Reposting this from here from 2023, after I stumbled across it tonight and it hits hard.
The text in the image:
I love my smart TV. I love the way it takes a long time to boot up because it’s trying to refresh the advertisements on the home screen. I delight in the way it randomly restarts because it’s downloaded an update without asking me, each of which makes the TV slower and slower with every subsequent install. I adore the way it buries the apps that I want to use, and that I use without fail every single time, below the apps that it’s being paid to promote and which I have never touched in my life and would never use without the cold metal of a glock pressed hard against my sweating temple. I am infinitely thrilled by the way the interface lags constantly, due to the need to have one thousand unnecessary animations rendered on hardware ripped wholesale from a ten year old phone. I feel myself borne aloft on wings of pure joy when I am notified that my data will be collected and analysed to determine my usage patterns. Even now I am writing this from a field of beautiful flowers and soft luscious grass as I lie and look up happily at the bright blue sky, smiling happily to know that this is the future of technology
These fucking televisions have less ram than my fucking 8 year old phone
At some point it’s just better to factory reset this bitch and paste an RPI in the back with my own android TV so it can actually run with 8gb ram 256gb space
Or: buy a computer, once
It’s not that hard, the original author is just lazy or ignorant or both.
My smart tv is a mid ranged i5 from 2012.
Electricity must be cheap where you are. If you have to use an x86 platform, please use a modern one that is both vastly more powerful and adept at decoding video while also needing a tiny fraction as much power and producing next to no heat and noise.
Luckily the YouTube app gets way worse with each update. Mine now tries to dark pattern you into signing in, and now features extra ads when you pause a video.
I’m switching to sideloaded SmartTube on a GoogleTV with Chromecast dongle.
I’ve been using smart tube on my fireTV for about 6 months now and it’s amazing. No ads, so many playback options that YouTube doesn’t offer, built in sponsor block is a godsend.
I’m actually quite happy with mine I don’t think it’s shown me a single ad, the only nuisance is it doesn’t stay connected to my WiFi and only joins when I launch an app or something.
Its a Toshiba with Vidaa Os I think, not saying it’s perfect it has all the UK channel apps but not Stremio which I would like it to have.
That said it hasn’t done a single thing ad wise to annoy me unlike my firetv cube.
I just never connect my TV to the internet and never have any problems. My old Chromecast is showing its age though.
You can always get a new Chromecast (we were forced to as the ancient bullet proof one told us to “fuck off, I want to die”). The new one has a remote control and apps, which I always thought were missing from the minimalist Chromecast family of products. So look at us, now we have a shitty roku when all we wanted was a device that I could send things to from my phone. Needed and wanted nothing more, but I got it. My tone is muddled here, so I’ll make it clear that it’s worse than it used to be, and I’m annoyed I was forced to pay to downgrade.
Same on the old Chromecast :(
I actually did connect my TV when I first set it up. One of the first things it did was download an update which bricked the wifi on the TV, so the problem kind of solved itself
Hah, I was going to say, I do check for updates at least once when I first get it, because I have run into TVs that shipped with HDR bugs in the stock firmware.
For the Chromecast, what happens with yours? Mine randomly restarts, or reconnects to wifi, or sometimes Plex has trouble buffering until I reboot it.
I recently bought a raspi5 to try out FCast, though currently afaik only Grayjay supports it.
For the Chromecast, what happens with yours? Mine randomly restarts, or reconnects to wifi, or sometimes Plex has trouble buffering until I reboot it.
Exactly that.
I’ve never heard of FCast, I’ll look into it
We have an older 2012 1080p Sony 55" TV. Super thin, still works great. It had a few “smart” things it could do, like local tv guide, weather. Very simple stuff, nothing like streaming apps. Those basic smart things haven’t functioned in a while. Support ended for them a long time ago. I’ve had a negative opinion for smart TVs since then. Having those functions sitting there broken drives me nuts.
We always used some type of streaming box. Started out with some Roku’s for a long time that worked okay until they updated them enough to run like shit. Ads were never egregious but you could tell where the trend was going. A friend let me have an older Nvidia Shield TV. It was FILLED with ads for shit we didn’t care about. Google Play store shit, Nvidia shit, advertisement shit, AHHHHHHH. It too eventually was updated enough to where everything runs like shit. I looked into a lot of self contained media systems from no names on Amazon, but I just didn’t trust them. I could set up a PC to do it all and I’d be fine with it but my wife wants something easy to use.
Sooo I ended up going with an Apple TV. So far it’s been really nice. Zero ads on the home screen. It lists the previous content we were watching and then our streaming apps below it, that’s it. When you move the cursor over the Netflix or other apps it lists what you previously watched and some recommendations for other shows but it’s not in your face or moving anything around to do it. There are some apps you can’t remove, but I just made a folder and threw them all in there. It’s nice but it’s costly at around $140. So far for me, I’d say it’s worth it. We only use Netflix, Hulu and Plex on it, but all of them work great. It also supports the Steam Link app. I use it some, but I’ve started to use Moonlight that is installed on my Steam Link device instead, since the picture and stream quality is a lot better.
There is a brand that makes dumb TVs.
https://www.sceptre.com/TV/4K-UHD-TV-category1category73.html
At only double the price of an equivalently priced smart one! Bargain /s
The smart ones are sold at cost or at a loss, and your privacy is then sold to subsidize the profits. A dumb tv costs more money up front (since it’s not subsidized by your privacy), but it costs far less in overall value. It’s a tradeoff that the consumer needs to make. The lovely thing, is that (for now, at least) it is still a choice we can make.
Or you could just block the Spyware TV from accessing the internet.
Not all tvs allow you to do that. Some require you to be online. Some took it a step further and are equipped with 4/5G modems to bypass your network restrictions.
Some require you to be online.
I’d take it back to the store as broken. Never heard of that though.
Some took it a step further and are equipped with 4/5G modems to bypass your network restrictions.
Never heard of this either and it would raise a massive stink in the EU. Can you share an example?
Both of these were in the USA. The first was with a friend’s purchase, the latter was an article he sent me. It’s been a little while, but I know one was Samsung, but can’t remember the other brand or which was which.
I wouldn’t put it past Samsung to try and force you to have internet access enabled so they can spy on you.
However having additional hardware to directly access the internet via cellular is a bit much. That might have been an Aprils fools article by some IT site.
When Sony tried to install root kits on PCs of folks just trying to watch a movie on a legit purchased DVD there was a quite large shitstorm.
Which is an entirely fair compromise for people who use Lemmy, but means precisely nothing to the majority.
Well that’s not true. They have been in business for 40 years. They sell TVs for people who don’t want anything except video in. Mainly commercial places like offices, stadiums, etc.
Yes because the majority own/buy TV’s commercial places like offices and stadiums.
I’m not understanding what the point is that you’re trying to make? I’m sorry.
I said that the privacy concerns being worth the cost of a “smart”-free TV means nothing to the majority of people.
You said that this isn’t true, and that their main customer is commercial places.
I suggested, in response to this, that the majority of people don’t own such commercial places.
What part are you not understanding?
Good luck finding them though, we’ve never found a place either offline or online that sells them.
I mean you just click on the one you want and then on the retailer link. Here is Walmart.com’s
https://www.walmart.com/browse/electronics/sceptre-tvs/3944_1060825_1939756_5735890
That assumes we are in the US, whomp.
You seem like you just want to win an argument, I don’t know why you are acting like that.
You win, they are hard to buy.
Hope you have a great tomorrow. (Because I don’t know where you are and your day might almost be over)
I don’t know why you’re being so argumentative. They mentioned that they’re hard to get. You countered with one store in one country that has them. They then pointed out that actually, no, it’s still not easy to get. It’s a pretty damn common interaction between Americans assuming everyone has the same experience as them, and the rest of the world whose experience is very different.
Not really, apologies we came off that way.
We just haven’t seen them where we live, online or offline, though we would really like to.
Thank you, hope you have a great week!
Hey no worries man, context and tone are hard on internet text chat. I probably came off as a snarky bastard. Enjoy your month! ;)
None of us are a guy, thank you though. We appreciate it!
Good to know about, thanks a lot!
Keep in mind that these are low-end TVs with, according to reviewers, generally subpar picture and sound quality, with quality issues that make them worse to look at than even old TVs. If you just need “a TV” and your only concerns are that the device is flat, the image in color and some sort of noise is escaping the speaker holes, they’ll do, but don’t expect anything more than that. To me at least, it makes more sense to not connect a smart TV to the network and use a separate streaming device attached to it.
I would even buy a slightly older used dumb TV from a reputable manufacturer over one of these sketchy things, since it’s not like LCD TVs are finicky technology - they tend to last for an incredibly long time in my experience, easily 15 years or more. On my parents’ 2008ish Toshiba (1080p and every analog and digital input in the known universe, which, in combination with an excellent analog upscaler, makes it awesome for old games consoles - but it’s of course no looker in terms of colors by modern standards), the only thing that has broken so far is the spring of the power button, so I bent a wire press it in and a switch at the plug to be able to turn it off completely.
This is getting a bit off-topic, but a relative of mine replaced her flatscreen TV from 2002 (!) just two years ago - and it was still working fine, but since it only had an analog tuner and SD resolution, she was looking for an upgrade. I got her a small 4K OLED from Samsung (since discontinued) and she’s very happy with it (even the “smart” features are quite inoffensive), although I did have to get her a soundbar as well, because if there’s one thing that has regressed on TVs, it’s sound quality, in part due to how ever thinner and lighter designs have reduced speakers to little more than phone speakers on some devices.
I have a Samsung smart TV and the operating system on it is so annoying. It’s so slow, has dumb ads, and I have cast to it like at all.
I’m even more pissed that they just disabled the Steam Link app for essentially no reason; it worked great for streaming games from my PC.
I’ve been thinking it would be cool to flash a different OS onto it, but I’m not sure if that’s actually possible.
Rented a house over the holidays that had a Samsung Smart TV.
The UI is mind-bogglingly bad and slow.
The remote is also absolutely terrible and unintuitive. The keys that feel like they should be the arrow keys… aren’t. So even simple navigation through menus is painful.
I was dumb enough to get a random Samsung phone for a while. The ROM was on the SoC so it wasn’t possible to change short of getting out an atomic force microscope.
Sounds like smart TVs usually have older hardware, though, which could actually be a saving grace.
This is why I am dreading when my 2017 dumb TV dies. It’s really telling that dumb TVs, which should be cheaper to produce and sell, are either not available or very expensive (as in commercial displays). Really proves the point that the consumer is really the product.
Here is what I do: I use a firetv with Kodi, Plex, Smart tube Next (free YouTube), and various live TV apps. That’s it!
Unfortunately there is zero way to disable the home screen in order to run a custom desktop environment and there is zero way to replace the Netflix, primetv, DirecTV, etc. buttons on the remote.
Seems like every year it gets harder and harder to change settings on the TV and all the things I just mentioned not being able to do used to be things you could hack together.
It sucks!
I used a Fire TV for a while (because it was cheap and you could sideload almost any Android app), but at some point I got tired of the awful (and increasingly worse) UI and sluggishness of the device, so I splurged on a Shield TV Pro a few years ago. It’s night and day in terms of performance alone - and yes, you can change the function of any remote button with the Button Remapper app. Custom launchers are also possible, although I haven’t tried this in a while.
The main downside is that the device has much less reliable WiFi, for some reason. After some infuriating days of troubleshooting attempts, I solved that issue once and for all by relocating a meshnet satellite close to the device and running an Ethernet cable.
I never understood why people hated smart TVs until one day mine decided to install an update that presents me with advertisements and a hub screen when I turn it on. If I don’t select something in time, the screen disappears, which locks all of the controls, and I can only reset it by turning it off and on again. Why??? Just why?!?!
You know why.
I’m in the market for a new tv and all this crap just makes me want to scream in frustration. But prolonging the decision will just make it even worse.
On top of that my 2017 shield is starting to show its age and there is really no comparable 4k (streaming) alternative thats not a security risk. I feel more and more pushed towards piracy, so that I can use my linux box and decide how and where to watch content. I hate it…
Found any promising leads? My Samsung is still holding on but I know I’m counting the days until it’s time to replace it
smart TVs mostly can be used as a dumb TV if you reject the terms of services when you set it up. I understand they are annoying, but people making such a big fuzz about them are clearly just fabricating drama.
Interesting. I wonder how long that will last.
You really think the technology being inside there and capable of switching on at any time is just drama?
I think it is a drama, because it’s not just the tvs doing that. Almost everything is getting more and more annoying and restricting. Things are starting to constantly nag you one way or another, shove things into your face you don’t care about, take away functionality and generally worsen user experience… It’s just mentally exhausting.
And yes I know you can reliably turn that data collection stuff off (at least in the EU) but hopping through those hoops each and every time for each and every device and service can and will hollow out your resolve (and you have to find all the buried options every time…). Thats how you get masses that just don’t care anymore.
I honestly think the issue is that these people want a SmartTV but are annoyed about its downsides. When I bought my current TV I disabled the smartOS but ended up enabling it back because I did find value on its features.
I think the complaints are not well articulated. They do want the smart TV they just want good ones that dont spy on them or show ads.
Exactly! I just don’t want constantly have to fight my devices. It tires me out and sucks the fun out of them.
You don’t even have to reject the terms of services, just never connect it to the internet. Not even once.
Won’t even be able to send rejections to a server.
I can recommend TLC, they can be used as a dumb TV and never need an internet connection if you just use it as a screen. Wouldn’t recommend them with internet though since the remote literally has a microphone build-in.
But I want to use the Internet. I want it to be able to access my network files and to cast video from my phone. Why does it have to be either all or nothing?
Consider an Android TV device. Fire TV Stick at the low end, Shield TV Pro at the high end. Not much point to anything in between.
And the next generation my well have capability to connect to cell towers or something (for your convenience!). Or just refuse to work without internet access (for security!).
If you don’t allow us to track you, you’re probably a terrorist and a pedofile!
Sounds like an obvious spot in the market for a bullshit-free smart TV. You’d just have to get the UX right.
Yeah, it’s bound to happen eventually, although they’ll probably never be exactly as good or cheap as the ones for the sucker mass-market. Think Fairphone.
In the meanwhile, we just have to keep kludging in old solutions or alternate solutions, like a monitor. Or you could personally launch an enterprise if you’re so positioned, I guess.
Meanwhile, the marketing department reading this: “Boss! It’s working! The people are actually enjoying it!!”
“Also, can someone get the engineering team on the phone to figure out that glock thing?”
Don’t worry, silicon valley is already making headway into government (where all the big guns and the monopoly on force is).
How about using computer for all the smart stuff and leaving all the visual stuff to the display? Besides, you can run Firefox and ublock origin to watch YT without ads, so what do you need a smart TV for?
I have a cheap N100 mini-PC with Lubuntu on it with Kodi alongside a wireless remote as my TV box, and use my TV as a dumb screen.
Mind you, you can do it even more easily with LibreELEC instead of Lubuntu and more cheaply with one of its supported cheap SBCs plus a box instead of a mini PC.
That said, even the simplest solution is beyond the ability of most people to set up, and once you go up to the next level of easiness to setup - a dedicated Android TV Box - you’re hit with enshittification (at the very least preconfigured apps like Netflix with matching buttons in your remote) even if you avoid big brands.
Things are really bad nowadays unless you’re a well informed tech expert with the patience to dive into those things when you’re home.
There’s no HDR on Linux solutions. And I do like the HDR.
You can at least swap out the launcher and remap the buttons on the nVidia Shield Pro if you’re that way inclined. It’s not perfect, but there’s fewer compromises.
You get the full fat versions of paid streaming services as well, although I mostly use Jellyfin now.
The only MiniPC solution that does everything right now is going to involve Windows 11…
Because it’s “convenient” and people are lazy.
People don’t hate ads enough to go through the trouble of using better options. Once you’ve lived without ads for a while, there’s no going back.
Last time I was looking for a TV I couldn’t find a single dumb TV unless I wanted to roll back to standard definition, which makes the text in a lot of modern video games unreadable.
But you don’t need a dumb TV.
The smart part isn’t what makes those TVs bad. It is the internet connection that sends you ads, scrapes your data, causes lags and reboots because of updates, and makes your network less secure.
Just connect an other device over HDMI like you would a dumb TV, and never connect it to the internet like you would a dumb TV.
What if I just want the screen to turn on, displaying the last output I used? No, we gotta boot Android and then select the output through a menu for no reason
My TV boots to the last input selected. It’s a smart tv.
Mine too, just takes a while to go through all the google, android, TLC screens before it gets there.
Good thing that is only at the start.
Wrong
The “smart part” absolutely makes those TVs bad. The meme even addresses this with the line about hardware being ripped wholesale from an old smart phone. Smart TV hardware barely functions when it’s brand new. Fuck everything about smart TVs.
Except some models won’t let you do anything until you “activate” your smart TV, which requires an internet connection.
Yeah… I got a Sony OLED as my most recent TV and the picture is incredible. Best I’ve ever seen.
Even if I could find “dumb” TVs, I doubt they reach that level of quality.
From my experience, it’s best to just buy a used dumb screen. Check if it’s working properly and doesn’t have any screen problems and you’re golden.
That’s what I did, hence only finding standard def. :( I assumed that was the only option, actually. If someone is even making new ones, I’d probably have better luck there.
Because finding dumb screens is actually difficult and smart TVs are cheaper.
