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Have a regular PC hooked up to the TV. That’s my smart machine. I control every aspect of it. Fuck Smart TVs.
Raspberry pi with Kodi hooked up to a projector and a NAS serving files works well for me.
This is the way, although the pi is to slow for me at this point and I replaced it with shields.
Also why the are people connecting tvs to their networks…fuck that noise.
I’m waiting for the Raspberry Pi 5 to set up as a media PC behind my tv. There are really good, reliable, and high quality sites that let you stream any movie or TV show. No need to vpn or torrent. Firefox with ublock origin streaming anything I want in 1080 for free.
I should add I have a RP4 and it’s not beefy enough to stream 1080p full screen from a browser to my 4k tv.
I use an RP4 and it’s fine with streaming 1080p h.265 stuff off my NAS drive, though it did struggle a bit with serving up the Planet Earth videos. It claims to be able to decode 4k, but probably not very well.
Just get a micro desktop, better airflow and has all the ports you may need.
Intel Nuc, Dell Optiplex are really cheap secondhand. And you can run 4K content on them.
We call it the pirate box and use it all the time. OSMC FTW!
Y’arrrrrr! Blessed be thee who take to the sailing the seven seas!
I mean that’s nice but can you run Netflix/Hulu/AppleTV/HBO through that thing? Or can you only play media that you illegally downloaded?
I also use my pc as a TV with a big monitor. I can watch Netflix/streams through Firefox and control the pc with my PS5 controller connected through bluetooth.
You can do all of those things, but it’s not remotely the same. The browser is limited to 720p, the interface isn’t couch-friendly, and now your PC is connected to a TV instead of a proper gaming monitor.
On windows you can just install the Netflix app or use Edge and it’s not limited to 720p, and you can just use a long hdmi cable and have your pc plugged into a normal monitor as well.
Of course they can.
Can what?
I haven’t tried. Through a Web browser, maybe. There’s a Kodi netflix addon, I know that. It’s just a Debian box, so any solution that’d work on a Linux machine would probably be okay.
any solution that’d work on a Linux machine would probably be okay.
I don’t think there is a Linux solution. That’s the problem.
What do you mean? I gave you a couple of Kodi plugins that cover most of what you mentioned, plus, you could probably just use a Web browser.
What about the rest of them?
Do your own googling, I got bored after 3 :p
When I completely replaced my PC, I intended to use my old PC as a media box. But in reality, I’ve basically used my Chromecast for everything. One of these days I’ll probably want to watch something that isn’t on one of my streaming sites, but I’ve been surprisingly resistant to that so far.
Chromecast is the ideal smart device so far, for me. No ads or anything. I use my phone as a remote and basically every video app supports it easily. Open app, press cast, select what I want to play. Exactly what a smart TV should have been like.
What type of Chromecast do you use? I recently bought a Chromecast Ultra for a new TV after being happy with a secondhand one for years (3rd gen, I think). The difference in UI was such a disappointing step down. I don’t want a home screen with apps and ads, I just want something I can stream to from my phone! And I can’t say for certain, but it also feels like I get more ads on YouTube compared to using the older Chromecast.
No you bought a Chromecast with Google TV. A Chromecast ultra is just a 4k version of the original. I used my CCwGTV for 8 months then sold it and got a CC ultra instead. I hate the promoted content from networks and apps I would never use.
Aha, thank you for clarifying. It’s easy to overlook the difference between “Chromecast” and “Chromecast with Google TV”.
Unfortunately, it looks like if you want 4k you are stuck with the Google TV interface. :/[Edit: I was wrong, see below]Well no the Ultra has 4k
Thanks! Looks like I still had it wrong. Corrected above.
I literally told you in my comment, the Chromecast Ultra is 4k
How are you crome casting I suppose it doesn’t help that I only ever Chromecast when I’m at my parents and want to show them a yt video but I’ve found that sometimes my phone is able to make the connection and other days the option is either gone or my phone became blind
Casting is dependent on sharing a network, so maybe on the days it didn’t work you were using the cell data network instead of your parent’s wifi?
Even then you can just set up Jellyfin on that old PC and stream to your Chromecast from it.
Can you Chromecast Jellyfin from a PC? I thought it only worked from the Jellyfin Android app right now.
My only beef with Chromecast is I feel like they are designed to die after 2 years. I’ve gone through three now; it always seems like right around the 2-year mark, it starts having issues staying connected to the network. But I keep buying them because, like you said, it’s basically the ideal smart device.
Did you try getting the chrome cast ultra that has the ethernet port on the power adapter? I’ve had a lot less trouble with connectivity on that one vs the original wireless only.
Every 4 months or so it will lock up and require a power cycle. So I do still have some of the problems you describe.
I did not even know that was a thing. Maybe I’ll get it when my current one shits the bed in 8 months or so.
I wouldn’t be able to use the Ethernet though since the router is upstairs.
It seems like the chromecast ultra is an outdated model at this point. I can’t tell if the 4k chrome cast comes with an ethernet adapter still.
They do seem to sell the adapter separately. I don’t know if it would be compatible with whatever unit you have. https://store.google.com/us/product/chromecast_ethernet_adapter_gen_2?hl=en-US
In general, I try to keep video streaming devices off the wifi as much as possible even though I have a pretty decent access point. Streaming video drastically decreases the quality of wifi service for all other devices on the wifi. Running an ethernet cable through floors is a bit of a hassle but can be worth it. A powerline adapter could be good for your use case, but they come with a lot of caveats.
Ethernet over power devices are surprisingly good.
They are designed to die, almost everything is now a days. Why build a robust system that lasts forever when you can build a cheaper system that breaks every couple of years and charge as much as you would for the robust system? It’s not like consumers can choose an alternative that doesn’t use the obsolescence model.
I’ve had a couple that died after a year but still have some gen2 and gen3s running fine.
You are better off sticking with the Chromecast and setting up the old pc as a Jellyfin/Plex/Emby server with a playback app on the Chromecast. You can even run a pi-hole on it too.
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this has been an absolute game changer for me. i run an HDMI thru OBS so if i’m watching sports, i can crop out the distracting awful score ticker / now permanent ad space. and an even bigger game changer, i got a USB foot switch that i set as the mute keystroke, so instead of scrambling to hit the right key or find the remote while i’m busy, i can just stomp on the pedal to mute. it’s bliss.
That sounds wonderful especially the mute if you actually have a peddle connected just for that.
Yeah, I just plug in my laptop when I want to use a TV.
I’m gonna get a rPi for this purpose I think.
Careful though, some smart TVs actually list in the ToS where they’ll take screen captures of what you’re watching for “informational purposes”, make sure you have all data collection turned off anyway even if you don’t use it as such.
The ethernet cable goes to the computer, not the TV.
I do something similar with an Nvidia Shield but inevitably I get regular giant reminders that I need to connect my TV to the internet (for my benefit, surely).
The Nvidia Shield is a very solid sub-pc option. This said, they do still shove ads in your face in the form of a scrolling banner with new shows on it.
It doesn’t bother me too much, though, and you might be able to disable it. Every blue moon it’s useful is the thing.
This is what I did for a long time, and I still have a PC permanently connected to the TV (it doubles as the home server).
But once I got a decent smart TV, a WebOS based LG that lets you disable or avoid ads, I’ve been happy to use the TV’s apps with the remote control’s voice or wiimote-like pointer.
Nearly hucked my Vizio out last night as I discovered that between last football season and today they have hidden the broadcast channels I receive with my antenna, in their “Free+” offerings and no longer show the channel number when you rotate between them.
This also means that when you choose “Antenna” from the input menu, you get around 15 seconds of black screen while it loads an informative slide about the change and then demands you press the OK button to finish loading their program
Then, to change the channel you must open their fiddly “broadcast guide” and use it to choose the channel you want to watch (after 15 second loading delay for the guide and another 5 second delay once you’ve picked a channel.
To change the TV from the Nintendo game to Fox took me 10 minutes. Then I realized Fox was showing the Packers game and I needed CBS and it took me 5 more minutes to find the menu again and find CBS.
Just last February this exact same action took maybe 20 seconds? Turn TV on, change input to Antenna, flip channels manually.
Look into plex! They have a dvr option, and you just need some sort of old, but functional PC to run the server and a cheap add-on to connect your antenna to it. It’s amazing if you get clear signals!
time to hook an old pc running linux up to that bad boy. while you’re at it, maybe set up a NAS. they can’t get to you on open source software!
Don’t forget to disconnect that “smart” TV from the internet! It usually works for me to tell it to use a LAN connection and disconnect the LAN cable
This is the way.
if only there were a good 10-foot interface for Linux that supported the major streaming services
HDMI?
I’ve seen nas mentioned a couple of times what is that?
Network attached storage. A computer that hosts files, media in this case. You can roll your own or buy one, and they often have other server features.
Basically a home server.
I have a ~$100 tiny form factor dell computer attached to my TV. It was probably used in an office for 5 years before I got it from the dell outlet.
I installed Linux Mint and plugged it into my TV with a wireless keyboard and mouse. It was a painless experience and it works beautifully.
The most egregious action I’ve seen was from a Vizio smart TV I bought several years ago. It shipped with a simple remote control, and a tablet with a control app preinstalled. One day I turned the TV on and was notified that in order to use the updated UI I would need to reach out to support to order (and pay for!) a new remote that had additional buttons.
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Just got a used Vizio and I have the same problem. 100% of the time I’m using my Apple TV on one input, but as soon as I turn it off it switches to smart cast. Except it can’t even find my wifi network, so all it does is give me a screen saying it can’t connect. Why can’t it just stay on the input I set it to??
Well you see if they did that then the shareholders would be sad. You wouldn’t want the shareholders to be sad now would you.
I disconnected my Vizio from the Internet and attached a Chromecast with Google TV because it was getting extremely slow after turning it on because it was trying to download a lot of ads
i had a vizio tv in high school, i remember that it quite literally took 10-15 seconds from the moment you turned it on to actually see live picture from an HDMI – it spent at least 2/3 of this time displaying a black screen with a giant ‘VIZIO’ logo. most egregious thing i’ve ever seen.
this isn’t a phone where you turn it off rarely! this is a television!
look! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVth6PP9t14 i timed it to TWENTY FIVE SECONDS
I believe you can still get “dumb” flatscreens, but they’re getting rare, and they cost at least hundreds more than their “smart” brethren. So of course those sell very slowly.
The older I get the more I miss the sheer freedom that was built into our daily lives back when technology was just a notch or two less advanced. Phones that stayed trapped on their wall, not in your pocket, tracking you. TVs that were made of dumb stuff that could still pull free content from the air. You had to be part of a special “Nielson family”, fully set up with a little tracking box and all that, for the TV to tell anybody what you were watching.
People expected you to basically fall off the earth for 8 hours at work, and didn’t expect to contact you for less than a housefire-level emergency, which meant you spent most of the day free, and not just while you were at work. Nobody blinked if you stepped out for the evening to go shopping and could not be contacted for hours. Now people end up in screaming arguments because they didn’t answer that text fast enough. It’s misery.
I had a shock the other day, watching some YouTube short featuring a young woman (an adult, not a minor) complaining humorously about her mother, who always knows where she is, and thus has all sorts of unwanted opinions on her location. Mother always knows because of an app called Life360, which is basically the kind of spying app that an abusive spouse would hide on your phone. But it’s not hidden. You force your children to install it on their phones. It’s a leash. So now this adult woman, who of course cannot quite afford to leave home, because economy, cannot simply delete this spying app from her phone without consequences and arguments, so she has no privacy in her movements, from anyone, never mind the government and such. Never mind what actual minors are now putting up with.
We have officially left the era where the adults pissed and grumbled about them damn kids wanting them damn phones they don’t need, and we are now in the era where some kid has absolutely been beaten with a belt because he tried to leave his phone in the bedroom and slip out of the house in privacy.
Things like Life360 are normalized among children and parents, so other people will now expect to track you and treat a refusal of tracking as a violation of trust, and probably a sign that you are elderly, thus your rights are becoming debatable.
Again, 5 minutes ago this was evil shit that abusive spouses snuck onto people’s phones, suddenly, it’s normal, and people will just expect it.
I guess the ongoing shock is that we expected Big Brother to somehow slap a shackle on our necks that we can’t take off, but this is all worse. This is putting the shackle on your neck, every morning. It doesn’t even lock. You could, theoretically, throw it into the lake at will. Nobody would stop you. But you don’t. All the chains are made of other people. The whips at your back are the opinions of children, and what they think is normal. The surveillance cameras do not loom from posts in the sky, no. They’re in every pocket. They’re much harder to hide from than a security camera ever would be.
I hope I’m just melodramatic, or something.
I hope everyone reading this knows that you can just not connect a “Smart” TV to the internet. Leave it as a “dumb” TV.
Get a separate device like a Roku or AppleTV or Amazon Fire or whatever. The garbage hardware that TV manufacturers slap inside a TV so they can advertise its “smart” features will always be inferior to a purpose built external device.
To say nothing of the security implications of having an unpatched probably unsupported IoT device running on your network for years.
I thought new TVs basically refused to function until you connect them to the internet to go through all that?
My plasma TV is about 10 years old and I’m scared thinking about it dying.
I have a Samsung Q80T that I run unconnected and it works just fine and ad-free. It’s still clunkier/more frustrating than it should be thanks to it still trying to be “smart”, however it’s mostly benign. The second you connect it to the internet though, it downloads all the ads and sponsored apps that clutter up the entire UI, and the only way to get rid of them is factory reset it and keep it offline
Thanks.
Maybe some of the cheap ones or the newest ones? I have a few TVs that are “smart”, Sony and LG, they didn’t complain.
Thanks.
Yes. This absolutely infuriates me. I use my Xbox or my laptop connected via HDMI to provide these applications that I want to use. I never set the TV to use WiFi or even connect to the internet at all. You couldn’t pay me to use the UI that half those shitty brands have.
Tbf, of the big manufacturers, Samsung is the egregious offender. As long as you avoid them in particular, the UX on the other brands are okay. But ofc, using a streaming player is highly recommended.
This is super interesting, as I have both a Samsung and Sony that I bought in 2018, and Sony’s Android UI is by far more laggy and intrusive than Samsung’s.
Both have never been connected to the internet, but my Sony tv will not shut up about not functioning “optimally” without wifi, tries to constantly load sponsored content on the homescreen, and has giant built in Netflix, Google Play and Google Voice buttons on the remote. The Samsung TV asked me for the wifi at setup (I said no), and now just asks what input I want to display from when I turn it on.
I have no other Samsung devices, but from what I hear, Samsung UI across all their tech seems to have shit the bed the last couple of years. I wonder what changed.
I’m not an advocate for smart TVs, but my experience has been different. I found a deal for an 86 inch LG, and it’s been nothing but smooth for me. No advertising built into the os, always has the apps I use right on the bar. The air mouse onnthe remote is reminiscent of owning a wii.
My LG TV on the other hand is crammed full of ads. I’ve blocked as much of them as I can but it looks like some of them are impossible to get rid of.
The remote is really cool though, much better for typing.Which model? The only thing my LG has is a small ‘suggested app’ or something in the home menu… But there’s never any need to open the home menu anyway
I have a Nanocell. The ads in question are mostly on the Home screen but every once in a while I get a pop-up telling me to sign up to Paramount Plus or something like that.
Turning off every ad setting I could find has helped a lot.
My Smart TV is now blocked from the wifi, I use a Fire TV stick in the back of it now, it was just far too slow.
Also I can bearly use the TV remote because it takes ages to wake up and reconnect to the TV.
I was becoming frustrated with how slow my Vizio “Smart TV” had become. I went with a FireCube that was on sale. It was overkill but I don’t want to deal with it slowing down again for awhile.
I’m looking at getting back into a PC hooked up to my TV with the fragmentation of the streaming services. It’s becoming as bad as cable again.
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Same. Our OLED LG and roku TV have had no ads. While I have my old laptop connected to the LG anyway I don’t actually need it, it’s just for gaming and the browser.
Depending on what you use it for, I actually found the built in browser to be rather useable
I have a 10 year old LG whose smartness was left updated long ago and I love it.
Because the vast majority of times people complain about this stuff, they have no idea what they’re talking about.
If you buy a nice TV and spend 2 seconds going thru the options you won’t have a single issue OP is complaining about.
Edit:
Apparently OP banned me for saying their meme doesn’t make sense…
The only thing that a “cheap” TV would do is slow down overtime, because it’s cheap and has the absolute bare minimum processing speed.
You need that processing speed to properly up sample to 4k from streaming.
If you want a cheap one, buy a decent 1080p so it doesn’t have to upsample.
Rtings.com is a good resource.
But it should be common sense that buying a cheap product will give you poorer results.
Why should you have to buy a nice TV for this issue to not be an issue? Why should shitty TVs have built-in advertising and glacially slow “smart” functions? Either don’t include that as TV software or fix it.
Capitalism baby!
They want to make the same profit no matter the product you’re buying. On nice TVs they make it by making more profits on the sale, on cheap TVs they make it by selling ads.
The reason the cheap TV is cheap is also because it’s using (even) older hardware so it’s no wonder they’re slow…
The price of the TV is subsidized by the ads, promoted apps, and usage tracking. But usually poor hardware to keep the cost even lower. That’s why the models with Fire TV OS and similar ones are usually the cheapest.
I don’t buy it. Before “smart” TVs, you could get TVs just as cheap.
TVs have improved in quality since smart TVs we’re introduced. However, it’s kind of like everything else. They have stopped producing the old dumb stuff.
It’s another reason why I advocate that we should compensated anytime our personal information is used or harvested.
Quality? Built in apps when a roku is 30 bucks? Is that whats so expensive?
I couldn’t get a TV anywhere near the size of the roku for the same price. 350 bucks for something 3x as large as a 400 dollar boob tube in 2002. Also it still has no ads.
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Apparently OP banned me for saying their meme doesn’t make sense…
I don’t think OP can ban you, just block you. And considering in this comment you implied they are stupid, while in your other comment you implied they are straight up lying, it wouldn’t surprise me.
OP is a moderator. (Not the person being replied to, but the actual OP.)
Interesting, not sure where to see that though. I checked the modlog, this person was not banned (from here).
On my instance, at least, you can see an M badge next to OP’s name under the post title.
I checked the modlog for this particular community (just in case it didn’t end up in the instance’s general logs) and can confirm, this user was not banned.
As a lowly kbin peasant this mis-feature hasn’t reached me yet. No implicit argument to authority over here.
unhelpful and rude comment. the only advice you have to offer is ‘buy an expensive tv’. do you think people buy cheaper tvs out of ignorance?
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Partially, yes they do.
It’s been years since the black Friday secret about TVs have been spread on the internet, yet people will still but them. A cheap TV with our without ads will suck because you get what you pay for.
Also the meme is obviously overexaggerating because it’s being memey. Most TVs don’t restart on their own for example, or get slowed down by updates. If you have any specific examples please share and shame the models.
The expensive TVs run the same software. Occasionally faster but equally ad filled.
LG doesn’t really have any ads
The top 2/3 of the Home Screen is ads. A big Sponsored tile plus a row of “Top picks for you” which includes sponsored content.
They also store your watch data.
Andriod tv’s take a long time to boot because they literally have to boot an operating system when they fire up, there’s no way around that in any settings.
That said, I don’t have any of the other issues because my tv has never had net access and I have a pc with wireless keyboard/mouse hooked to it, and typing this while sitting on my couch.
My grandparents have a cheap 2014 1080p LG LCD webOS TV that they never connected to the internet but it is and always was very slow, and the LED backlight became dull blue in places. Our dumb CCFL-backlit 2007 768p Sony Bravia has <100 ms response time in menus as opposed to 1~5 s, and is awesome with a Linux HTPC (which frankly should get an upgrade to an SSD but no big deal – I can still start streaming any major movie in <3 minutes).
So when are we gonna start rooting smart TVs?
It’s now patched in newer firmwares, but there was an amazing root for LG TVs last year: https://github.com/RootMyTV/RootMyTV.github.io
I feel like I saw some universal mod kit somewhere that replaces TV electronics except for the screen driver/backlight. Maybe just in my dreams. Or maybe I’m confusing the universal CRT rehab kit that was detailed by various retro tech educators recently.
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No you are right they does exist on amazon.
Got a link? I don’t even know what to search for but I’m curious.
YOU ROCK. I’d upvote you 10 times if I could.
For those with similar problems, use pihole dns to effectively block all that bullshit
Also, do NOT buy a Samsung TV, it’s the worst offender of them all. Nothing but bad experiences with itl
Don’t buy Samsung anything. Their hardware is junk. They used to be okay, but they decided years ago that they want to be an advertising company, not a hardware company, so they push cheap crap that is used solely as data harvesting and ad delivery devices. Even their home appliances spy on you and break down a few years later.
I’ve found Samsung to be uniquely terrible across every type of anything I’ve ever owned that they’ve made.
I bought my current condo thinking the almost new (I think they were 2 years old at the time) Samsung appliances must not be that bad, but every single one of them has a unique design flaw that has caused it to fail or be damaged in small ways or large:
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Samsung range - coated with black stainless coating that peels off upon heat stress…cuz you’ll definitely never encounter heat stress when working with a gas range 🙄, the clock’s LED is also intermittently failing.
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Samsung refrigerator - has a separate ice maker compartment that was not sealed properly at the factory, and therefore freezes over itself…which makes the ice maker useless
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Samsung dishwasher - Had a wet sensor on the bottom of the dishwasher that tripped, and then it just ran forever with a large grinding noise…I had to cut the power to the circuit to get it to stop doing whatever it was doing
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Samsung microwave - Large, heavy, stainless steel handle attached to cheap, easy to fracture plastic through a single screw hole at the top. The handle eventually snapped off of the top of the microwave…I’ve also heard (but not experienced because I never use it) that the sensor cook is garbage.
Add all of the above to what I consider to be samsung’s already piss-poor reputation for products in my experience (I had a samsung flip phone that the screen just completely stopped working after a year of use in the early 2000s, and a Samsung MP3 player with a battery hinge that was so poorly designed it eventually stopped working because the battery kept popping out).
I fucking hate that company and wouldn’t be surprised in the least if their terrible, flawed products are also privacy nightmares.
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I dont have that experience with my samsung phone.
But i appreciate that you may be exaggerating when you say “samsung anything.”
This galaxy fold 3 might be the best phone I’ve ever used, and im not being advertised at all really. The hardware is/was at launch some of the best you could get and it would be disingenuous to say that samsung are the only company out there harvesting user data. Thats all tech companies really.
I have a samsung phone and its great…
While they definitely have many products in the cheap junk category, but I think they have pretty good hardware in the mid-upper range.
Software is the real junk in Samsung products; their high-end TVs would be great if it wasn’t for the crappy software and updates.
Oh it still gets through. Also it doesn’t help the loading.
Alls I can say is that when the “smart” tv has “run out of memory” so it intermittently cuts out when I’m trying to beat Ridley in Super Metroid, it’s time for a lobotomy.
You have an LG TV? Cause I have one and want to go Office Space on it because of that shit. Not only will I never buy another LG TV, I’ll never buy another LG product because of it.
My LG TV is great … But I’ve never connected it to the internet and I never will.
Yeah mine was vlaned off from everything else and ethernet connected. I factory reset it and took it off the internet completely, but the problem still pops up every couple of months. Unplugging it and letting the capacitors discharge (like 15-20 minutes) seems resolve it for a few weeks but it just happens again.
Glad you got a good one, but the issue is something that apparently plagues their TVs. Just looking around on forums for “LG out of memory” and you’ll find people with a ton of different models and firmware versions complaining about the same issue. LGs fix for it also hilarious cause they’re like, “Have you tried deleting all your apps?” Which really is just admitting they have no clue why it keeps happpening.
Yep, it is an LG. However, after doing a factory reset and plugging a roku soundbar into it, I’ve had no problems with it since. I did the same with our other tv, a Samsung—sans the reset because I never bothered setting it up with Wi-Fi access in the first place.
I too saw all the complaints from others, which led me to the soundbar because I figured that if they’re going to suggest deleting all the apps as a solution, I may as well make sure and make it permanent.
It’s weird how my “Smart TV” doesn’t have ANY of these issues. LG CX65. I have auto-update disabled. I have the apps I want to use pinned to the home screen. All other apps are unconfigured. I opted “out” of all the “smart” and “AI” features.
It’s almost like you need to spend several minutes, one time, configuring your tech so it works how you want it to. This is too much to ask, apparently.
“None of this applies to me, you all must just be dumb”
Not every model has such generous user respectful features. Just because your TV doesn’t have issues, doesn’t mean it isn’t an issue that plagues smart TVs. There are blogs dedicated to document which models allow telemetry disabling, user update control, performance, etc. There are numerous consumer reports, data privacy analysis from different firms, and they all point that there are issues with smart TVs. Some even point that even those with options to disable tracking, ads, and privacy options, still collect quite a lot of data they sent back to their corporate home. So it’s not that users are lazy, dumb or any other negative thing you want to imply about others, you’re not a special boy, this are legitimate issues.
But it is important that the problem does not lie in the fact you have ‘a smart tv’, it lies in the fact people buy ‘shitty smart tv’s’. Those of use with good working smart tv’s (mine’s 5yo LGC8) read these posts of people saying “never buy a smart tv, always buy another device for it” and roll our eyes.
You have internet. Just so some research and include in your criteria that the new tv mustn’t be shitty. Don’t reward the marketbros by buying shitty tv’s.
You have the same TV I do. That thing has been nothing but shit for me. I currently have it internet disconnected after doing a factory reset and it still goes out of memory and starts chain resetting after it’s been plugged in for a couple of months.
Before the factory reset I had it vlanned off and opted out of telemetry tracking, uninstalled all the bloatware apps, and spent a good while waching idle traffic to make sure nothing was sending data… None of that mattered for me. You’re attributing something to skill that is 100% luck.
I never add “smart” TVs to the network and I block unknown mac addresses at the router. All apps are loaded either on a gaming console or a Roku (the lawyer units with more power). If you keep your TV off the network (and uninstall the apps), you’ll never have performance issues.
Roku lawyer unit??
Honestly, after my first smart TV I never bought another one ever again. I just buy computer monitors that are very TV like and slam an android box of some kind on there. Oftentimes it’s cheaper than the TV with a better picture cause it doesn’t come with crap speakers depending on the model. Most even have ARC now which makes it crazy easy. I’d never suggest this solution for anyone not tech savvy but with even the slightest tech knowledge it’s super easy.
But computer monitors that are the size of the gable end of my house are too expensive!!!
Sure, but this will only work for so long. Eventually they’ll just come with in-built cellular antennae. I can’t imagine how that won’t be more profitable to the manufacturers. Then all those performance issues will be even worse if you don’t connect them to your home network because the tv will be loading all those ads over cellular networks instead.
Depends on the TV, unfortunately. The Samsung(?) TV we had used to have ads pop-up on boot. It would show a black screen for the duration of the ads if you disconnected it from the internet, so you were stuck waiting.
My current LG TV has its stupid ad-filled menu pop-up whenever I turn it on and it takes a while to disappear too, regardless of if it’s connected to the internet or not.
Some years ago around the advent of smart home devices I bought a huge fullhd Hisense tv for cheap. It has zero smart capabilities, and essentially acts as a big second screen for my computer, and I couldn’t be happier with it.
I am scared once it is time to replace it for something more modern I won’t be able to find one without all the smart crap I don’t use and don’t want.
I’m considering wiring my PC up to my TV just to avoid that as well. The only things I’d need would be a long HDMI cable, a DP to HDMI adapter and a bluetooth dongle for my PC to use bluetooth headphones.
KDE connect is miles better than google’s crappy phone remote thing anyways, so it would make up for having to use the desktop UI instead of TV apps.
By the way: SmarttubeTV is youtube without ads and with a great UI. It’s the only reason why I haven’t connected the PC to my TV yet.
PC monitors have been steadily growing in size and business-focused displays for conferencing or digital signage also don’t seem to be burdened with any of that nonsense. Also a good option if you want a big, matte display!
Using a computer monitor is a great suggestion. The biggest problem is that monitors are a lot more expensive than TVs. Probably still worth it though if it lasts long enough
PC monitors are mostly awful. You pay way more more for worse picture quality. You’re better off buying a smart TV and just not connecting it to the internet.
I got a super nice Hisense with Google TV built in last year. I like streaming right on it but you can also use the inputs on the back if you don’t want the smart stuff. good for pc gaming 😏
This is the future that Stallman warned us about. They mocked him and said it didn’t matter. It’s not going to get better until everyone stops buying TVs with spyware built in.
Vote with your wallets or quit bitching. Self hosted is an option these days. But that means not being lazy. And people are really lazy.
Link to the original toot
Nice username. I bet that makes you lots of friends!
thank you. i needed the original source because i am suffering the urge to go and give that toot a like. damn, it describes dystopian technologies so well pffft haha
I’ve had a Vizio “smart” TV for about 3 years. It is my first experience with a smart TV and it has been a massive pile of shit since day one. Most recently it has decided to show a black screen every time I turn on the Nintendo Switch. In this state it does not allow me to do anything but turn it off. So I have to turn it off, turn it back on, go into settings and restart the TV. It will then work for a single play session, but as soon as I shut the Switch off I will undoubtedly have to go through this same process the next time I want to play.
This is only the most recent issue I’ve had with Vizio’s garbage ass software. To those saying to just unplug it from the internet, trust me when I say the solution is not that simple. It was even worse before any updates, but with each update they break something else. There is no “good” software version to leave it at.
