While they are at it take a look at car manufacturers too.
The situation is really bad for consumers. Even with a Pi-Hole and a dumb TV and something like a Fire TV stick (they tend to send lots of telemetry too and apps like Toggo will nag you to oblivion to consent to data mining - if an app asks at all that is).
I’m slowly building up a Jellyfin library and yeah I jumped the hoops to find a non-smart TV. Wrote about it at https://beko.famkos.net/2022/11/27/on-non-smart-tvs/ and settled with a https://www.homex.eu/u55nt1000.html that ticked all my boxes:
☑
cheapaffordable ☑ 4k (UHD) ☑dumbnon-Smart ☑ HDMI ☑ 55″No idea about it’s tuner though[1] alas it’s not really any longer available in any market space today and I hope it will not die on us any time soon or the quest to find a new one starts again 🤓
[1] We’ve a decent external receiver that does all the work and HDMI juggling but even that thing is on the WiFi for software updates and in-house streaming but from what I can tell it behaves at least, which is probably just because it’s old by now.
I bought a commercial digital signage TV. No Roku/Chromecast/whatever, but the damn thing STILL has Ethernet and Wi-Fi and nagged me about setting it up on the internet. I’m only buying computer monitors from here on out.
Even monitors are beginning to become “smart” now…
If just using a Smart TV for a computer monitor, what is the easiest way to keep it from sending your information? Just keeping it away from WiFi? Would it be able to connect via your HDMI?
The other person said to never connect to wifi, but I’d say either put it on an isolated wifi (guest network) and lock it down to LAN-only access in your router, if at all possible.
The reason being that these devices are aggressive about getting a wifi signal, and even if they can’t connect to yours, they’ll apparently search for unprotected wifi networks and connect to those to send data and phone home. Locking it down to LAN only prevents this, and isolating to a guest network means no information about other devices on your network.
It’s utterly insane we have to do this stuff. If you’re willing to spend more, there are commercial signage displays you can buy that are essentially dumb TVs, and that is pretty much the only way to get a dumb TV today (and obviously, don’t expect smart features from it).
Never connect to wifi. Don’t agree to the ToS. It can’t connect to your network via hdmi.
We have a PiHole running and the TV makes constant attempts to connect to home-base.
So this is why my TV walked into the bathroom while I was dropping a deuce. 🤔
Don’t forget that if you connect external devices to them, they’re also taking snapshots of the content “so they can serve targeted ads”.
Do you know a credible source to read about it, please?
Roku’s patent
One way to get Congress to act on this would be to remind them of how Robert Bork’s video rental history got released. They very quickly realized that they all had the same sleazy movies on their rental list and passed a law making it illegal to share them.
Call your Congressmen and tell them that their smart TV is sending screenshots of whatever they’re watching back to home base, including stuff that’s not streamed, and there might be swift action.
Better yet, hack Samsung and leak it to the press. That’ll definitely light a fire under them.
I blocked my two TVs from phoning home via my pihole. They are the two noisiest devices on my network, by leaps and bounds.
On a day of heavy usage, my phone and desktop may get ~2000 blocked requests combined. That’s high, but not unheard of. It just means I did a lot of browsing, with a lot of blocked ad requests. My TVs average somewhere around 7500 blocked requests per day, on days that I haven’t even turned them on. That’s an attempt to phone home every ~12 seconds. And it is much worse on days that I actually use them.
I got a 42" 4k computer monitor instead
How many times the cost of a comparably-sized Trojan TV did that run you?
1.2x
I also use it as a computer monitor though.
To be clear though, that’s largely because it is just repeating the same request over and over as it times out and retries. They’re a lot less noisy when they actually connect successfully, though it is still undesirable for them to do so.
Jesus dude, what brand TV do you have?
My LG issues a few hundred blocked requests throughout the day with heavy usage. I’ve never seen it wake up and phone home (my Nintendo Switch does it every hour for some stupid reason)
One is a Samsung, and the other is a Roku. The Roku is a little bit noisier, but not by much.
Maybe i’m stupid, but why would a TV even do that? All it’s know is what you’re watching today, right? How is that information useful? If you’re living with other people, the TV couldn’t even know who’s watching, that would make the data useless.
Knowing the distribution of what entire households watch is very useful. It’s not about spying on you personally.
…seems rather personal to me.
And what other devices are on the network, and what they’re chattering about
Data mining. They know what you watch, when you don’t and any other habits you have.
If you have a microphone on your remote or tv, then they also send that data over.
Fuckingcapitalists
Ahh yes, unlike all those non-capitalist modern nations with their complete lack of widespread insidious surveillance.
The non-capitalist solutions have been here all along, mostly things licensed under copyleft. But people just need to have the wherewithal to actually use these solutions.
I dumbedcmy smart tv by disconnected it from the internet. The stupid thing is the tv was requesting internet connection to work, so I had to put it on my network and then block everything so the tv pouted and then shut up.
Now I switch to a Fire tv usb stick on it but god I hate it…
the tv was requesting internet connection to work
What tv is that? Just so I know what to avoid
Samsung tv, after a bad update.
I’m more than happy to buy a TV that uses post-purchase monetization, because I am never going to connect that fucker to the internet. It’s a display. I shall use it as a display. I do not care that it can replace my streaming box. I fully control my streaming box, and I will use that.
If I catch it doing any sketchy shit like trying to use unsecured/Comcast/etc WiFi to phone home, it’ll be time to pull out the screwdriver, though.
What happens when it no longer needs your WiFi and uses something like LoRa to phone home with your data and location? It may not know who you are exactly but it’ll have a good guess.
Screwdriver.
on whom?
The entire board
What’s Lora?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LoRa (Long Range)
It’s a low power, large range connection technology, working a bit like a mesh network. It can achieve data rates between 0.3 kbit/s and 27 kbit/s and enables geolocation services. According to the LoRa Development Portal, the range provided by LoRa can be up to 3 miles (4.8 km) in urban areas, and up to 10 miles (16 km) or more in rural areas (line of sight).
As soon as your LoRa-Device is in range of another LoRa-Device, it will probably be able to phone home.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LoRa
Long-range radio protocol
What happens when it no longer needs your WiFi and uses something like LoRa to phone home with your data and location? It may not know who you are exactly but it’ll have a good guess.
I mean…what happens when it becomes sentient, sprouts legs and you catch it sleeping with your spouse?
Let’s deal with the here and now.
you catch it sleeping with your spouse?
Streaming content right there - monetize it!
You know LoRa hardware is getting cheaper and the reliability of these TVs are just terrible. This is likely to happen sooner rather than later. For now just don’t plug it in to WiFi unless you’re willing to go further and desolder its module? I don’t think we can do much via legislation other than write to our congressional reps.
My current tv is a 42” I got in 2012. I would love to upgrade to a bigger one, but I don’t wanna get a lame smart tv.
You can get a smart TV and just not use any of the smart features. My TVs are on a separate VLAN with no internet access, so I can still control them via Home Assistant but they can’t reach out to the outside world. I use Nvidia Shields for streaming.
I’m on the same boat 44" tv, from ages ago. Connected to my linux reinstalled asus chromebox. Freedom baby yeah!
My next purchase will be a dumb tv with a media stick.
Unfortunately it’s very hard to buy a decent dumb TV these days.
Buy a monitor, not a TV
Lemme just pluck a 52" monitor from the 52" monitor tree where 52" monitors grow bountifully.
Plenty of 48inches though, so compromise
I just checked. In the online stores of the 3 largest tech chains in my country, there’s exactly one 16:9 40+" monitor model available, and that’s a 43" VA panel. The other 40+" stuff are weird absurdly wide curved monitors and some smart whiteboard type thing. So forgive me if I am extremely doubtful of your claim.
I don’t know what to say. I’ve just glanced at the shopping tab right now, and saw plenty of non-curved 48 inches monitor from LG, Samsung and even Dell.
I didn’t check if they were all dumb though, but mine is (Aorus fo48u)
For smart tv, they recommend just never give access to internet. And look if it has some kind of monitor mode so it always launch display on the hdmi port.
They still keep searching for some open wifi to send their stuff through.
This has never been proven in any way. It would be really easy to show that a smart TV will automatically connect to an open WiFi connection and send data, but nobody has done it.
I wonder if a software that just generate gibberish data could be made, just to fuck with them.
Meh, it’s not like the data is monitored by people, it would probably just be like dropping a needle of bad data in a haystack of automated data.
Video projectors are available, though.
They’re all smart too, unless I’m missing something?
Not at all. The better ones are dumb. You have to stay away from cheap chinese drek, of course.
not the optoma uhd35, it’s the one I have. 4k60fps or 1080p240fps for when I game.
we have to support the companies that give us what we want, and I voted with my wallet. Im very happy with it
Aorus fo48u here. Dumb as fuck, sometimes too dumb (no remote input processing without hdmi signal), but I’d rather have that than a smart monitor with all the bullshit
yup, this is what I do. costs about as much as a good TV.
Why do we continue to be ok with this? Where is the outrage and call for change?
Because it works and provides a use case. Most “simpletons” do not want to invest any more time in than putting some Account Data and start watching netflix or whatever. “We” (e.g. the people that care about data privacy and stuff) never have been okay with that shit…
Simpletons LOL get a grip
It’s there, but people forget about it when they can get a 4" bigger TV for 100 bucks less.
the overwhelming bulk of humanity cant be fucked to care about shit like this… until it personally affects them.
Then they will wail like banshees about the great injustice of it all, and how could anyone let it happen to them.
What would you guys recommend for a dumb TV with a good quality panel in the 65-75" range that’s a available to buy in the EU? My intention is to hook it up to my own device (probably a mini PC running some Linux distro with Kodi and some other stuff).
Eizo or iiyama monitors are very good imo. The other use raspberry pi ( or anything else ) + tv card
Thanks. Anything more specific in mind? I know Eizo for their monitors for colour-critical work and from looking on their site I’m only able to find a 50 something inch model that’s probably very expensive (I think it was in their medical lineup). As for iiyama, they have some 65 and 75" models for e-signage, but they’re running Android.
