I'm not too worried about smart TVs. I just do this: > If you want premium image quality or sound, you’re better off using a smart TV offline. In the future, if they add e-sims, we'll just remove them or de-solder or whatever. The real risk is cars: if they start not working without cell network connections.

Offline smart TVs are great. As long as they support wake over CEC, they are close enough to a dumb display connected to an Apple TV.

I let my latest LG TV on the network, but block internet access at the router. HomeKit integration (Siri turn off tv), Chromecast, Airplay, and other local services all work, without the ability for it to phone home.

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

#353

Post by andrewchilds »

nottorp wrote: post #262
JKCalhoun wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a Mac Mini hooked up to my TV. We never use anything mode of the TV. (Then again, I have zero streaming services, so perhaps I am not who this article is for.)

What do you use for a remote for the Mac Mini?

Not the parent but my family also has a mac mini to offline TV setup - just a small bluetooth keyboard/mouse and the tv remote for volume. Works well.

As far as I know there are no remotes that work with MacOS.

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

#354

Post by hx833001 »

0ld wrote: post #292
hapticmonkey wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no ads in the AppleTV operating system itself. The only Apple “ads” I ever see are inside the Apple TV+ app (yeah, their naming is confusing…) and it’s only for TV shows they’re promoting in their streaming service.

Apple TV is a huge Apple TV+ ad in itself. I shelved my device when my 2yo had "subscribed" to Apple TV+ by just randomly clicking around

An alternative is to just turn off the ability to purchase anything without entering your password each time in settings.

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

#355

Post by duskdozer »

andrepd wrote: post #317
taxmeifyoucan wrote: post #101

For a hacker news article, it misses the crucial option - hacking a smart TV! I have LG OLED jailbroken using rootmy.tv, it was pretty trivial. It's basically a linux computer with a huge screen, you can customize it, SSH into it, map any commands to the remote, etc. Before I only used monitor, simple DP/HDMI input is all I wanted. But being able to take full control of the tv and connect it with other devices in the…

How would you block ads on such a TV? The problem is you still cannot connect it to the internet without unknown privacy intrusion... Maybe to the LAN only? But then it's usefulness is still limited.

hosts file block?

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

#356

Post by thaumasiotes »

boerseth wrote: post #288
michaelsalim wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn't you want that? Genuinely curious

Modularity and separation of concerns can extend into other domains than software. For me, it seems so much simpler to keep the two separate. You won't be forced to wash the heating element every time you wash the cup. Can't heat a different cup while the other is in the dishwasher, unless all your cups are self-heating. Normally, the only way for a cup to break is if it shatters, but with an inbuilt heater there's e…

The microwave in my house is built into the oven.

This provides absolutely zero advantages to the oven or to the microwave. It does cause a lot of stupid, easily foreseeable problems:

- There's only one control panel, and if the oven is currently active, some of the microwave controls get disabled.

- The microwave is awful in various ways -- regardless of whether the oven is active -- which wouldn't ordinarily be a problem, because microwaves are very cheap. But...

- It's impossible to replace the microwave, a $50 device, without simultaneously replacing the oven, a $2000 device.

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

#357

Post by grvbck »

ZiiS wrote: post #311

The fact they give you a half decent media PC whilst discounting the monitor in the hope you give them tracking and allow them to be a market gatekeeper; only needs to be mildly anoying in today's world. Just plug in whatever you want and ignore it.

For now. I can see a not-so-distant future where internet access is needed for "cloud AI" to enable full 8K resolution, or where Dolby Atmos/Eclipsa Audio/Amphi Hi-D has to be unlocked through an online account, or where "advanced" menu settings like color calibration are tied to a monthly subscription…

Sure, there will probably be some alternatives from independent/smaller manufacturers but they will inevitably be based on older tech and/or standards, come with serious tradeoffs and so on.

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

#358

Post by anonym29 »

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #219
15155 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That’s not what this particular thread is about This thread is about removing the SIM from a TV. If I bought that TV in cash (or even credit card, sans subpoena) at a Best Buy and removed the SIM, how is any corporation identifying me?

What law is preventing Best Buy from telling TVManufacturer that a credit card with these last 4 digits bought the TV with this exact serial number? And once the SIM connects near your house, what is preventing the phone company from telling TVManufacturer the rough location of the SIM, especially after that SIM is found to have used too much data? Then use some commercially available ad database to figure out that t…

Anecdotally, you may want to avoid Best Buy either way. There's a chance the TV box contains just rocks, no TV, and that they refuse to refund your purchase.

https://wonderfulengineering.com/rtx-5080-buyer-opens-box-to...

I know I'm sure never shopping there again.

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

#359

Post by JKCalhoun »

nottorp wrote: post #262
JKCalhoun wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a Mac Mini hooked up to my TV. We never use anything mode of the TV. (Then again, I have zero streaming services, so perhaps I am not who this article is for.)

What do you use for a remote for the Mac Mini?

Sadly, there's just a keyboard + trackpad sitting on my TV-audio console (a kind of home made speaker credenza I built years ago).

So no remote. I get up, hit the spacebar to pause/play. The audio is into a multi-channel receiver though so audio has mute/volume controls on a remote.

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

#360

Post by mft_ »

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…

> Also, personal experience: My own ISP (in Germany) experimented with some similar stuff a few years ago: They mandated use of their own home routers where only they had root access. At some point, they pushed an OTA update that made the router announce a second Wifi network in addition to the customer's. This was meant as a public hotspot that people walking down the street could connect to after installing an app from the ISP and buying a ticket.

Not sure if you're referring to Vodafone, but Vodafone Germany definitely does this. You can opt out of allowing public access via your personal router, but this opts you out of being able to use other people's routers in the same manner.

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