I’m considering buying a new TV. There’s plenty of posts about trying to find dumb TVs, comments like ‘just don’t connect it to the internet/network’.
What surprises me is that there isn’t a good overview of (popular) TVs or brands with basic information, answering for each TV:
- Can you use it as a basic TV by choosing not to enable smart features during setup?
- Can you opt out by just not accepting a bunch of agreements?
- Does it have a camera and/or microphone? Where in the device are these? Is there a physical disable switch for microphone?
- Does it nag when not connected to any network?
- Does it have higher than normal power usage when not able to phone home?
- Has it been discovered to connect to public WiFi networks? Does it have the (theoretical) ability to connect to 5G mobile networks?
And similar.
There are extensive lists with a lot of detail about VPN services but nothing like that for TVs. Am I ignorant of a good source, or does this just not exist (yet)?
I love how literally nobody is answering your actual question.
I agree that this is problematic and we need TV reviews to include at least some of the information you cite.
If it helps, I have an LG smart TV. It complains if you don’t let it access the internet at setup, but if you connect it once and let it do its initial patching, you can decline all agreements and not get nagged until it tries to update again. To keep it from further updates, you can disconnect it from wifi and it doesn’t seem to try to reconnect. I can’t speak to public wifi because there aren’t any open access points near my TV.
In contrast, I have a samsung TV that loses its mind if it can’t connect to the internet and becomes basically useless for all the nagging.
Thanks! See, that distinction is super helpful. I’ve found (old) lists of Smart TV OSes and how their privacy settings work (or don’t), with some details on what happens when you decline EULA’s, but not many and not very useful ones.
The answer may well be that anyone that actually cares about this stuff just doesn’t buy any smart TV (or otherwise hasn’t had to in the last few years). Still, with the answer ‘just don’t connect it to the internet’ being the most common, I’d expected to see a bit more information like you’ve given.
So the Samsung keeps nagging even when you’re watching direct HDMI input? And does the LG need to boot up the entire (Web)OS to view HDMI input?
The Samsung tries to “identify” what’s on an hdmi input before it will connect. It seems to call out to the internet to do that because it takes forever to fail and show you the display anyway when it’s not connected to the internet. Even when it is connected, it takes a stupidly long time to switch to a new input. I super hate it and will never buy another samsung tv.
I guess the lg needs to boot tizen before it works, because I see the logo briefly but then it goes directly to the last used input with no other bullshit, so it’s fine with me.
Lg TVs do occasionally nag you about connecting to the internet but are otherwise fine completely disconnected.
No one makes a 65+" oled monitor so before anyone suggests “just buy a monitor” you can’t, I have looked.
Up until last year, I would have said get a good quality projector but even projectors have started getting infiltrated with smart “features” now.
Digital signage was also an option but oled options are basically non-existent and they often have matte screens that make the colors kind of mushy.
From what I have read online, the Sony tv offerings seem to be pretty unintrusive and don’t really care if you hook them up to the internet. The smart software is android tv based and can potentially be modded/stripped of google services. I have to do some more research though so don’t quote me on the above.
Our current TCL/Roku tv is dying and has turned out to be really bad smart/privacy wise and has gotten consistently worse performance wise over time. I’m currently evaluating options for its replacement and the Sony 65" oled is looking like the best one so far.
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Samsung is known to be one of the more cancerous of ad-ridden “smart” TVs
I haven’t had any issues with my Sony TV but I bought it several years ago and don’t really use it (I generally consume content on my PC with 3 monitors). It is not connected to any network.
I have a sony as well, and you can use it as dumb TV, by not agreeing to their privacy policy. If you want to connect it to wifi afterwards, it points you to the privacy policy again, so it seems like the TV follows that. But I’ve also purchased it 4 years ago, so not sure what the status is now.
So far, I’ve seen no ads. I mostly use it mostly via HDMI and sometimes for watching freely available TV via antenna.
Buy a store display meant to show logos and menus. Something like these:
https://www.amazon.com/s?rh=n%3A18746933011&language=en_US&brr=1&ie=UTF8&rd=1
I haven’t evaluated any of them; I just know people talk about them being the only tv screens without smarts.
I recently found myself in the market for one of these when my father in law decided to connect my Vizio TV to the internet. All the updates since 2019 installed and it became unusable with all the crap they installed/changed. No way to downgrade firmware.
I bought a 55” Samsung display and it works great as a dumb tv. I can connect via HDMI and my antenna just like a regular tv. The interface is a little clunky at times but that’s because it’s set up for a display board. I can even plug my flash drive into it for videos/pictures. It will never connect to the internet although it has that capability (and apparently an app for if it’s used as a display).
I was looking for information like that when I last bought a TV in February and couldn’t find anything.
I punted and bought a SAMSUNG 65-Inch Class Crystal UHD 4K CU8000 Series (that’s like 1/4 of the amazon title) and have not connected it to the internet at all. As far as not being connected to the network, it’s… fine.
- There have been no issues with it trying to lock me out of features.
- I didn’t try to opt-out, but my intuition tells me that’s unlikely.
- No camera that I know of. I think there’s a microphone in the remote, but I’ve never used it, and since I’ve never connected it to the internet (and I never use the remote) I don’t really worry about it.
- I’ve not experienced any nag screens.
- I have not measured the power usage directly (and would have nothing to compare it to since I’m not willing to connect it to the internet even as an experiment) but I do have it connected to a power-usage sensing outlet strip and it uses dramatically less power than my previous Samsung 42" HD LCD (with florescent backlighting.) So much so that for it to not turn off the switched outlets I had to add my AppleTV to the control outlet (and for extended dark scenes even that’s not enough.)
- If it’s connecting to networks surreptitiously I would expect to start seeing ads or some change in behavior, which hasn’t happened, so I’m going to say probably not.
As far as how good of a TV it is, (which you didn’t ask, but since I’m here):
I’m not the most discerning viewer, but I think it’s got a good picture. Sometimes I can see the backlight adjust itself on very dark scenes, but it’s hardly a show stopper. I have an external speaker system, so really the only thing I do is turn it on and off (with the AppleTV remote). My only other gripe is that it takes a few seconds to decide to display the selected input full screen.Thanks, very helpful! I’m dubious about Samsung because of robolemmy’s experiences (https://feddit.nl/post/22838850/13086582), perhaps that differs per TV.
I can’t speak for all Samsung TVs, but I have the Q9FN65 from a few years ago and it has been offline almost since day one.
Never had any nagging at all and all the pre-installed crap could be removed.My biggest gripe with them is the lack of Dolby Vision. Samsung wants people to use HDR10+ which is their own version, but it’s not widely supported. Otherwise it’s snappy and functions well.
Personally, I say F smart tv’s. The smart bit is going to be old and useless in three years. The panel will last me over a decade.
Yes, you can ignore all the nagging and smart stuff and just set it to an hdmi input or something.
Then hooking up a 3rd party smart box is what I recommend.
F smart TVs*
And grammar nazis you’re right tho
Fuck*
Pretty sure it was
fsck, but I could be wrong
the answer is basically all TVs are subsidized to some degree. A list is somewhat pointless because they all do some sketchy shit and as lg has recently shown they reserve the right to change the terms years after the fact with firmware updates, even if you buy a flagship model that cost 3-5k
Basically you need to use it intelligently. Either don’t connect it to the internet at all, only connect it to an intranet/isolated vlan, or (least effective) block every suspicious outgoing request with your router or a dns thing like adguard/pihole.
The alternatives are to buy a non consumer display (eg something for signage or for like a meeting room in an office) which are usually more durable but also often far more expensive (no ad subsidies), the panel quality is generally noticeably worse (unless you’re buying a mediocre tv), and you lose out on enthusiast features (earc, vrr, etc). Or you can get a solid projector; the cheap projectors are usually kind of junk but nice ones are quite nice and often (but not always, they’re increasingly “smart”) have barebones ui/os. This can be pretty impractical for your living situation though
I get what you’re saying. What I’m running into is that there is little information on what happens if you ‘dont connect it to the internet at all’. I would happily do that, but as another comment notes, some devices keep whining until you do connect them, while others don’t. I can also easily set up a separate ‘fake’ network to black-hole all the communication attempts of the TV, but I have no idea whether that would stop the nagging – or the attempts for it to connect to public WiFi access points.
It would be really cool if people experimenting with this kind of thing could pool their findings, that’s all.
So I just bought a brand new “dumb” TV for $150 off of Amazon (43" 1080 Sceptre). It isn’t high end in the slightest, but it IS brand new and not some weird old stock and the picture and sound don’t feel too far off from my significantly more expensive higher end LCD TVs. I wanted one that I could put on a rolling stand and move between a few rooms and saw no benefit to 4k at that screen size. Other than that, there are some decent “digital signage” TVs that were decently priced available as well from Samsung and a few other brands. I didn’t see anything that was OLED, but I was burned hard (quite literally with burn-in) on earlier OLED gear, so I am avoiding it until the prices get low enough that I can be fine with the chance that it will be crap after 4-5 years of use.
Can you tell us some of the things to search for so we can find those?
Try “lcd tv non-smart”, “lcd tv hospitality”, or “lcd business tv” or any variations thereof.
Thank you - I’ve added them to my list.
Personally, I got a large dumb flat TV and use a small PC attached to it with Linux with all the privacy trimmings, VPN, etc. Use a browser, like Librewolf or FF with ArkenFox, along with Freetube on it which we control with KDEConnect from our phones. Once you setup the proper commands on it, it is fly and forget. You can pick a stripped, privacy focused distro, too. Most of my PCs/phones are on WiFi but for that box I plug it to the router via cable, directly, for faster display speeds. You can download other media software and run it through, if you wish.
Power usage is minimal or at least I do not see my power bill go up substantially, or noticeably. Have had this type of setup for over 15 years. Never had to worry about microphones or cameras as there are none to worry about. No terms to agree to that will get changed on a moment’s notice, either. No spying or dialing home. Sometimes, the best way to win is just to not play their games. Have 0 complains.
I currently have a similar setup, but with a very old TV (that served me well for 16 years). Not easy to find good dumb TVs these days though.
Fx* with ArkenFox
We have a HiSense 60” and have never connected it to any network. It works perfectly as a Dumb Monitor with multiple HDMI inputs and HDCP and HDMI-CEC work perfectly with our AppleTV (HDMI 1) and PS5 (HDMI2) We have TOSLink Optical Audio to an Amp(receiver) and it works almost perfectly, until the Amp chucks a hissy-fit because people forget to turn it off.
Just set up a TCL and it has a “basic” option which makes it work without anything. I’m still trying to decide if I should buy a Nvidia shield to pair with it so I enabled it “fully” for now, will probably switch it back. It’s basically android so many of these behaviours are just like on android phones
Get a dumb video projector.
Shockingly, those are also getting rarer.
Indeed. That being said I have a (sigh) Android video projector (Nebula Mars II Pro, by Anker) and even though it does comes with its bloatware (namely “trying” to force installation, without actually doing it, of e.g. YouTube or NetFlix apps) attempts one can ignore that, install F-Droid, install VLC and Launch on Boot from there then boot straight to VLC without have to interact with the stock launcher. Also remote adb works by default so one can tinker quite a bit without even having to active a kind of developer mode.
What I don’t understand is that if you want the TV to be offline, why don’t you just buy a monitor and connect a digital TV receiver to it via an adapter (if it doesn’t have an HDMI output). It’ll be more expensive for sure and it will require a design-hostile antenna but all the privacy issues should just go out of the window.
Do they make 55" OLED monitors? Only stuff I’ve seen is LED, and I’m pretty sure the picture/color quality is inferior to proper tv panel
I think the color quality of good monitors is far superior to it in TVs because monitors are meant for professional image editing. The size may be a problem though. Usually monitors are not more than 27".
A big monitor with 100% AdobeRGB is going to be very very expensive. And if you want it to be 65", you just can’t find them…
And it is a monitor, meant to be watched from a close distance. It will not be such a great experience for movies and such.
I guess we just have different preferences on TVs then.
unhelpful troll
monitors are generally made to be viewed up close - if video quality is no issue, then a commercial display /digital signage is also okay.
however, a good detailed list of tv aspects would help with even that choice.
not shooting any option down - just wondering about available resources/information.
That’s not a solution since smartness is already in monitors as well.
Never seen a smart online monitor yet. Maybe $5000+ are but I don’t follow that.
From trying to get people to do that (with no success), it’s because it seems too much like work. Folks want something they can plug in and go… but plugging in one extra thing is just a bridge too far these days. It’s frustrating as shit.
I hear you, but I’m not an example of this. I have a Pi-hole set up, firewalled my phone, happily use LibreWolf, etc.
Besides that, I also want to do the research on what screen to get. If a worse screen (small one, monitor or digital signage) is the only acceptable solution, then that’s what I’ll pick – but having some idea of what it would mean to pick a typical smart TV and try to limit the consequences is also something I want to consider. The only frustrating thing to me is that it’s hard to find out details about this (and that includes details about digital signage screen quality, for instance, since businesses don’t seem to care all that much).
That’s great, I didn’t say you were. I was speaking specifically about people who, on the one hand lamented the risks of smart TVs, but on the other hand didn’t realize that they would just be plugging their existing digital cable STB’s HDMI cable into what amounts to a very large flat panel display.
Can’t relate. Privacy is not a plug and play thing nowadays.
You missed the point.
My point was that having unrealistic hopes is solely the users’ problem. They should lower them a bit. If they care about privacy, they should be able to do it. But yea many haven’t grown to that point yet.
Roku TVs have version locked features, so I update them once then reset network settings, which wipes the connection. Then there’s the indicator light which you need to remove. But after that connect an apple tv and use it!
For best privacy, get a monitor and a tv box (like nvidia shield, or roll your own software a single board computer like a raspberry pi). That might be the only way to trust a tv: dont use it at all.
