1. Never connect the TV panel itself to the internet. Keep it air-gapped. Treat it solely as a dumb monitor.
2. Use an Apple TV for the "smart" features.
3. Avoid Fire TV, Chromecast, or Roku.
The logic is simple, Google (Chromecast) and Amazon (Fire TV) operate on the same business model as the TV manufacturers subsidized hardware in exchange for user data and ad inventory. Apple is the only mainstream option where the hardware cost covers the experience, rather than your viewing habits subsidizing the device.
My new rule for modern TVs is don't have a TV at all. The social role of having a TV is rapidly dwindling. First off, the number of movies and TV shows that merit even being watched is dwindling. Secondly, even if you find something worth watching, the odds that anybody else will want to watch it is small; everybody has been atomized by recommendation algorithms, everybody gets shown a different set of ads and media, there's no longer and shared culture when it comes to media. It used to be that everybody went home and watched NBC or one of the two other channels, all saw the same ads for the same movies and shows, so if you mentioned one the next day everybody knew what you were talking about. This is no longer true, if you try to bring up some Netflix show you heard of last night, probaby nobody else has heard of it. Now let's say you actually talk somebody into watching something with you despite that... What are the odds that both they and you get through the show or movie without reaching for their phone? Almost zero, in my experience.
It's done. The cultural significance of TV is toast. Our culture is too atomized, too personalized for shared experiences. Large TVs, centerpiece of the living room, are becoming an anachronism that date people as being from a previous era when television was still a shared cultural experience.
I agree that the days when “everyone” watched the same show are done. But if you can find a small group to watch a show with (better in person), then there are better shows available for that experience these last several years, even if the average quality has gone down.
What are some of your favorite shared experiences to replace tv?
I like rewatching old TV shows and films, streamed from my Jellyfin server.
For me, my rule is to get a Google TV, because I can change out the launcher to Flauncher. At least that way I don't see any ads. Google may well still be tracking me, but they do all over the web and I have an Android phone so they've already got plenty of data on me. I just avoid their ads so that it minimises the profitability of that data.
I use Flauncher too. I also use Netguard from F-Droid and block everything except streaming apps and their dependencies. I only unblock Google when a steaming app requires an update. I'm slowly dropping subscriptions and moving to Jellyfin though too.
I agree. My Google TV with Projectivity Launcher shows zero launcher ads unlike my Apple TV. As a bonus, it lets me install SmartTube and use DeArrow and Sponsor Block.
I just wish I could get something similar as a native iOS app. Although I can use Safari extensions, the Safari YouTube experience on iOS is terrible.
I love Projectivity Launcher on my Google Streamer, but I can't figure out how to really replace the built-in launcher. Sometimes the device falls back to the default launcher until I press the "home" button on my remote.
That's a popular and socially safe point of view, but it's completely wrong. Artistic merit, like truth and beauty, is an objective quality completely orthogonal to cultural differences or personal opinion. To illustrate this orthogonality, I invite you to realize there exists art which has great merit and yet which you personally do not like. You should be able to do this, if you can't manage I can provide my own examples for you. The existence of such art proves that personal preferences don't weigh on the recognition of artistic merit.
How interesting! These great minds you speak of, are they objectively great, or only subjectively? If they are only subjectively great, then why should a lazy appeal to them sway me? And if they are objectively great minds, then how does that not acknowledge my premise?
I'm teasing you, I do acknowledged that there are great minds, past and present, who disagree with me. And I trust you can acknowledge the same, there is no shortage of great minds who believed and argued that objective truth, beauty and merit really do exist. The question I have for you or anybody who disagrees is this: can you acknowledge the existence of media you don't like one bit but nonetheless acknowledge as having merit which transcends your own personal opinions? I can easily, I can't stand Shakespeare's Othello, and I simultaneously acknowledge it as possessing a great deal of objective artistic merit. For me, there is no contradiction here because merit is not a function of personal opinion.
That I acknowledge there are great minds on both sides of the debate means that I wouldn't treat it as a hard fact when talking about it in an online forum, which was the explicit point of my response.
If you can recognize the greatness of somebody you disagree with, then you should also be able to recognize merit in media you don't personally like. And if merit can be thus decoupled from personal opinion, that affirms my point that objective merit really does exist.
Using flowery language does not automatically make you correct, and even if on the hard facts you are correct, it comes across as condescending and arrogant.
What you're saying, "There are shows on TV worth watching and the art form is still evolving, and one person not liking it doesn't mean that it is bad" would have come across much more cleanly if you had stated it plainly.
> What you're saying, "There are shows on TV worth watching and the art form is still evolving, and one person not liking it doesn't mean that it is bad"
That's not even remotely what I'm saying!
I would instead say that media is only "evolving" insofar as it is being optimized by media corporations for reliable fiscal return. No risks allowed, everything needs to be cookie cutter, no risks, barely any new IPs even, the industry just wants to get committees of nepo hire "writers" to remix shit they can be reasonably confident will find reliable audiences, and that means pandering to viewers instead of challenging them. Every decision gets run through test audiences, opinion polls, and legions of executives and their consultants. Art cannot be created in such an industry environment. All they can make is base slop.
It frustrates me that this is where we have come too.
I refuse to connect any of my TV's to the internet but I have to wonder how long until a few different things happen:
- The TV's just connect to unsecure Wifi and collect the data anyways (I think there were reports of at least one manufacture already doing this at one point?). Or just make a deal with xfinity to use their mesh network that seems to be everywhere.
- The TV's don't work without being connected to the internet.
- The manufactures find out that the cost of adding in a cellular modem is justified by the increase in data they can collect.
I would love the idea of buying a modern TV without any of this crap shoved in, I happily use my Apple TV for everything that isnt video games.
It bothers me though when it seems like to fix an issue with HDR or something I need to update the firmware. I have wondered on occasion if this is intentional to "force" people to connect. If I have to do this I will run an ethernet cable to temporarily connect.
99.999% of TV's are connected directly to the Internet by their users without any restrictions. Investing in additional hardware or operator deals to capture the remaining .001% isn't typically worth it, for now.
What do you think of Nvidia Shield? I haven't tried it, but I think it should also belong to 2). It's clearly much more expensive than a FireTV, but as you say it shouldn't be subsidized by ads. As an Android device it should be more open than an Apple TV. While I recognize the near flawless UI and high hardware quality of most Apple devices, I disagree with their "golden cage" or walled garden approach.
I see many people liking their shield, and with good reason it seems, but is it a worthy ecosystem to buy in to when it has not seen a new hardware revision since 2019?
This. The lack of a Shield hardware refresh seems insane.
I get Nvidia (the company) has other priorities with higher revenue.
But they have a product, with proven product-market fit, that gives them a last mile connection with end users, in one of the highest utilization home spaces.
How has no one at Nvidia looked at that and said "I'm not saying we orient our entire focus around it, but shouldn't we at least fund it as a strategic priority?"
If datacenter revenue falls off, it's going to look awfully short-sighted not to have diversified customer base when they had the chance.
What benefits would a hardware upgrade bring the end user? Not releasing a new model every year sounds like a perfectly good thing to me as long as they keep updating the software without introducing performance problems.
My biggest gripe with the Shield is the newest one has a remote that I really don’t like. Luckily it can be replaced with a third party remote!
Same, one of mine is from the initial models, and still working and receiving updates... it doesn't have the 4k upscaling of the newer models, but I've been happy and have several in my house.
About half my watching is YouTube on a paid account, the other half via Kodi and the high seas. My SO uses the regular apps for Netflix, Amazon and HBO currently. Having support for hacker-friendly features as well as blessed apps with 4k support has been pretty great.
As another post mentioned, the remote (current and previous) have been less than stellar... I've been using the one linked below[1], which works pretty well, though uses a USB dongle. FWIW, can also pair a bluetooth headset if you want the big screen experience, but don't want to blow out the house with audio sometimes.
I too think yearly updates are a bit too much and I too want to keep my devices for a long time. Still rocking an iPhone 12 (mini).
But support for newer codecs like AV1 and general hardware refreshes to keep up with the underlying Android base would still seem like good ideas to me.
Reading the specs it seems that the Shield also would benefit from being able to detect frame rate to auto-switch via HDMI.
Higher network bandwidth to play UHD Blu-ray rips seems like something people want.
The Shield Pro is perfect for me and I have no reason to upgrade. Have mine downgraded and de-bloated using this guide [0] running a custom launcher. Like you said being Android and more open helps a lot.
I use the non-Pro version for 1080p streaming and have for years. It’s great, does what I want and gets out of the way. Some years ago they were forced by Google to use the standard AndroidTV UI instead of their own custom one, which means it now shows ads on the home screen (a carousel of “watch this on service X”), which are inoffensive enough I haven’t bothered to circumvent them. You can swap to your own custom UI if you want with some ssh futzing.
Even if they don't brick them explicitly they will no longer provide security updates for them.
I'm on the same boat, smart TV has never been online, all content is just cast from media server/phone/tablet straight to chromecast. It works, no fuss, glitch free, and of course they will kill it.
Even if they were to provide security updates, a few platforms no longer work with them. At the very least, now Disney+ refuses to stream to my original chromecast dongle.
I disconnected our living room LG TV from the internet and got a Fire Stick 4K Max, but I hate it; 90% of the screen is advert, and you get a tiny sliver for the 5 apps it lets you see, and you have to go digging for the rest, not to mention the home-screen advertising isn't always appropriate for young children.
I hadn't considered Apple TV because I've never been an Apple user, but perhaps this is what I need.
Though I'm an Android user, all of the Android TV devices seem to be junk or ad-ridden junk.
Is Apple TV the way to go (asking other opinions).
The only other one I'd seriously consider is the nVidia Shield (Pro?). But the risk with that is that it's decade old hardware with no updates in sight. It's more for the "My Plex/Jellyfin server has all the movies and TV shows ever" -crowd :)
Meanwhile my 1st gen 4k AppleTV (6-ish years old?) is chugging away perfectly and runs every single 3rd party streaming platform I need - even the local ones. As a market it's just too big to ignore.
And no ads anywhere on the front page. The top row apps get to show their stuff on the top part, but it's not "ads" in my book - unlike Google TV that just shoves full-screen crap of "YOU WANNA SEE THIS MARVEL MOVIE?!" at you no matter where you browse.
It's still seeing software updates and can play h.265 and AV1 content in 4K without issue. The latest model is 2019 though... that said works great... latest software update was just a couple weeks ago.
Also, you can swap the Android TV launcher relatively easily.
I've been aware of the Shield devices for some years now, as an Android user, but something always put me off them.
I lrecently bought the FireTV 4K in a last-ditched effort to find something I could at least have some control over; if I could replace the launcher with something that's just app icons and not all adverts it would have been perfect, but alas, Amazon has prevented that, so onto the next thing.
It's really sounding like Apple TV is the best option for something suitable for the whole family.
Can I ask; what is the purpose of the relatively large storage on an Apple TV, do they support "apps" of some kind?
You can play games decently on Apple TV, those require some storage and I believe at least the native Apple apps cache pretty heavily to local storage instead of relying on streaming.
There are "apps" too, but all of them are related to streaming video in some way, except for the games of course.
Before you buy an Apple TV you can try installing ProjectIvy launcher and see if that suits your needs. It's basically a simplified launcher UI for Android TV devices.
It's not perfect, not if it suits your needs you won't have to buy another device.
Happy apple tv user for > 5 years now. It has icons for the apps you want to start on the home screen. You click the icons. The apps start.
It's connected to a samsung tv that's not allowed wifi access. Besides the bad and steadily worsening UX of streaming apps like Netflix, my setup itself never shows me any ads.
Also the apple tv remote has a very solid, premium feel, which i like
Yes. Macrumors here says “don’t buy” [0], but only because they tend to recommend only if tech is “new”. I have this ATv gen and it’s not perfect, but is really the best streaming box, having used roku and nvidia shield. PS: get the version with wired ethernet if you can…wifi works, but no surprise that wired is more solid.
A cheap used mini desktop with a linux install on it is also a good way to go. Throw in a wireless mouse and keyboard and you can do not only what an AppleTV or Android box does but also everything a cheap used mini pc can do.
Would be a media powerhouse compared to almost any set top box you can buy.
Throw OpenElec or OSMC on it for simple media setup or Bazzite or Ubuntu for a normal linux desktop with downloadable applications for most streaming platforms.
The down side is if you actually want streaming apps with 4K support for the paid services.
I've been using NVidia Shield TV (pro) since the first gen, still have my OG device as well as the updated models. I'm also running a Beelink SER8 with Bazzite for some living-room gaming and classic emulation.
Apple TV 4k has an idle power draw of 0.49W and a 4k streaming power draw of 2.31W. That mini desktop will likely run at around 20W idle and approaches 30W under relatively light load and up to 60W on high loads. Plus keyboard and mouse are generally terrible couch devices. I've already got a NAS and plenty of devices I can stream from. The Apple TV is an almost perfect small and efficient device to stream to.
I've been using an AppleTV as the primary way to get content to my (dumb, vintage 2007) TV for approximately a decade now.
While my usage has increasingly shifted toward drawing from my personal library through first Plex, then Jellyfin, I've also used Netflix, YouTube, Twitch, Amazon Prime Video, AppleTV+, and probably a couple of other content apps I'm forgetting on it. Aside from some issues with the UI of individual apps (which is, of course, on the developers), it all works great. Many of the apps can even show you a couple of tiles of "suggested content" right from the home screen (for instance, when I select the Netflix app, but before I launch it, it currently shows the next episodes from the most recent two shows I've been watching on it).
There are various ways in which an AppleTV can be better if you're already in the Apple ecosystem (which I am), but you absolutely do not need to be to make excellent use of it.
It can even join your Tailscale network and act as an exit node, giving you a quick & dirty VPN into your home network!
Unfortunately not possible on the Fire Stick (4K Max), Amazon have modified it to disallow other launchers; there are some "hacks" but none have worked for me and the closest one I did get to working was too much of a pain for the rest of the family.
I've found no way to root it either so I just want rid of it, every time something appears almost-full-screen on the home page that's inappropriate for the kids with no regard for what time of day it is, my wife gets all the more annoyed by it; she never wanted it in the first place, so the poor experience is not helping my case).
What's wrong with Roku? They have a few ads here and there but I've always found the interface to be super slick. And they aren't Google, so not as harmful to share my data with? (a big assumption, I know)
I wouldn't assume Roku is better to share your data with. Google uses your data to feed their own algorithms instead of just straight up selling it. Their incentive is to keep the data internal so they alone can extract value from it.
Chromecast hardware wasn't ever sold at a loss, AFAIK. These things were/are pretty pricey for being long-outdated SoCs equivalent to low range smartphone SoCs and a HDMI driver chip.
This works until eARC breaks and you have to update (LG C6, never connected to the internet, only using AppleTV). And then of course the next LG update will break eARC again.
> 1. Never connect the TV panel itself to the internet. Keep it air-gapped. Treat it solely as a dumb monitor.
A sensible rule, indeed. Next level of dystopia: cellular modems becoming so cheap that every TV, fridge and washing machine comes with one that connects it to the Internet whether you like it or not. And then when we Faraday cage those, the device refuses to function.
Laws need to keep up and ban this shit outright. It sounds exactly like something that the EU could help with.
The EU actually mandated that cars have a modem ("eCall"), so they could self-report accidents. I think this has been under reported even in tech circles.
You also need to have a spare tire or an inflate kit, that doesn't mean you can throw it at somebody's head or spray them in the eyes.
Said in another manner: having eCall doesn't mean that they are authorized to send telemetry back in non-emergency situations or use it to do any other thing unrelated to the main function. Now, if there is not a law that forbids that, car makers are going to exploit that loophole for sure, but that does not mean the EU is evil in this context.
Having two independent cellular modems in a car is obviously silly, so it only makes sense to use the same module both for the mandatory emergency calling and for the telemetry.
Because the emergency calling is mandatory, it'll of course be made impossible to disable the modem - and by extension the telemetry. Oh, you disabled the telemetry? I bet that'll be called "tampering with safety equipment", and your insurance is now void, and your car is no longer road legal.
If the law doesn't mandate that eCall has to be fully independent, it'll 100% be used to spy on you.
But the EU can just (and maybe already does) mandate that such telemetry must be opt-in by the user, and on top of that the data collected that way must be treated accordingly to the GDPR anyway.
> Next level of dystopia: cellular modems becoming so cheap that every TV, fridge and washing machine comes with one that connects it to the Internet whether you like it or not.
I also don't like this precedent, but I do still feel cars are quite different. You need a license to drive a car on public roads. The car needs lots of certifications. You need an insurance. You need to prominently display your (your car's) ID for all to see. If you make mistakes while operating a car, the police can stop you and the state can take away your right to drive a car.
This makes it all very different from a gadget you use for entertainment in your own home.
Over twenty years ago there came a mandate that all places with many people gathers (both residential and commercial housing) should have a EN 54‑21 compliant alarm transmitter to automatically notify authorities in case of a fire.
I'm afraid that we are crying wolf right now and are undermining our efforts to permanently shut down Chat Control and the likes when we complain about these efforts with a history of not being misused.
Surely if Copilot was so useful and great, it wouldn't be free and they wouldn't be trying to force it down unwilling people's throats at every opportunity.
I'm beginning to think this AI stuff isn't all it's cracked up to be...
That's not even the endgoal they are aiming at. Suppose you have a data churning loop you want to run forever. First step is to send a copy everywhere (anywhere) and in whatever shape and form to feast. Otherwise it just sits there looking at the nuclear plant next door.
I've been a heavy user of the MS Copilot chat app on my Android phone, which I've been pretty happy with as a free basic AI chat option except for some annoying GUI bugs that they will apparently never get around to fixing. But I've yet to see a good use outside of the chat interface.
It boggles my mind why anyone would update anything in 2025. Most products are shipped with full feature set and then updates ensure enshittification. The security argument doesn't apply because classic hacks rarely happen, it's mostly social engineering.
It's not a crime, but it's a foolish thing to do if you care about your data. Find vendors that aren't user hostile and still deliver security updates. For me that's various flavors of Linux (Debian, Fedora, arch, depending on my mood) and GrapheneOS on mobile.
Click ‘Install’ on Plasma Bigscreen page -> oops, here's a notice that you can't use it. What's the point? Why not at least suggest instructions for a dev/testing/at-your-own-risk build?
They need to force induce AI demand to pump up the dashboards for shareholders. Thus they are converting every possible input line in the world into AI inputs. Do you think they redesigned Windows Run dialog[1] out of the blue just for fun?
For similar reasons many years back when I broke the bank for a G2, I decided to disconnect it forever. Besides the always-on spyware, every update broke something, which is incredibly frustrating considering the amount I spent. For instance, I got a GX soundbar for free with the TV which worked fine for 1–2 months until some update borked it and made it glitch out randomly. To date, none of their updates seem to have fixed it. I now only connect it back to the web — if needed — once a year or so but even this needs plenty of careful research across the web to see if the update package breaks something else I take for granted.
Hooking up an Apple TV 4K to this thing was the best decision I ever made and the sheer performance of this thing puts every TV vendor to shame. I would recommend everyone to do the same if they're already in the Apple ecosystem.
While I've left my now fairly old TV on the internet, I use optical (TOSLINK) out to a cheap class D amplifier, which seems to have been a more reliable system than any of the HDMI audio based ones.
I agree ive hooked up apple tv to override the crappy subsidized smart tv built ins that spy on you. That works until apple changes leadership and new leadership starts significantly mining data and caring less about privacy. It will happen at some point, not on Cooks term but someone else im sure of it.
Maybe related: I bought an LG TV in 2014 or so, I was interested in what its calls home communicated, so I MItM'ed it to capture the http (no s!) traffic. I never did bother to analyze the requests and responses..
But I got a newer LG model 2 years ago, I was still redirecting requests to LG's servers to a local web server (using DNS), but I guess due to https, the certificate checks failed and the attempts to call home failed. This meant that I never got asked to agree to the T&As.
Yes. I just got a new LG C3 OLED. I skipped the guided setup, then disabled any “smart” video manipulations. I connected it to an Apple TV, made sure the ATV’s remote worked, and Velcroed the LG remote to the back of the TV. The TV works great and hasn’t yet nagged me for internet access.
I am currently using one that is prevented from connecting to the internet via firewall rules from my router and all media comes from a separate jellyfin server. Had to allow enough of an internet access to install the app but once that was done, everything going outside lan is blocked.
Also most tvs have usb ports so maybe either raw media or some third part dongle can service as well?
Also also, most tvs of this caliber have hdmi you can plug your computer to.
Makes me more and more glad that I never let my TV on any network and only use it as a display for Apple TV, the Blu-Ray player, and playing media from USB drives...
My LG TV has been offline for the past 2 years (since I got it). I'm so much happier using the Apple TV.
I know people want "dumb" displays, but the reality is that these OLED panels offer industry-leading image quality and benefit from economies of scale, where most users want some form of built-in OS. A signage board cannot compete on price or quality. As long as TV manufacturers let me run it offline without issue, I'm fine with that.
Also fwiw, you can use apps like Infuse on the Apple TV for playing your own media files over the network. No Need for USB drives, just connect direct to the shared folder.
Then it is Apple that is harvesting your data. They may or may not display ads (I don't have an AppleTV to check), but they are certainly logging your interactions and possibly selling that data with third parties. That is on top of all the data Apple already has on people using iPhones, and the reason why I will never use anything other than a free/libre ROM like Graphene or Lineage.
I'm sure some conspiratorial thinking would lead people to the conclusion that Apple are secretly tracking and selling data. There is no evidence to suggest this is happening.
It's probably the next best thing to setting up your own linux home theater PC. But that comes with trade-offs with UX and DRM blocking 4K streaming apps and lack of Dolby Vision playback.
My samsung and lg tvs also have options to disable data harvesting. The problem , however, is that just like the apple tv they all are black boxes that have no intention in respecting your choices, thus you can't trust that disabling those options is actually disabling all the data harvesting and tracking. Apple is not a saint.
The privacy policy literally includes that they do?
> We provide some non-personal data to our advertisers and strategic partners that work with Apple to provide our products and services, help Apple market to customers, and sell ads on Apple’s behalf to display on the App Store and Apple News and Stocks. For example, we may share non-personal data about your transactions, viewing activity, and region, as well as aggregated user demographics such as age group and gender (which may be inferred from information such as your name and salutation in your Apple Account), to Apple TV strategic partners, such as content owners, so that they can measure the performance of their creative work, meet royalty and accounting requirements, and improve their associated products and services.
Infuse is a game-changer. I’ve been network streaming from my own media servers since the days of the original Xbox Media Center. Infuse is the best setup I’ve used. It a shame there’s nothing comparable in terms of polish on Linux or Android.
> As long as TV manufacturers let me run it offline without issue, I'm fine with that.
I suspect that this won't be the case for much longer. Once you've stuffed the TV with all the ads and data harvesting you can, the logical next step is to ensure it doesn't work at all unless those ads are being watched and that data is being harvested.
if you have a family with daytime viewing habits, projectors are basically a no go. 100" tv, with better brightness and black levels, are getting down to $2k range. they only make sense for > 100", and you'll be sacrificing some quality for a bit of viewing angle, usually recovered by scooting your couch a bit closer. i like bright, which is why i no longer go to theaters, which never did make the transition to HDR that they promised over a decade ago.
> but the reality is that these OLED panels offer industry-leading image quality
Except in scenes with fire (like a campfire) or where some spots may have high brightness compared to the surroundings. The LG OLED TVs I’ve seen all go blank in such scenes. The TVs I’ve seen that have LCD panels don’t have this issue. It seems like the only way to disable it (after turning off power saving and a few other things) is to buy and use a service remote to turn off ASBL. From my online reading, it seems like doing this may void the warranty and probably have negative effects on the life of the panel.
I have an LG OLED and have never seen it go blank on any scene.
It just looks great all the time. Especially on scenes like you describe with a dark scene with bright highlights. Campfire scenes look great, space scenes look great. That's what OLED is best at.
If you're talking about ABL, I've only noticed the dimming on ads or powerpoint lectures that have fully white backgrounds, and I've been thankful for it at those times because I find all-white backgrounds too bright to watch anyway.
I left a relative house sitting, specifically told them to use the Xbox if they need Netflix etc, and of course they connected the TV to the wifi and just hit accept on everything. Luckily it was still new enough that LG hadn’t put out a patch to cram it full of ads yet.
After that I blocked the MAC address at my router.
> Makes me more and more glad that I never let my TV on any network..
Sigh! These manufacturers have repeated this so many times that it is probably in their corporate subversion manual now. This is no consolation at all. They first introduce 'optional' features like this. Then they tighten the screw such that you get degraded performance if you don't use that feature. Finally they make it unavoidable. How are we missing it every time?
Haven't we seen how this evolved in the case of windows login using their 365 account? Haven't we seen how Android smartphone unlocking and custom ROM flashing got gradually more difficult over the years until we can't do that anymore?
If you rely on compromises or shortcuts out of this problem, you'll eventually find yourself without any. We need to nip this trend in the bud. Punish them with a tanked market.
I will point out, there are sometimes some really legitimate firmware updates that actually enhance or correct shortcomings on the TVs, especially for cinephiles on high-end units and for recently-released models that have firmware that needs work.
You can find people who cover the content of these updates, such as Vincent from HDTVtest.
What I tend to do is leave my WiFi off and then occasionally turn it on and connect for firmware updates, then disable it afterward.
I've also found that on my LG OLED that a lot of the crapware doesn't even have an option to function if you just never accept the terms and conditions or un-accept them. The UI doesn't make it perfectly obvious that you can do this but you absolutely can.
This stuff is very much anti-consumer, but can generally be mitigated by vigilant settings-chasing and a willingness to ignore the TV interface and use a dedicated streaming box with essentially no ads like an Apple TV.
> Additionally, LG has a setting called "Live Plus" that Reddit users highlighted. When it's turned on, the TV can recognize what's displayed on screen and use that viewing information for personalized recommendations and ads. LG describes it as an "enhanced viewing experience,"
Ah. So it's not "AI." It's an "opportunity to spy on every single thing you do."
I wanted to write comment to the effect of "I don't have amazon devices hur hur", but then realized it does not have to be my device... Especially in an apartment building...
The average person willingly connects them to their wifi, why would TV makers go through the effort and expense? Maybe I'm being too optimistic though...
Every AI company is doing the same thing, there is nothing special about Microsoft in this instance. If you're using a 3rd party provider for your queries you can assume it is going to end up in the training corpus.
I've had an LG tv for a couple years. I was previously able to use LG's THINQ app on my phone like a remote to operate the tv. A couple days ago I went in the app to use the remote and the feature had been totally locked behind the "access local networks & devices" permission... This permission was never needed in the past 3 years yet now it's necessary for the same functionality.
So, I disconnected the TV from the internet, uninstalled the app, and bought an Apple TV 3rd gen. LG TV quality is great but their software is unbearable.
Wouldn't it make sense for a remote control to need to access local network & devices? Like, without this permission, the only way the controller would work is through a cloud service, so I would personally be pretty happy to discover the app requests this permission, as it would likely mean the app will keep working when LG inevitably shuts down their cloud server...
I never connected my smart tvs to the internet. I buy the cheapest TV (at the size I want) and connect an old laptop, lid closed, and a cheap mini keyboard. It does everything I want, never updates itself with unwanted features and never shows me ads. Been doing this for 10 years, why would anyone actually want a smart tv.
The problem is this doesn't really work anymore with Widevine protected content. You are not getting Widevine L1 protected content through Windows or other type of home desktop operating system. Even without L1 content, platforms like Youtube won't serve 5.1 surround unless it's through an app and not the browser.
I'm not saying you need a smart TV, but if you want to get the content you're actually paying for via Netflix, HBO etc in the highest quality they offer, you'll need to fork over money for a device with dedicated hardware
There have been reports of TVs with wi-fi managing to find an open network nearby and using that to get access to its updates and to send its telemetry. Having to physically hack a TV to disable its wi-fi is just..
At this point maybe a monitor is actucally the better choice even if the cost is high.
Doubt it, 99% of consumers will connect it to the internet. The remaining 1% will be blocking ads everywhere making the data rather useless and potentially poisoned.
That's what I'm talking about. They'll gradually make it harder to use it without going online. May be by increasing the bootup times. Eventually they'll remove that option altogether. Isn't that what happened with Windows login? We can also expect them to add RF devices like 6G modems as they become more common. These corporations aren't going to leave that choice to you.
The choice is not to buy those devices if it comes to that.
Car manufacturers also do similar things (onboard 4G/5G modem), and one solution (other than driving an old car) is to disconnect the cellular modem. Of course the issue is that few people know there is one in their cars in the first place, so they are unknowingly snooped on.
Look up signage displays. Only problem with them is that they may be overly industrial and missing things that consumers would want, like Dolby Vision.
Old Microsoft learned from the Clippy debacle, and more recently from the Windows 8.1 modern UI debacle.
I'm not sure new Microsoft will learn this time...
It's a positive for a nameless middle manager somewhere who can show their boss a graph with a line moving to the right and up with a title like "AI Adoption Across Platforms" and hit their bonus target.
I understand what you mean, but it does match MBA/mckinsey thinking very closely.
Make a metric a goal, work tirelessly towards that new metric.
Does it make the product better? Well, the product is already made- so it doesn’t make a difference.
It’s only software developers who think a product is never “done”- normal MBA thinking is “we have invested in R&D, now there is a product, how do we get as many users of our product as possible”.
You don't think the reason we have seemingly broken optimization is because poorly thought out metrics are being gamed?
That's all its been for the last few decades. Everyone is now "data driven" and "metrics oriented". That's a footgun - if people can game it, they will, and numbers don't say what people think they say.
But all the other delis are doing it as well. So is your supermarket. So is your farmer (somehow they figured out how to add salt to the veggies they sell at the farmer's market!)... Whaddya gonna do? Grow your own? THE SEEDS SHALL HAVE SALT TOO, has been decreed...
“In Q2 our P0 goal is to deliver Project Footgun. Your focus on delivering this important goal will put us in a good position to finally fund your favorite tech debt projects.”
Its now Q2, you worked your ass off on delivering Project Footgun, excitedly signing in the next morning to work on that tech debt to a message from your manager that the PMs didn't see value in the P1's and were transitioning to Project Footgun 2.0 The Shotgun
You can buy a "smart TV" and keep it offline. Use it as a monitor for a PC running Linux, from which you stream from your browser or dedicated apps like VacuumTube (Youtube Leanback).
For how long? Eventually, it will end up like Windows login. It won't work without an online account. In the meanwhile, they will soft corece you into adopting it by using passive aggression. They will slow down the bootup to a crawl, unless you connect it online. Those times are already really bad - CRT monitors used to heat up faster.
The ultimate point is, if you have to make compromises to retain your rights, then you might as well have no rights at all. You're already well on your way there.
At the same time TV companies are shifting to releasing video files on websites. You simply will only buy a larger monitor/projector and access the video with your computer.
Sadly, you get sometimes forced that "smart stuff" if you want it or not.
Had to order large tv sets at work, got LG ones. Working mostly fine as dumb displays (for some connected device, delivering the pictures and using HDMI ARC to switch on both at once) but here and there, users are put to the home menu of the LG TV if something fails and need to click through some icons to get to the HDMI input and if you dare to connect them online you get that "Update" notification, when an update is available (even when you disabled auto update).
also: i think this sort of behaviour is exactly how you chill updates of any sort. it may take a while but when it is publicly salient that updates are sophies choice, and large pie slices of devices stay stock and unconnected, that will dry up that watering hole.
paranoia regarding un-updated devices will give way to paranoia regarding updates being used to screw you into something you would never consent to.
Is it always listening? If not now, can it be changed to always be listening by a remote update? Can that update be selectively sent to certain users? Who controls which users?
Huge shame. I have an LG running WebOS that I bought in 2012 and is still going strong and receiving updates (well, it received one last year, but not this one).
I was always impressed with how unshittified it was, and knew that when I got another TV it would be a WebOS LG.
As a reminder if you own an LG TV, turn off the sneakily named "Live Plus" thing. This "option" makes your LG TV spy on you, tracking and reporting what you watch based on the image that is shown on the TV.
You need to go to Settings -> All Settings -> General -> System -> Additional Settings to make sure the "Live Plus" option is OFF.
Check it periodically, as it sometimes turns itself back on again after updates.
The enshittification of our world is beyond words.
I have an LG TV purchased about 3 years ago. It had a bunch of "AI" features from day one, but mostly related to improving the picture quality dynamically based on what's on the screen. I disabled all of that stuff, so I guess I'll be disabling this too.
The LG software is horrible on this TV. Great picture quality, but I would never recommend an LG TV just because of the software.
Does that work with the DRM from streaming apps, though? Can you get 4K and atmos with Netflix or Disney+ with that hardware? And an easy remote and UI?
All that I have available in typical stores are smart TVs. The rest is some display panels meant for commercial installations (like big ad screens, multiple, working as one), which are only available online at a premium price.
Yes, but they can be a bit tricky to find. You can find them used. You can use a computer monitor.
Ultimately, I'm planning for a world where the technological decline continues (ie, technology continues to be something which its users do not own or control) and things like adblock just don't work anymore. When that finally happens, I'm honestly going to be watching DVDs, VHS, reading books, etc. This is a game of cat and mouse and if I'm pushed far enough I'm just going to check out of the system completely. TV is not so valuable that I'm going to let some sleazy company push me around.
> Yes, but they can be a bit tricky to find. You can find them used. You can use a computer monitor.
Sir, that's basically a no.
A TV is a specific device. It has many functions that TV monitor seldom has, or implements poorly. Like speakers. Or rich inputs and outputs, like multiple hdmi and antenna. Or a proper remote, a dvb-t tuner. Or play media on it's own when connected via USB. Or DLNA (I had devices far from modern smart-tv that could do that, in the past).
Monitor or panel can mimic some of this, with effort on your side, but not really.
I tried to do that, really did, but my TV was circa 2006 and I needed a replacement. None of the options in my region are good, there's no Scepter equivalent unless you pay 3x as much for something akin to a commercial display. So, air-gapping it is!
What a shame, they run webOS is which is really interesting on these, though LG continues to implement the most anti consumer things they can think of.
Why? If they want to even embed copilot, they could have atleast been strategic about it!! Copilot has this image that has something to do with coding, average person doesn’t care be bit about it and see ut as an invasive pest
Because wallstreet just needs to see that AI adoption number go up. No one really cares about if it's accidental clicks, or hell just mandatory running in the background. We just need that number to go up, and next quarter it has to go up even more.
> Copilot has this image that has something to do with coding
To the audience of this site, yeah. But "copilot" is Microsoft trying to brand "an agent/assistant". They use it across their entire product line; copilot is in office so you can ask for help with spreadsheet formulas and in outlook so you can ask for help with summary/triage... and it's in VSCode/GH.
Microsoft saw the way the USB people absolutely screwed up the marketing/branding around different generations and speeds and capabilities and said "I bet the same strategy will work spectacularly well for us" and thus _everything_ became copilot.
I still think that most people don't know what it is. There's so much shit getting installed on peoples TVs / PCs / Phones that they didn't ask for, I think that they just ignore it like they do SPAM.
Back when IE was king, nobody even knew what the hell Internet Explorer was. They just clicked the blue E thing to get to Google.
Years ago my Sony TV came with Google Assistant enabled, and when I disabled it, it nagged me for a long time to turn it back on until I installed some launcher that finally shut off all the nags and full screen ads. The biggest button on the remote is Google Assistant and I have to keep a careful eye on whoever's using it so that they don't accidentally re-enable it.
The customer era is over when advertisers are paying more than customers. The advertiser era is over when any corporation wants to buy AI trained on each customer like a harness on each horse.
It could be worse. You could have Alexa on your Samsung OLED TV that triggers in response to something random you say while watching your TV then self-cancels but leaves the TV in a no-audio state until you power-cycle it (standby to live will not suffice).
Oh I know this bug! Happens with their own Bixby assistant too.
(Either Samsung dropped the ball on quality in the last 5-10 years, or I just started to pay attention, but the desire to throw this garbage in the bin is real.)
Smart TVs are maybe the dumbest product innovation of my lifetime. Ruining a perfectly good appliance with the addition of software. In 2025 it's literally a luxury experience to deal with computer bs less.
At first I was going to disagree, because having the compute built into the TV makes some sense, but thinking about it made me change my mind.
A modern TV has a lifetime of 15 - 20 years I think. E.g. my in-laws have a Sony TV, from around 2012 - 2013. It's not 4K obviously, but the picture is beautiful, the sound perfectly fills their small living room, it's a great TV. Even considering that Sony did skimp on the compute in that TV from the start, there's no way that they could have put in hardware that would future proof it until 2030 or beyond. Nor could they reasonably charge enough to cover software updates for that long. It makes much more sense to have a replaceable external unit.
There are firmware updates that improve picture quality, address compatibility issues that are discovered after release, and even increase the lifetime of the TV.
So what does it do? In the discussion yesterday no one covered that.
From what this article says it is an app (which fits with how it is displayed in the screenshot), which suggests you would need to choose to open it to actually have it do anything.
How is this my fault as customer? This a predatory practice in tech.
I work in automotive, the hoops you have to jump through in order to push a SW update are enormous. One of the first rules is: if the owner of the vehicle does not consent to an OTA update, you're out of luck.
The industry is obviously unable to self-regulate, so it is time for an external regulator, e.g. the EU, to jump in and mandate that SW updates cannot be applied without explicit consent and an explicit explanation of what is being changed. Of course, security updates must be maintained separately from feature updates like this.
As a consumer, I always want the latter, rarely do I want the former. My device, my choice.
I have an OLED from them that’s 5 years old or so now, I have never once updated it or used any of the software beyond switching inputs and screen/color settings. It’s sad if it sounds like it’s getting to the point where you can’t just use a screen as a dumb screen as an option, I never minded smart features… as long as I never had to use them.
Small data point: I brought a Sony Android TV in 2023 which doesn't have any of the annoyances I keep reading about here. Made in Japan for the Japanese market, haven't seen a single ad and it predates my use of AdGuard DNS. Whether this is a regional or Sony thing I'm not sure.
I recently bought a $250 Zojurishi rice cooker because I wanted quality, durability and no "trade offs" I am going to start buying more and more Japanese electronics if US and South Korean companies keep colluding with each other in inserting garbage.
Samsung is already preloading intelligence service software and "365 copilot" into their phones to trick old people into paying for a subscription to open a PDF (it sets itself as a default app).
At this point it's a war against the consumer.
And it's not just this, they are slowly phasing out consumer hardware (GPU price increase, RAM, non NVME SSDs, etc.) in an effort to make hardware ownership impossible thus creating a "Market" for the post bubble burst of AI where they will be renting out PC hardware (all these datacenters that they are building which will be useless).
This is US led and also conveniently both the US and South Korea are involved, as they shut down China (both GPUs and RAM manufacturers in China were blacklisted).
It's not a coincidence, I Imagine the threats of potential tariffs if they do not comply does not help with their "independent thinking".
Thank god, the sooner we start to appreciate the wide spread adoption of AI the sooner we can start being more productive.
A TV is the perfect place to introduce AI in terms of giving me content I should actually enjoy, and answering any questions I may have about what I'm watching. Kudos to LG for being the first.
Sure, but there is a prioritization system involved where the highest payer gets pushed first. So the AI may detemine you like X, but if the buyer only showing Y, you'll get to see ads for Y and no X.
My rule for modern TVs:
1. Never connect the TV panel itself to the internet. Keep it air-gapped. Treat it solely as a dumb monitor.
2. Use an Apple TV for the "smart" features.
3. Avoid Fire TV, Chromecast, or Roku.
The logic is simple, Google (Chromecast) and Amazon (Fire TV) operate on the same business model as the TV manufacturers subsidized hardware in exchange for user data and ad inventory. Apple is the only mainstream option where the hardware cost covers the experience, rather than your viewing habits subsidizing the device.
My new rule for modern TVs is don't have a TV at all. The social role of having a TV is rapidly dwindling. First off, the number of movies and TV shows that merit even being watched is dwindling. Secondly, even if you find something worth watching, the odds that anybody else will want to watch it is small; everybody has been atomized by recommendation algorithms, everybody gets shown a different set of ads and media, there's no longer and shared culture when it comes to media. It used to be that everybody went home and watched NBC or one of the two other channels, all saw the same ads for the same movies and shows, so if you mentioned one the next day everybody knew what you were talking about. This is no longer true, if you try to bring up some Netflix show you heard of last night, probaby nobody else has heard of it. Now let's say you actually talk somebody into watching something with you despite that... What are the odds that both they and you get through the show or movie without reaching for their phone? Almost zero, in my experience.
It's done. The cultural significance of TV is toast. Our culture is too atomized, too personalized for shared experiences. Large TVs, centerpiece of the living room, are becoming an anachronism that date people as being from a previous era when television was still a shared cultural experience.
I just want a massive screen to watch my content on - everything else you mention is irrelevant.
I agree that the days when “everyone” watched the same show are done. But if you can find a small group to watch a show with (better in person), then there are better shows available for that experience these last several years, even if the average quality has gone down.
What are some of your favorite shared experiences to replace tv?
I like rewatching old TV shows and films, streamed from my Jellyfin server.
For me, my rule is to get a Google TV, because I can change out the launcher to Flauncher. At least that way I don't see any ads. Google may well still be tracking me, but they do all over the web and I have an Android phone so they've already got plenty of data on me. I just avoid their ads so that it minimises the profitability of that data.
I use Flauncher too. I also use Netguard from F-Droid and block everything except streaming apps and their dependencies. I only unblock Google when a steaming app requires an update. I'm slowly dropping subscriptions and moving to Jellyfin though too.
I agree. My Google TV with Projectivity Launcher shows zero launcher ads unlike my Apple TV. As a bonus, it lets me install SmartTube and use DeArrow and Sponsor Block.
I just wish I could get something similar as a native iOS app. Although I can use Safari extensions, the Safari YouTube experience on iOS is terrible.
I love Projectivity Launcher on my Google Streamer, but I can't figure out how to really replace the built-in launcher. Sometimes the device falls back to the default launcher until I press the "home" button on my remote.
Have you tried installing Launcher Manager? https://www.techdoctoruk.com/launcher-manager-for-android-tv...
I had that same issue, and to solve it, I connected to the TV with ADB and disabled the default launcher.
>First off, the number of movies and TV shows that merit even being watched is dwindling
The first item in your list to others is subjective
That's a popular and socially safe point of view, but it's completely wrong. Artistic merit, like truth and beauty, is an objective quality completely orthogonal to cultural differences or personal opinion. To illustrate this orthogonality, I invite you to realize there exists art which has great merit and yet which you personally do not like. You should be able to do this, if you can't manage I can provide my own examples for you. The existence of such art proves that personal preferences don't weigh on the recognition of artistic merit.
You're acting as if your personally held philosophical beliefs aren't contradicted by some of the most famous minds in history.
How interesting! These great minds you speak of, are they objectively great, or only subjectively? If they are only subjectively great, then why should a lazy appeal to them sway me? And if they are objectively great minds, then how does that not acknowledge my premise?
I'm teasing you, I do acknowledged that there are great minds, past and present, who disagree with me. And I trust you can acknowledge the same, there is no shortage of great minds who believed and argued that objective truth, beauty and merit really do exist. The question I have for you or anybody who disagrees is this: can you acknowledge the existence of media you don't like one bit but nonetheless acknowledge as having merit which transcends your own personal opinions? I can easily, I can't stand Shakespeare's Othello, and I simultaneously acknowledge it as possessing a great deal of objective artistic merit. For me, there is no contradiction here because merit is not a function of personal opinion.
That I acknowledge there are great minds on both sides of the debate means that I wouldn't treat it as a hard fact when talking about it in an online forum, which was the explicit point of my response.
If you can recognize the greatness of somebody you disagree with, then you should also be able to recognize merit in media you don't personally like. And if merit can be thus decoupled from personal opinion, that affirms my point that objective merit really does exist.
Using flowery language does not automatically make you correct, and even if on the hard facts you are correct, it comes across as condescending and arrogant.
What you're saying, "There are shows on TV worth watching and the art form is still evolving, and one person not liking it doesn't mean that it is bad" would have come across much more cleanly if you had stated it plainly.
> What you're saying, "There are shows on TV worth watching and the art form is still evolving, and one person not liking it doesn't mean that it is bad"
That's not even remotely what I'm saying!
I would instead say that media is only "evolving" insofar as it is being optimized by media corporations for reliable fiscal return. No risks allowed, everything needs to be cookie cutter, no risks, barely any new IPs even, the industry just wants to get committees of nepo hire "writers" to remix shit they can be reasonably confident will find reliable audiences, and that means pandering to viewers instead of challenging them. Every decision gets run through test audiences, opinion polls, and legions of executives and their consultants. Art cannot be created in such an industry environment. All they can make is base slop.
It frustrates me that this is where we have come too.
I refuse to connect any of my TV's to the internet but I have to wonder how long until a few different things happen:
- The TV's just connect to unsecure Wifi and collect the data anyways (I think there were reports of at least one manufacture already doing this at one point?). Or just make a deal with xfinity to use their mesh network that seems to be everywhere.
- The TV's don't work without being connected to the internet.
- The manufactures find out that the cost of adding in a cellular modem is justified by the increase in data they can collect.
I would love the idea of buying a modern TV without any of this crap shoved in, I happily use my Apple TV for everything that isnt video games.
It bothers me though when it seems like to fix an issue with HDR or something I need to update the firmware. I have wondered on occasion if this is intentional to "force" people to connect. If I have to do this I will run an ethernet cable to temporarily connect.
99.999% of TV's are connected directly to the Internet by their users without any restrictions. Investing in additional hardware or operator deals to capture the remaining .001% isn't typically worth it, for now.
What do you think of Nvidia Shield? I haven't tried it, but I think it should also belong to 2). It's clearly much more expensive than a FireTV, but as you say it shouldn't be subsidized by ads. As an Android device it should be more open than an Apple TV. While I recognize the near flawless UI and high hardware quality of most Apple devices, I disagree with their "golden cage" or walled garden approach.
I see many people liking their shield, and with good reason it seems, but is it a worthy ecosystem to buy in to when it has not seen a new hardware revision since 2019?
This. The lack of a Shield hardware refresh seems insane.
I get Nvidia (the company) has other priorities with higher revenue.
But they have a product, with proven product-market fit, that gives them a last mile connection with end users, in one of the highest utilization home spaces.
How has no one at Nvidia looked at that and said "I'm not saying we orient our entire focus around it, but shouldn't we at least fund it as a strategic priority?"
If datacenter revenue falls off, it's going to look awfully short-sighted not to have diversified customer base when they had the chance.
What benefits would a hardware upgrade bring the end user? Not releasing a new model every year sounds like a perfectly good thing to me as long as they keep updating the software without introducing performance problems.
My biggest gripe with the Shield is the newest one has a remote that I really don’t like. Luckily it can be replaced with a third party remote!
Same, one of mine is from the initial models, and still working and receiving updates... it doesn't have the 4k upscaling of the newer models, but I've been happy and have several in my house.
About half my watching is YouTube on a paid account, the other half via Kodi and the high seas. My SO uses the regular apps for Netflix, Amazon and HBO currently. Having support for hacker-friendly features as well as blessed apps with 4k support has been pretty great.
As another post mentioned, the remote (current and previous) have been less than stellar... I've been using the one linked below[1], which works pretty well, though uses a USB dongle. FWIW, can also pair a bluetooth headset if you want the big screen experience, but don't want to blow out the house with audio sometimes.
1. https://amazon.com/dp/B07RFN8Z47
I too think yearly updates are a bit too much and I too want to keep my devices for a long time. Still rocking an iPhone 12 (mini).
But support for newer codecs like AV1 and general hardware refreshes to keep up with the underlying Android base would still seem like good ideas to me.
Reading the specs it seems that the Shield also would benefit from being able to detect frame rate to auto-switch via HDMI.
Higher network bandwidth to play UHD Blu-ray rips seems like something people want.
The Shield Pro is perfect for me and I have no reason to upgrade. Have mine downgraded and de-bloated using this guide [0] running a custom launcher. Like you said being Android and more open helps a lot.
[0] https://florisse.nl/shield-debloat/
Does this article actually expect the reader to download two random APK files and then install them on their Shield? This seems... dangerous?
Wow, forced ai translation based on.. ip? System lang?
I use the non-Pro version for 1080p streaming and have for years. It’s great, does what I want and gets out of the way. Some years ago they were forced by Google to use the standard AndroidTV UI instead of their own custom one, which means it now shows ads on the home screen (a carousel of “watch this on service X”), which are inoffensive enough I haven’t bothered to circumvent them. You can swap to your own custom UI if you want with some ssh futzing.
I've had the same Shield for about 8 years and it's still going strong, has all the hardware decoding I need
Even on the OG hardware, I'm able to use 4K in h.265 or AV1 without issue, it does get hot though.
OG Chromecast is specifically being phased out because it doesn't offer the same level of control as the current crop of "smart" TVs/devices.
I'm still disappointed they killed the Chromecast Audio... have one uptairs I use regularly. Would have bought a couple extra had I known.
I image they will be much sought-after, unless you are suggesting they are being bricked
Even if they don't brick them explicitly they will no longer provide security updates for them.
I'm on the same boat, smart TV has never been online, all content is just cast from media server/phone/tablet straight to chromecast. It works, no fuss, glitch free, and of course they will kill it.
Even if they were to provide security updates, a few platforms no longer work with them. At the very least, now Disney+ refuses to stream to my original chromecast dongle.
I got one of those Google TV Streamer boxes, put a different launcher on it (Projectivy Launcher), and it's been great, no ads or anything.
Maybe this is what I need to do.
I disconnected our living room LG TV from the internet and got a Fire Stick 4K Max, but I hate it; 90% of the screen is advert, and you get a tiny sliver for the 5 apps it lets you see, and you have to go digging for the rest, not to mention the home-screen advertising isn't always appropriate for young children.
I hadn't considered Apple TV because I've never been an Apple user, but perhaps this is what I need.
Though I'm an Android user, all of the Android TV devices seem to be junk or ad-ridden junk.
Is Apple TV the way to go (asking other opinions).
Yes.
The only other one I'd seriously consider is the nVidia Shield (Pro?). But the risk with that is that it's decade old hardware with no updates in sight. It's more for the "My Plex/Jellyfin server has all the movies and TV shows ever" -crowd :)
Meanwhile my 1st gen 4k AppleTV (6-ish years old?) is chugging away perfectly and runs every single 3rd party streaming platform I need - even the local ones. As a market it's just too big to ignore.
And no ads anywhere on the front page. The top row apps get to show their stuff on the top part, but it's not "ads" in my book - unlike Google TV that just shoves full-screen crap of "YOU WANNA SEE THIS MARVEL MOVIE?!" at you no matter where you browse.
It's still seeing software updates and can play h.265 and AV1 content in 4K without issue. The latest model is 2019 though... that said works great... latest software update was just a couple weeks ago.
Also, you can swap the Android TV launcher relatively easily.
I've been aware of the Shield devices for some years now, as an Android user, but something always put me off them.
I lrecently bought the FireTV 4K in a last-ditched effort to find something I could at least have some control over; if I could replace the launcher with something that's just app icons and not all adverts it would have been perfect, but alas, Amazon has prevented that, so onto the next thing.
It's really sounding like Apple TV is the best option for something suitable for the whole family.
Can I ask; what is the purpose of the relatively large storage on an Apple TV, do they support "apps" of some kind?
You can play games decently on Apple TV, those require some storage and I believe at least the native Apple apps cache pretty heavily to local storage instead of relying on streaming.
There are "apps" too, but all of them are related to streaming video in some way, except for the games of course.
> Can I ask; what is the purpose of the relatively large storage on an Apple TV, do they support "apps" of some kind?
I’d always assumed that was for rented media
Before you buy an Apple TV you can try installing ProjectIvy launcher and see if that suits your needs. It's basically a simplified launcher UI for Android TV devices.
It's not perfect, not if it suits your needs you won't have to buy another device.
I like FLauncher! Stupid simple and does the job.
Happy apple tv user for > 5 years now. It has icons for the apps you want to start on the home screen. You click the icons. The apps start.
It's connected to a samsung tv that's not allowed wifi access. Besides the bad and steadily worsening UX of streaming apps like Netflix, my setup itself never shows me any ads.
Also the apple tv remote has a very solid, premium feel, which i like
Thank you, that's exactly what I'm after.
A quick search, suggests the latest is 3rd gen (2022), am I looking at the right device?
Yes. Macrumors here says “don’t buy” [0], but only because they tend to recommend only if tech is “new”. I have this ATv gen and it’s not perfect, but is really the best streaming box, having used roku and nvidia shield. PS: get the version with wired ethernet if you can…wifi works, but no surprise that wired is more solid.
[0] https://www.macrumors.com/roundup/apple-tv/
I just wish the remote wasn't so small that I can never find it after my girls use it. I've just gotten used to using the phone app.
A cheap used mini desktop with a linux install on it is also a good way to go. Throw in a wireless mouse and keyboard and you can do not only what an AppleTV or Android box does but also everything a cheap used mini pc can do.
Even something like this: https://www.ebay.com/itm/127547167640
Would be a media powerhouse compared to almost any set top box you can buy.
Throw OpenElec or OSMC on it for simple media setup or Bazzite or Ubuntu for a normal linux desktop with downloadable applications for most streaming platforms.
The down side is if you actually want streaming apps with 4K support for the paid services.
I've been using NVidia Shield TV (pro) since the first gen, still have my OG device as well as the updated models. I'm also running a Beelink SER8 with Bazzite for some living-room gaming and classic emulation.
Apple TV 4k has an idle power draw of 0.49W and a 4k streaming power draw of 2.31W. That mini desktop will likely run at around 20W idle and approaches 30W under relatively light load and up to 60W on high loads. Plus keyboard and mouse are generally terrible couch devices. I've already got a NAS and plenty of devices I can stream from. The Apple TV is an almost perfect small and efficient device to stream to.
I've been using an AppleTV as the primary way to get content to my (dumb, vintage 2007) TV for approximately a decade now.
While my usage has increasingly shifted toward drawing from my personal library through first Plex, then Jellyfin, I've also used Netflix, YouTube, Twitch, Amazon Prime Video, AppleTV+, and probably a couple of other content apps I'm forgetting on it. Aside from some issues with the UI of individual apps (which is, of course, on the developers), it all works great. Many of the apps can even show you a couple of tiles of "suggested content" right from the home screen (for instance, when I select the Netflix app, but before I launch it, it currently shows the next episodes from the most recent two shows I've been watching on it).
There are various ways in which an AppleTV can be better if you're already in the Apple ecosystem (which I am), but you absolutely do not need to be to make excellent use of it.
It can even join your Tailscale network and act as an exit node, giving you a quick & dirty VPN into your home network!
You could install Flauncher or another launcher onto Android TV. Then you don't see ads.
Unfortunately not possible on the Fire Stick (4K Max), Amazon have modified it to disallow other launchers; there are some "hacks" but none have worked for me and the closest one I did get to working was too much of a pain for the rest of the family.
I've found no way to root it either so I just want rid of it, every time something appears almost-full-screen on the home page that's inappropriate for the kids with no regard for what time of day it is, my wife gets all the more annoyed by it; she never wanted it in the first place, so the poor experience is not helping my case).
I couldn't work out how to do it on my Fire Stick either. But it does work for my Google TV.
Mini pc + HDMI. Oh look, everything is free and no ads
What's wrong with Roku? They have a few ads here and there but I've always found the interface to be super slick. And they aren't Google, so not as harmful to share my data with? (a big assumption, I know)
Roku has been bad in a number of ways, but here's one:
https://techcrunch.com/2024/03/05/roku-disables-tvs-and-stre...
I wouldn't assume Roku is better to share your data with. Google uses your data to feed their own algorithms instead of just straight up selling it. Their incentive is to keep the data internal so they alone can extract value from it.
Roku just directly sells it to anyone who wants it: https://advertising.roku.com/learn/resources/roku-unveils-da...
"Few ads here and there" is always worse than "no ads".
Exactly. I disabled internet access on my LG C1 after an update reenabled the setting that pops up adverts over the top of what you're watching.
Chromecast hardware wasn't ever sold at a loss, AFAIK. These things were/are pretty pricey for being long-outdated SoCs equivalent to low range smartphone SoCs and a HDMI driver chip.
This works until eARC breaks and you have to update (LG C6, never connected to the internet, only using AppleTV). And then of course the next LG update will break eARC again.
This
> 1. Never connect the TV panel itself to the internet. Keep it air-gapped. Treat it solely as a dumb monitor.
I gave up on this. I turned off a lot of the smart features but couldn’t justify not being able to use the apps.
It’s pretty dystopian my TV spying on me for sure but they’ve already got my phone, my internet history and presumably some pretty good spy satellites
If a drone has my name on it I’m done for either way
> My rule for modern TVs:
> 1. Never connect the TV panel itself to the internet. Keep it air-gapped. Treat it solely as a dumb monitor.
A sensible rule, indeed. Next level of dystopia: cellular modems becoming so cheap that every TV, fridge and washing machine comes with one that connects it to the Internet whether you like it or not. And then when we Faraday cage those, the device refuses to function.
Laws need to keep up and ban this shit outright. It sounds exactly like something that the EU could help with.
The EU actually mandated that cars have a modem ("eCall"), so they could self-report accidents. I think this has been under reported even in tech circles.
You also need to have a spare tire or an inflate kit, that doesn't mean you can throw it at somebody's head or spray them in the eyes. Said in another manner: having eCall doesn't mean that they are authorized to send telemetry back in non-emergency situations or use it to do any other thing unrelated to the main function. Now, if there is not a law that forbids that, car makers are going to exploit that loophole for sure, but that does not mean the EU is evil in this context.
The path is obvious, is it not?
Having two independent cellular modems in a car is obviously silly, so it only makes sense to use the same module both for the mandatory emergency calling and for the telemetry.
Because the emergency calling is mandatory, it'll of course be made impossible to disable the modem - and by extension the telemetry. Oh, you disabled the telemetry? I bet that'll be called "tampering with safety equipment", and your insurance is now void, and your car is no longer road legal.
If the law doesn't mandate that eCall has to be fully independent, it'll 100% be used to spy on you.
> Having two independent cellular modems in a car is obviously silly
They should put mandating exactly that into the law.
But the EU can just (and maybe already does) mandate that such telemetry must be opt-in by the user, and on top of that the data collected that way must be treated accordingly to the GDPR anyway.
> Next level of dystopia: cellular modems becoming so cheap that every TV, fridge and washing machine comes with one that connects it to the Internet whether you like it or not.
That's already a reality with cars in Europe.
I also don't like this precedent, but I do still feel cars are quite different. You need a license to drive a car on public roads. The car needs lots of certifications. You need an insurance. You need to prominently display your (your car's) ID for all to see. If you make mistakes while operating a car, the police can stop you and the state can take away your right to drive a car.
This makes it all very different from a gadget you use for entertainment in your own home.
Yeah I agree obviously spyware in cars is way greater threat than one in a TV.
Just to be clear to anyone reading - those SIMs have one purpose only - to automatically call emergency services if you crash.
Do they need a SIM to do an eCall? I'd think not because after all it is a semi-regular emergency call.
So if the car has a SIM it probably could be removed to neutralize it without interfering with the eCall. But eSIMs might be a different problem...
It’s naive to think that this is a) the only current use
Almost everything ever introduced with good intentions gets perverted into something else
Traffic cameras, facial recognition, phone GPS, social media - all can and are used against you in one way shape or form
I’m not saying we shouldn’t have any of those things - I’m saying just open your eyes because e sims are no different
Over twenty years ago there came a mandate that all places with many people gathers (both residential and commercial housing) should have a EN 54‑21 compliant alarm transmitter to automatically notify authorities in case of a fire.
I'm afraid that we are crying wolf right now and are undermining our efforts to permanently shut down Chat Control and the likes when we complain about these efforts with a history of not being misused.
For now...?
Surely if Copilot was so useful and great, it wouldn't be free and they wouldn't be trying to force it down unwilling people's throats at every opportunity.
I'm beginning to think this AI stuff isn't all it's cracked up to be...
> useful
That's not even the endgoal they are aiming at. Suppose you have a data churning loop you want to run forever. First step is to send a copy everywhere (anywhere) and in whatever shape and form to feast. Otherwise it just sits there looking at the nuclear plant next door.
I'm not confident they have any sensible vision beyond "meet the KPI for Copilot usage".
I've been a heavy user of the MS Copilot chat app on my Android phone, which I've been pretty happy with as a free basic AI chat option except for some annoying GUI bugs that they will apparently never get around to fixing. But I've yet to see a good use outside of the chat interface.
Reminds me of Amazon discovering most people don't use Alexa for much beyond setting cooking timers.
its so that they can tell the investors that "100 million" people use their bs
I wonder if it is possible to install a standard Linux distro on LG TVs. There is KDE Plasma Bigscreen for a TV-like experience on such distros.
https://plasma-bigscreen.org/
If not, there are some webOS exploits on this wiki page:
https://wiki.debian.org/Exploits
Hopefully the Vizio lawsuit will mean the right to repair software comes to TVs more easily.
https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html
I saw that rootmy.tv works for some versions of webos.
I would love to have this at home on one of the random boxes lying around. But is there a way yet to play Netflix &co in hd ?
You can absolutely jailbreak them and install whatever
*If you have one that hasn't updated itself since last year.
Ya I regret updating mine. The UI both significantly slowed down, and lost the chance to root :(
I just rooted one that was updated last week. Never say never. Just search for faultmanager...
though it is a cat and mouse game
It boggles my mind why anyone would update anything in 2025. Most products are shipped with full feature set and then updates ensure enshittification. The security argument doesn't apply because classic hacks rarely happen, it's mostly social engineering.
Should we assume by anything you mean edge devices? You don't update your PC? Your phone?
> You don't update your PC? Your phone?
You make it sound like it's almost a crime not to.
It's not a crime, but it's a foolish thing to do if you care about your data. Find vendors that aren't user hostile and still deliver security updates. For me that's various flavors of Linux (Debian, Fedora, arch, depending on my mood) and GrapheneOS on mobile.
Agreed, every update of a stable consumer product is a risk that it might just go completely sideways
Click ‘Install’ on Plasma Bigscreen page -> oops, here's a notice that you can't use it. What's the point? Why not at least suggest instructions for a dev/testing/at-your-own-risk build?
Of course it can't be deleted.
They need to force induce AI demand to pump up the dashboards for shareholders. Thus they are converting every possible input line in the world into AI inputs. Do you think they redesigned Windows Run dialog[1] out of the blue just for fun?
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows11/comments/1pe93r2/after_30...
For similar reasons many years back when I broke the bank for a G2, I decided to disconnect it forever. Besides the always-on spyware, every update broke something, which is incredibly frustrating considering the amount I spent. For instance, I got a GX soundbar for free with the TV which worked fine for 1–2 months until some update borked it and made it glitch out randomly. To date, none of their updates seem to have fixed it. I now only connect it back to the web — if needed — once a year or so but even this needs plenty of careful research across the web to see if the update package breaks something else I take for granted.
Hooking up an Apple TV 4K to this thing was the best decision I ever made and the sheer performance of this thing puts every TV vendor to shame. I would recommend everyone to do the same if they're already in the Apple ecosystem.
While I've left my now fairly old TV on the internet, I use optical (TOSLINK) out to a cheap class D amplifier, which seems to have been a more reliable system than any of the HDMI audio based ones.
I agree ive hooked up apple tv to override the crappy subsidized smart tv built ins that spy on you. That works until apple changes leadership and new leadership starts significantly mining data and caring less about privacy. It will happen at some point, not on Cooks term but someone else im sure of it.
Is it possible to use an LG without ever connecting it to the internet in the first place?
Maybe related: I bought an LG TV in 2014 or so, I was interested in what its calls home communicated, so I MItM'ed it to capture the http (no s!) traffic. I never did bother to analyze the requests and responses..
But I got a newer LG model 2 years ago, I was still redirecting requests to LG's servers to a local web server (using DNS), but I guess due to https, the certificate checks failed and the attempts to call home failed. This meant that I never got asked to agree to the T&As.
But of course many apps don't work..
Yes. I just got a new LG C3 OLED. I skipped the guided setup, then disabled any “smart” video manipulations. I connected it to an Apple TV, made sure the ATV’s remote worked, and Velcroed the LG remote to the back of the TV. The TV works great and hasn’t yet nagged me for internet access.
I am currently using one that is prevented from connecting to the internet via firewall rules from my router and all media comes from a separate jellyfin server. Had to allow enough of an internet access to install the app but once that was done, everything going outside lan is blocked.
Also most tvs have usb ports so maybe either raw media or some third part dongle can service as well?
Also also, most tvs of this caliber have hdmi you can plug your computer to.
Yes. You can install firmware updates over usb.
I've done that with both LG OLEDs that I've had.
Makes me more and more glad that I never let my TV on any network and only use it as a display for Apple TV, the Blu-Ray player, and playing media from USB drives...
My LG TV has been offline for the past 2 years (since I got it). I'm so much happier using the Apple TV.
I know people want "dumb" displays, but the reality is that these OLED panels offer industry-leading image quality and benefit from economies of scale, where most users want some form of built-in OS. A signage board cannot compete on price or quality. As long as TV manufacturers let me run it offline without issue, I'm fine with that.
Also fwiw, you can use apps like Infuse on the Apple TV for playing your own media files over the network. No Need for USB drives, just connect direct to the shared folder.
> signage board cannot compete on price or quality.
Those aren't the only two options. There are commerical TVs (eg in hotels) that are very close to standard TVs, but with a minimal interface.
> I'm so much happier using the Apple TV.
Then it is Apple that is harvesting your data. They may or may not display ads (I don't have an AppleTV to check), but they are certainly logging your interactions and possibly selling that data with third parties. That is on top of all the data Apple already has on people using iPhones, and the reason why I will never use anything other than a free/libre ROM like Graphene or Lineage.
> Then it is Apple that is harvesting your data.
They quite literally have settings to disable that. There are no ads in the operating system.
https://support.apple.com/en-au/guide/tv/atvb66239fa1/tvos
I'm sure some conspiratorial thinking would lead people to the conclusion that Apple are secretly tracking and selling data. There is no evidence to suggest this is happening.
It's probably the next best thing to setting up your own linux home theater PC. But that comes with trade-offs with UX and DRM blocking 4K streaming apps and lack of Dolby Vision playback.
My samsung and lg tvs also have options to disable data harvesting. The problem , however, is that just like the apple tv they all are black boxes that have no intention in respecting your choices, thus you can't trust that disabling those options is actually disabling all the data harvesting and tracking. Apple is not a saint.
You can convert dolby vision content while preserving the enhancement layer on Linux, and play that. It's kinda of a pain but easily automated.
>I'm sure some conspiratorial thinking would lead people to the conclusion that Apple are secretly tracking and selling data.
Apple in their privacy policy reserves the right to use your data for ads. They aren't secretly tracking, they are telling you so.
But it's no different than Google, who also doesn't sell your data. Just mining it to target ads.
Its terrible Apple is spying on you. But the alternative is to have someone spying on you and forcing ads on you. Sophie's choice.
Mini PC with Linux + Jellyfin + web browser.
Some people want netflix or similar streaming services, and don't pirate. Which is limited via the browser.
I suggested in another comment a Linux HTPC or a Pi with a FOSS AndroidTV ROM as alternatives.
> possibly selling that data with third parties.
Nope. According to the privacy policy
The privacy policy literally includes that they do?
> We provide some non-personal data to our advertisers and strategic partners that work with Apple to provide our products and services, help Apple market to customers, and sell ads on Apple’s behalf to display on the App Store and Apple News and Stocks. For example, we may share non-personal data about your transactions, viewing activity, and region, as well as aggregated user demographics such as age group and gender (which may be inferred from information such as your name and salutation in your Apple Account), to Apple TV strategic partners, such as content owners, so that they can measure the performance of their creative work, meet royalty and accounting requirements, and improve their associated products and services.
https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/apple-tv-app/
I'm not refuting that they don't sell your data, I haven't checked. But your link is not relevant to the discussion.
It's the privacy policy of the Apple TV app, not the Apple TV device.
Apple TV is the best device for using Plex with a TV fwiw.
That's true, but not if you want to use HDR which the Apple TV + Plex sadly still don't support. Infuse on Apple TV does.
Some threads:
- https://www.reddit.com/r/appletv/comments/1azy0s9/current_st...
- https://forums.plex.tv/t/does-the-plex-app-supports-hdr10/89...
Infuse is a game-changer. I’ve been network streaming from my own media servers since the days of the original Xbox Media Center. Infuse is the best setup I’ve used. It a shame there’s nothing comparable in terms of polish on Linux or Android.
> As long as TV manufacturers let me run it offline without issue, I'm fine with that.
I suspect that this won't be the case for much longer. Once you've stuffed the TV with all the ads and data harvesting you can, the logical next step is to ensure it doesn't work at all unless those ads are being watched and that data is being harvested.
I have used a projector my entire life, I have no idea why this isn’t a “thing” (especially with HN crowd-like communities)…
I have a projector that I never use because I don't like the fan noise.
They're great for sports though. Hard to beat an entire wall of screen.
I prefer OLED for TV and movies though.
if you have a family with daytime viewing habits, projectors are basically a no go. 100" tv, with better brightness and black levels, are getting down to $2k range. they only make sense for > 100", and you'll be sacrificing some quality for a bit of viewing angle, usually recovered by scooting your couch a bit closer. i like bright, which is why i no longer go to theaters, which never did make the transition to HDR that they promised over a decade ago.
> but the reality is that these OLED panels offer industry-leading image quality
Except in scenes with fire (like a campfire) or where some spots may have high brightness compared to the surroundings. The LG OLED TVs I’ve seen all go blank in such scenes. The TVs I’ve seen that have LCD panels don’t have this issue. It seems like the only way to disable it (after turning off power saving and a few other things) is to buy and use a service remote to turn off ASBL. From my online reading, it seems like doing this may void the warranty and probably have negative effects on the life of the panel.
I have an LG OLED and have never seen it go blank on any scene.
It just looks great all the time. Especially on scenes like you describe with a dark scene with bright highlights. Campfire scenes look great, space scenes look great. That's what OLED is best at.
If you're talking about ABL, I've only noticed the dimming on ads or powerpoint lectures that have fully white backgrounds, and I've been thankful for it at those times because I find all-white backgrounds too bright to watch anyway.
Same happy boat here. Mine has never seen the light of network access. I just don’t trust these things at all.
I left a relative house sitting, specifically told them to use the Xbox if they need Netflix etc, and of course they connected the TV to the wifi and just hit accept on everything. Luckily it was still new enough that LG hadn’t put out a patch to cram it full of ads yet.
After that I blocked the MAC address at my router.
> Makes me more and more glad that I never let my TV on any network..
Sigh! These manufacturers have repeated this so many times that it is probably in their corporate subversion manual now. This is no consolation at all. They first introduce 'optional' features like this. Then they tighten the screw such that you get degraded performance if you don't use that feature. Finally they make it unavoidable. How are we missing it every time?
Haven't we seen how this evolved in the case of windows login using their 365 account? Haven't we seen how Android smartphone unlocking and custom ROM flashing got gradually more difficult over the years until we can't do that anymore?
If you rely on compromises or shortcuts out of this problem, you'll eventually find yourself without any. We need to nip this trend in the bud. Punish them with a tanked market.
I will point out, there are sometimes some really legitimate firmware updates that actually enhance or correct shortcomings on the TVs, especially for cinephiles on high-end units and for recently-released models that have firmware that needs work.
You can find people who cover the content of these updates, such as Vincent from HDTVtest.
What I tend to do is leave my WiFi off and then occasionally turn it on and connect for firmware updates, then disable it afterward.
I've also found that on my LG OLED that a lot of the crapware doesn't even have an option to function if you just never accept the terms and conditions or un-accept them. The UI doesn't make it perfectly obvious that you can do this but you absolutely can.
This stuff is very much anti-consumer, but can generally be mitigated by vigilant settings-chasing and a willingness to ignore the TV interface and use a dedicated streaming box with essentially no ads like an Apple TV.
> Additionally, LG has a setting called "Live Plus" that Reddit users highlighted. When it's turned on, the TV can recognize what's displayed on screen and use that viewing information for personalized recommendations and ads. LG describes it as an "enhanced viewing experience,"
Ah. So it's not "AI." It's an "opportunity to spy on every single thing you do."
Those are completely separate. "Live Plus" is a TV setting that has nothing to do with Copilot and has been on their TVs for a long time.
> has been on their TVs for a long time.
It's not just LG! They keep trying to shove "a return channel" into the latest ATSC standards for DRM and "enhanced / more accurate ratings".
How do I check the TV in store does not have modem with esim? Or at least detect and disable embedded cell modems at home?
Bluetooth is enough, theoretically, if they have an agreement with Amazon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Sidewalk
And most TVs these days have Bluetooth.
ATSC 3.0 also specifies a dedicated long-range return channel with a range of many kilometers.
I wanted to write comment to the effect of "I don't have amazon devices hur hur", but then realized it does not have to be my device... Especially in an apartment building...
What next, ultrasound? IR?
The average person willingly connects them to their wifi, why would TV makers go through the effort and expense? Maybe I'm being too optimistic though...
And how long is a "long time", Mr. "It's old and boring that TV manufacturers do this so there's no point in being angry or complaining"?
Of course you can be angry at whoever you want, but it seems more productive to be angry at the entity actually causing the thing you dislike.
Being angry at the person playing interference for the TV manufacturers seems relevant in that regard.
At least since 2010. Turned off as soon as I bought mine.
Every AI company is doing the same thing, there is nothing special about Microsoft in this instance. If you're using a 3rd party provider for your queries you can assume it is going to end up in the training corpus.
"enhanced" (profit) for them, not for you.
I've had an LG tv for a couple years. I was previously able to use LG's THINQ app on my phone like a remote to operate the tv. A couple days ago I went in the app to use the remote and the feature had been totally locked behind the "access local networks & devices" permission... This permission was never needed in the past 3 years yet now it's necessary for the same functionality.
So, I disconnected the TV from the internet, uninstalled the app, and bought an Apple TV 3rd gen. LG TV quality is great but their software is unbearable.
Wouldn't it make sense for a remote control to need to access local network & devices? Like, without this permission, the only way the controller would work is through a cloud service, so I would personally be pretty happy to discover the app requests this permission, as it would likely mean the app will keep working when LG inevitably shuts down their cloud server...
You're giving a lot of charity to LG. They're probably trying to fingerprint people with the extra permissions
I am surprised it wasn't needed till now. This needs a lan connection and definitely will need access to local networks.
I never connected my smart tvs to the internet. I buy the cheapest TV (at the size I want) and connect an old laptop, lid closed, and a cheap mini keyboard. It does everything I want, never updates itself with unwanted features and never shows me ads. Been doing this for 10 years, why would anyone actually want a smart tv.
The problem is this doesn't really work anymore with Widevine protected content. You are not getting Widevine L1 protected content through Windows or other type of home desktop operating system. Even without L1 content, platforms like Youtube won't serve 5.1 surround unless it's through an app and not the browser.
I'm not saying you need a smart TV, but if you want to get the content you're actually paying for via Netflix, HBO etc in the highest quality they offer, you'll need to fork over money for a device with dedicated hardware
Put your "smart" TV behind a Linux HTPC or a free/libre Android ROM and never, ever allow it to communicate over the Internet.
There have been reports of TVs with wi-fi managing to find an open network nearby and using that to get access to its updates and to send its telemetry. Having to physically hack a TV to disable its wi-fi is just.. At this point maybe a monitor is actucally the better choice even if the cost is high.
> ... and never, ever allow it to communicate over the Internet.
I'm pretty sure they're working on solving that problem.
Doubt it, 99% of consumers will connect it to the internet. The remaining 1% will be blocking ads everywhere making the data rather useless and potentially poisoned.
That's what I'm talking about. They'll gradually make it harder to use it without going online. May be by increasing the bootup times. Eventually they'll remove that option altogether. Isn't that what happened with Windows login? We can also expect them to add RF devices like 6G modems as they become more common. These corporations aren't going to leave that choice to you.
The choice is not to buy those devices if it comes to that.
Car manufacturers also do similar things (onboard 4G/5G modem), and one solution (other than driving an old car) is to disconnect the cellular modem. Of course the issue is that few people know there is one in their cars in the first place, so they are unknowingly snooped on.
I'd pay triple for an LG "dumb" TV. This is outrageous.
Look up signage displays. Only problem with them is that they may be overly industrial and missing things that consumers would want, like Dolby Vision.
Old Microsoft learned from the Clippy debacle, and more recently from the Windows 8.1 modern UI debacle. I'm not sure new Microsoft will learn this time...
I don’t think Microsoft realizes that this is not a positive for their brand.
It's a positive for a nameless middle manager somewhere who can show their boss a graph with a line moving to the right and up with a title like "AI Adoption Across Platforms" and hit their bonus target.
This is 100% the why.
Whenever I see this much vehement agreement about something on HN, it sets off serious groupthink alarm bells.
Idk what the answer is, but it is not 100% this. It’s too simple and satisfying of an answer to be true.
I understand what you mean, but it does match MBA/mckinsey thinking very closely.
Make a metric a goal, work tirelessly towards that new metric.
Does it make the product better? Well, the product is already made- so it doesn’t make a difference.
It’s only software developers who think a product is never “done”- normal MBA thinking is “we have invested in R&D, now there is a product, how do we get as many users of our product as possible”.
You don't think the reason we have seemingly broken optimization is because poorly thought out metrics are being gamed?
That's all its been for the last few decades. Everyone is now "data driven" and "metrics oriented". That's a footgun - if people can game it, they will, and numbers don't say what people think they say.
Normally I would agree, but I've seen this happen too often. Common sense be damned, just make the number look good.
3 Billion Devices run Java, I mean Copilot.
if you work in a restauraunt, and decide salt is cheaper than sugar, and fill the bowls like that, someone will find out, like your manager.
telling your boss we are selling sugar, when its actually salt, is a good recipe for footgunning.
No, the boss is asking for more salt. Employees are then replacing sugar with salt and getting bonuses, no matter what the customer reactions are.
And then word gets around that you put salt in coffee instead of sugar, and people stop going to you. Unless you’re the only deli in town.
But all the other delis are doing it as well. So is your supermarket. So is your farmer (somehow they figured out how to add salt to the veggies they sell at the farmer's market!)... Whaddya gonna do? Grow your own? THE SEEDS SHALL HAVE SALT TOO, has been decreed...
“We’d like to introduce you to Copilot Enterprise”…
Yes, the only deli in town. Office, Server, Desktop, now your TV, pretty soon your car.
> And then word gets around that you put salt in coffee instead of sugar, and people stop going to you.
Right, but that's somebody elses problem a few quarters from now.
I got my promo for increasing salt adoption, what do I care? I'm jumping ship next week
> Unless you’re the only deli in town.
pretty much.
back in the before times, we broke up AT&T, but we don't do that anymore.
Accountability and responsibility are not so clear and large, insanely profitable, behemoths like Microsoft.
Yea, and that's the reason we pay taxes and tolerate a government, they're supposed to provide a counter force to this apparent corruption.
You've clearly never worked at a large tech company
“In Q2 our P0 goal is to deliver Project Footgun. Your focus on delivering this important goal will put us in a good position to finally fund your favorite tech debt projects.”
Its now Q2, you worked your ass off on delivering Project Footgun, excitedly signing in the next morning to work on that tech debt to a message from your manager that the PMs didn't see value in the P1's and were transitioning to Project Footgun 2.0 The Shotgun
They don’t care. The customer service era is over.
It doesn't matter if consumers don't like it if everyone does it. The only choice remaining then is to put up with it or not have a TV at all.
“Not have a TV at all” is a perfectly reasonable choice many people are making now.
Sure, that works for TVs. Less so for things like refrigerators and cars. Getting fixated on one particular market obfuscates the big picture.
You can get a 10 or 20 or 30 year old TV. They still work.
I see that we have already entered the post-apocalyptic scavenging stage?
I turns out hardly anybody pays enough attention to notice an apocalypse
You can buy a "smart TV" and keep it offline. Use it as a monitor for a PC running Linux, from which you stream from your browser or dedicated apps like VacuumTube (Youtube Leanback).
> You can buy a "smart TV" and keep it offline.
For how long? Eventually, it will end up like Windows login. It won't work without an online account. In the meanwhile, they will soft corece you into adopting it by using passive aggression. They will slow down the bootup to a crawl, unless you connect it online. Those times are already really bad - CRT monitors used to heat up faster.
The ultimate point is, if you have to make compromises to retain your rights, then you might as well have no rights at all. You're already well on your way there.
At the same time TV companies are shifting to releasing video files on websites. You simply will only buy a larger monitor/projector and access the video with your computer.
Sadly, you get sometimes forced that "smart stuff" if you want it or not.
Had to order large tv sets at work, got LG ones. Working mostly fine as dumb displays (for some connected device, delivering the pictures and using HDMI ARC to switch on both at once) but here and there, users are put to the home menu of the LG TV if something fails and need to click through some icons to get to the HDMI input and if you dare to connect them online you get that "Update" notification, when an update is available (even when you disabled auto update).
It's a creepy tech cartel.
its none too good for LG either;
also: i think this sort of behaviour is exactly how you chill updates of any sort. it may take a while but when it is publicly salient that updates are sophies choice, and large pie slices of devices stay stock and unconnected, that will dry up that watering hole.
paranoia regarding un-updated devices will give way to paranoia regarding updates being used to screw you into something you would never consent to.
Next step is having cell modems in the TVs so you can’t stop updates and invading your privacy.
I've had this with Android updates.
When you remove my ability to see if a Bluetooth device is connected with a security update, why would I willingly install any more of your updates?
Which update are you referring to? I don't have this behavior on my Pixel, which updated itself yesterday.
It was the Samsung Android 15 update from earlier this year.
https://www.reddit.com/r/samsunggalaxy/comments/1kjjeqo/how_...
They force AI demand to show it to the shareholders. So they couldn't care less whether that's positive on the receiving end.
they wont take much of a hit on the brand because of this, so they'll make up for that in marketing elsewhere.
this will however give them huge amounts of information... its a loss leader for them.
Is it always listening? If not now, can it be changed to always be listening by a remote update? Can that update be selectively sent to certain users? Who controls which users?
It sees you when you're sleeping.
It knows when you're awake.
It knows if you've been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake.
It knows your internet behaviour and sends it to its masters.
Its masters sell that data to anyone who wants it.
Anyone will judge you.
Huge shame. I have an LG running WebOS that I bought in 2012 and is still going strong and receiving updates (well, it received one last year, but not this one).
I was always impressed with how unshittified it was, and knew that when I got another TV it would be a WebOS LG.
Now this :(
As a reminder if you own an LG TV, turn off the sneakily named "Live Plus" thing. This "option" makes your LG TV spy on you, tracking and reporting what you watch based on the image that is shown on the TV.
You need to go to Settings -> All Settings -> General -> System -> Additional Settings to make sure the "Live Plus" option is OFF.
Check it periodically, as it sometimes turns itself back on again after updates.
The enshittification of our world is beyond words.
Saw this post this morning before getting on a plane and saved the tab open so I'd do it first thing when I got home.
Done.
Thanks for the tip. :)
"Check it periodically, as it sometimes turns itself back on again after updates."
Ah, so exactly like Microsoft Windows operating systems behave.
And iOS / iPadOS for that matter, after every update
I have an LG TV purchased about 3 years ago. It had a bunch of "AI" features from day one, but mostly related to improving the picture quality dynamically based on what's on the screen. I disabled all of that stuff, so I guess I'll be disabling this too.
The LG software is horrible on this TV. Great picture quality, but I would never recommend an LG TV just because of the software.
No TV manufacturer is capable of writing high quality software. Somewhat surprisingly they also suck at UI/UX design.
I'd love for someone to mention a single TV manufacturer who provides a good, not amazing, just good, smart TV experience.
It's crazy to read this because I came from a Samsung TV/Display - LG Software is so much better than that!
Really wish we'd get dumb displays with these great panels :(
We also have a Samsung TV, and I much prefer the Samsung software over the LG. Neither is great though.
So far nothing prevents you from spending $100 to set up LibreElec on an RPi and leave the TV offline and dumb.
Does that work with the DRM from streaming apps, though? Can you get 4K and atmos with Netflix or Disney+ with that hardware? And an easy remote and UI?
Elementum to the rescue, all atmos/4k you can find.
This is what I do, but… Kodi sure seems like it is on the downhill. Multiple things don’t work for me like HDR for one example.
I’m looking to see what I would get or lose with Apple TV or some Plex/JellyFin/other player with less baggage.
The worm propagates without human interaction.
I only wish my systems to defecate its corpse soon.
Are there ven OLED panels without smartTV compute?
My decision never to buy a smart TV just keeps paying off.
Can you buy a generic TV nowadays?
All that I have available in typical stores are smart TVs. The rest is some display panels meant for commercial installations (like big ad screens, multiple, working as one), which are only available online at a premium price.
Yes, but they can be a bit tricky to find. You can find them used. You can use a computer monitor.
Ultimately, I'm planning for a world where the technological decline continues (ie, technology continues to be something which its users do not own or control) and things like adblock just don't work anymore. When that finally happens, I'm honestly going to be watching DVDs, VHS, reading books, etc. This is a game of cat and mouse and if I'm pushed far enough I'm just going to check out of the system completely. TV is not so valuable that I'm going to let some sleazy company push me around.
> Yes, but they can be a bit tricky to find. You can find them used. You can use a computer monitor.
Sir, that's basically a no.
A TV is a specific device. It has many functions that TV monitor seldom has, or implements poorly. Like speakers. Or rich inputs and outputs, like multiple hdmi and antenna. Or a proper remote, a dvb-t tuner. Or play media on it's own when connected via USB. Or DLNA (I had devices far from modern smart-tv that could do that, in the past).
Monitor or panel can mimic some of this, with effort on your side, but not really.
You use use cases will vary, but I'll bet what 90% of people do can be duplicated with a laptop or an Apple TV.
Sceptre makes dumb TVs. I have a monitor for them that's many years old - it was a good value and has held up.
Thanks, they don't seem to exist in EU.
I think closest are some Sharp models, and their screens are great. But that also requires hunting for commercial models mean for large displays.
I tried to do that, really did, but my TV was circa 2006 and I needed a replacement. None of the options in my region are good, there's no Scepter equivalent unless you pay 3x as much for something akin to a commercial display. So, air-gapping it is!
What a shame, they run webOS is which is really interesting on these, though LG continues to implement the most anti consumer things they can think of.
Why? If they want to even embed copilot, they could have atleast been strategic about it!! Copilot has this image that has something to do with coding, average person doesn’t care be bit about it and see ut as an invasive pest
>Why?
Because wallstreet just needs to see that AI adoption number go up. No one really cares about if it's accidental clicks, or hell just mandatory running in the background. We just need that number to go up, and next quarter it has to go up even more.
> Copilot has this image that has something to do with coding
To the audience of this site, yeah. But "copilot" is Microsoft trying to brand "an agent/assistant". They use it across their entire product line; copilot is in office so you can ask for help with spreadsheet formulas and in outlook so you can ask for help with summary/triage... and it's in VSCode/GH.
Microsoft saw the way the USB people absolutely screwed up the marketing/branding around different generations and speeds and capabilities and said "I bet the same strategy will work spectacularly well for us" and thus _everything_ became copilot.
I still think that most people don't know what it is. There's so much shit getting installed on peoples TVs / PCs / Phones that they didn't ask for, I think that they just ignore it like they do SPAM.
Back when IE was king, nobody even knew what the hell Internet Explorer was. They just clicked the blue E thing to get to Google.
Google Meet comes by default on some Samsung TV, cannot be deleted, or disabled, and neither can the microphone permission be remove from it.
Smart TVs, more like Spy TVs today.
Years ago my Sony TV came with Google Assistant enabled, and when I disabled it, it nagged me for a long time to turn it back on until I installed some launcher that finally shut off all the nags and full screen ads. The biggest button on the remote is Google Assistant and I have to keep a careful eye on whoever's using it so that they don't accidentally re-enable it.
Cover the button in epoxy..
Oh this is perfect, one less vendor to ever consider.
The customer era is over when advertisers are paying more than customers. The advertiser era is over when any corporation wants to buy AI trained on each customer like a harness on each horse.
Root it my friends, before it’s too late. Disable automatic updates immediately afterward.
You can get a 55" Dell monitor for ~$1300. Maybe its time to just buy monitors with surround sound systems/soundbars.
It could be worse. You could have Alexa on your Samsung OLED TV that triggers in response to something random you say while watching your TV then self-cancels but leaves the TV in a no-audio state until you power-cycle it (standby to live will not suffice).
Oh I know this bug! Happens with their own Bixby assistant too.
(Either Samsung dropped the ball on quality in the last 5-10 years, or I just started to pay attention, but the desire to throw this garbage in the bin is real.)
Does LG have a customer feedback page or anything similar?
Even if they do, I'd assume they wouldn't read any of that feedback and just keep doing what they are doing anyway.
https://www.lg.com/uk/support/contact-us/share-your-voice-wi...
Assume there is similar for other countries, though I can't see this being of any use whatsoever.
I am still using my ancient Pioneer plasma and dreading the day it dies.
Any recommendations for a ≈42 inch dumb screen replacement for when that day arrives?
Never connect a smart TV to the internet. That's how they get you.
This is clippy’s revenge on the world.
Smart TVs are maybe the dumbest product innovation of my lifetime. Ruining a perfectly good appliance with the addition of software. In 2025 it's literally a luxury experience to deal with computer bs less.
At first I was going to disagree, because having the compute built into the TV makes some sense, but thinking about it made me change my mind.
A modern TV has a lifetime of 15 - 20 years I think. E.g. my in-laws have a Sony TV, from around 2012 - 2013. It's not 4K obviously, but the picture is beautiful, the sound perfectly fills their small living room, it's a great TV. Even considering that Sony did skimp on the compute in that TV from the start, there's no way that they could have put in hardware that would future proof it until 2030 or beyond. Nor could they reasonably charge enough to cover software updates for that long. It makes much more sense to have a replaceable external unit.
Fortunately you can still by an external unit and plug it in
My TV only gets internet access when there is a firmware update I care about
If it's not online, why would there ever be a firmware update you care about?
There are firmware updates that improve picture quality, address compatibility issues that are discovered after release, and even increase the lifetime of the TV.
So what does it do? In the discussion yesterday no one covered that.
From what this article says it is an app (which fits with how it is displayed in the screenshot), which suggests you would need to choose to open it to actually have it do anything.
It should at least do its core function: collect data.
FFS. When I bought LG OLED TV, it was quite snappy. A year later, it asked to update webOS. OK. Now we are crawling through molasses...
All TV software seems appears to be an absolute fucking scam.
Why are people still connecting their TVs to the internet?
I thought this is already common wisdom for people in tech for decades to NEVER connect your TV to the internet, not even once.
How is this my fault as customer? This a predatory practice in tech.
I work in automotive, the hoops you have to jump through in order to push a SW update are enormous. One of the first rules is: if the owner of the vehicle does not consent to an OTA update, you're out of luck.
The industry is obviously unable to self-regulate, so it is time for an external regulator, e.g. the EU, to jump in and mandate that SW updates cannot be applied without explicit consent and an explicit explanation of what is being changed. Of course, security updates must be maintained separately from feature updates like this.
As a consumer, I always want the latter, rarely do I want the former. My device, my choice.
They should mandate that the consumer must have the choice to install whatever OS they like.
I agree, but why not both?
Well, you get better UX with native remote. I can always make add an external dongle unless it's bricked
it's pretty tempting when it's one of the few ways to watch 4k netflix and the likes
I would pay money to be spare from all that product market manager hysteria..
And this is exactly why I never connect my TV to wifi
soon microsoft ll install copilot on your smart geyser, what ll ya do about it?
I can't wait for my refrigerator to come preinstalled with chatgpt. Imagine all the possibilities!
omg... THEY really want to push those AI AGENTS down our throats... Freaking weirdos. FUCK MICROSOFT.
Tell you everything about how MS co-pilot is useful.
I have an OLED from them that’s 5 years old or so now, I have never once updated it or used any of the software beyond switching inputs and screen/color settings. It’s sad if it sounds like it’s getting to the point where you can’t just use a screen as a dumb screen as an option, I never minded smart features… as long as I never had to use them.
Small data point: I brought a Sony Android TV in 2023 which doesn't have any of the annoyances I keep reading about here. Made in Japan for the Japanese market, haven't seen a single ad and it predates my use of AdGuard DNS. Whether this is a regional or Sony thing I'm not sure.
[dupe] Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46255335
Mr Anderson…
I recently bought a $250 Zojurishi rice cooker because I wanted quality, durability and no "trade offs" I am going to start buying more and more Japanese electronics if US and South Korean companies keep colluding with each other in inserting garbage.
Samsung is already preloading intelligence service software and "365 copilot" into their phones to trick old people into paying for a subscription to open a PDF (it sets itself as a default app).
At this point it's a war against the consumer.
And it's not just this, they are slowly phasing out consumer hardware (GPU price increase, RAM, non NVME SSDs, etc.) in an effort to make hardware ownership impossible thus creating a "Market" for the post bubble burst of AI where they will be renting out PC hardware (all these datacenters that they are building which will be useless).
This is US led and also conveniently both the US and South Korea are involved, as they shut down China (both GPUs and RAM manufacturers in China were blacklisted).
It's not a coincidence, I Imagine the threats of potential tariffs if they do not comply does not help with their "independent thinking".
Ironically, Apple stands apart from basically all of these trends. We will see if they profit or perish because of it.
Sony TVs are not much better, I had to do quite a bit of work to de-Google mine. This was years ago, I'm sure it's even worse now.
Sadly, the only thing that AI really excels at is: AI spyware + AI slop generator (ads).
Can Microsoft stop raping users by forcing itself upon us at every single turn with these AI products?
I'm getting sick of feeling so slimy and used.
Thank god, the sooner we start to appreciate the wide spread adoption of AI the sooner we can start being more productive.
A TV is the perfect place to introduce AI in terms of giving me content I should actually enjoy, and answering any questions I may have about what I'm watching. Kudos to LG for being the first.
Sure, but there is a prioritization system involved where the highest payer gets pushed first. So the AI may detemine you like X, but if the buyer only showing Y, you'll get to see ads for Y and no X.