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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

#491

Post by ranguna »

jader201 wrote: post #395
ranguna wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you can make it a PC and then turn it off, I guess. Then let the rest of us have all the fun.

It sounds like you still want a smart TV, just with control. Which is fine. But for many people, we just want a monitor, maybe with speakers (I personally am fine also separating this). I prefer separation of concerns — if I want to attach a computer to my TV, I’ll do that as a search device. Why have a dependency on the TV hardware, when I can attach upgradable parts?

> But for many people, we just want a monitor,

> you can make it a PC and then turn it off

TV manufactories can get the best of both worlds: The people that want smart TVs, get a smart TV. The people that don't want a smart TV, can disable the smart TV features. Manufactors make one model and sell to both market segments.

Why should your preferences impose on the ones that don't want what you want? I guess the preferred way would be for manufactors to have add a feature where the tv prompts you if you want to enable smart features when you boot the tv for the first time, but it's a bit difficult when manufactors get more money when they have these features enabled by default.

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

#492

Post by immibis »

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…

Unfortunately, this is Hacker (founder of the next AirBNB) News and not Hacker (one who tinkers with devices) News

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

#493

Post by immibis »

ninkendo wrote: post #365
paxcoder wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, Torvalds supported tivoization: https://lkml.org/lkml/2007/6/13/289

Because anti-tivoization doesn’t make sense in a software license. Imagine you make a smart toaster, and you make it entirely out of open source software. You release all the changes you made too, complying fully with the spirit of open source. People could take your software, buy some parts and make their own OSS toasters, everything’s great. But for safety reasons, since the software controls when the toaster pops,…

No, actually anti-tivoization makes perfect sense, even in your example, and if you make this toaster then you are simply an evil anti-freedom company.

If you're afraid that modifying the software will make the toaster overheat, then include a hardware thermal fuse. You need to anyway, in case the manufacturer software fails or the processor fails.

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

#494

Post by immibis »

ninkendo wrote: post #453
ssl-3 wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a toaster oven in my kitchen. It's a dumb thing with a bimetallic thermostatic switch, a simple mechanical timer (with a clockspring and a bell), and a switch to select different configurations of heating elements. The power-on indicator is a simple neon lamp. (It also certainly has some thermal fuses buried inside; hopefully, in the right places.) And, you know, it works great. It's simple to operate and (so…

> Why would a toaster oven (or indeed, just a pop-up toaster) that instead used electronic controls need the bar for safety to be placed at a different height? It wouldn't. It's a thought experiment. I even said: > Would the toaster be a better product if you could change the software? Of course. The point is, nobody should be compelling you to make your products hackable. If you don't want to, that's your prerogativ…

The law compelling you to make your products hackable is called "right to repair". Without this law, if my toaster breaks, my only option is to buy a new toaster. But if I'm allowed to change the toaster, I can fix the toaster.

Products have worked this way since forever. Only since modern microprocessors and cryptography have evil companies been able to deliberately add roadblocks that are impossible to overcome (without replacing so much hardware that you've made a new toaster from scratch) in order to maximize revenue. This is predatory and should be illegal. The only reason I can see that you'd support this, is it you work for a company that makes a lot of money selling new toasters to replace broken ones, and if this is true, your company deserves to be shut down by the government.

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

#495

Post by immibis »

pabs3 wrote: post #486
ninkendo wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would a toaster oven (or indeed, just a pop-up toaster) that instead used electronic controls need the bar for safety to be placed at a different height? It wouldn't. It's a thought experiment. I even said: > Would the toaster be a better product if you could change the software? Of course. The point is, nobody should be compelling you to make your products hackable. If you don't want to, that's your prerogativ…

GPLv2 mandates user-modifiable devices too, according to Conservancy at least.

Also according to at least one German court! (AVM Vs I don't remember. The lawsuit was about home wireless routers.)

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

#496

Post by gala8y »

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…

Did you know that a not jailbroken smart TV would spy on your HDMI, if connected to the network? I did not.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45737312

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

#497

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

AshamedCaptain wrote: post #478
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AppleTV doesn’t record everything you watch on your TV like the smart TVs. A smart TV can track what you watch no matter which input source you are using. How could an AppleTV or any device connected to an HDMI port know what you are watching on other input sources? The AppleTV device doesn’t track what you watch at all. The AppleTV+ service knows what you watch on their service. Their is no justification for the TV…

> AppleTV doesn’t record everything you watch on your TV like the smart TVs. Obviously it only records what you watch through it. > A smart TV can track what you watch no matter which input source you are using. How could an AppleTV or any device connected to an HDMI port know what you are watching on other input sources? I thought the entire point was to _use_ the Apple TV. If you buy the Apple TV, but still use the…

> And if you use the Apple TV, what you watch through Apple TV's TV program.

That’s completely not true. Are you claiming that Apple intercepts what other apps are doing when you run them?

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

#498

Post by AshamedCaptain »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #497
AshamedCaptain wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> AppleTV doesn’t record everything you watch on your TV like the smart TVs. Obviously it only records what you watch through it. > A smart TV can track what you watch no matter which input source you are using. How could an AppleTV or any device connected to an HDMI port know what you are watching on other input sources? I thought the entire point was to _use_ the Apple TV. If you buy the Apple TV, but still use the…

> And if you use the Apple TV, what you watch through Apple TV's TV program. That’s completely not true. Are you claiming that Apple intercepts what other apps are doing when you run them?

Apple TV's TV program (a.k.a. Apple TV's TV app) (and this is just the what I can easily see with my own eyes -- who knows what else).

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

#499

Post by tuna74 »

_dan wrote: post #110
JayGuerette wrote: post #96

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

Yeah I have a couple of recent Samsung OLEDs and they're fine without an internet connection despite reports that they wouldn't be. If I press one of the annoying streaming service buttons on the remote it'll give me a setup popup which needs to be dismissed, otherwise they work fine, albeit without any built in streaming support. I'd read reports that Q-Symphony (audio from the TV speakers and soundbar simultaneousl…

Why can't you just run the Kodi app directly on the TV?

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

#500

Post by MrMember »

mattacular wrote: post #482
MrMember wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smart TVs are so user hostile now that this doesn't work for me personally anymore. Every TV I've seen recently always tries to get back to the "home" screen so they can funnel you into more ads and/or content that makes them money. If I have the TV set to the HDMI source for my connected HTPC, turn off the TV, and turn it back on again, it will be back on the TV's home screen. If I switch to an HDMI source that isn'…

Try TCL. I just got a second one after 6 years with a previous model of theirs that was showing signs of death. On both this new (Google-based OS) and old one (Roku-based OS), I have done the steps I mentioned above. I wouldn't have bothered typing that up if it didn't work. Turning a HDMI device on wakes the TV and then it automatically selects that input. I've never been to the homescreen except by choice, and even…

Thanks for the recommendation! I'll check them out.
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