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
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And this is why I went back to an iPod classic
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.
I honestly wonder how hard it would be to do a full lobotomy on a smart TV and if there would be a big enough market for that kind of service.
I have mine disconnected from the network, but a certain non-techie member of my household (who doesn’t understand this stuff) keeps re-connecting it when they want Netflix to work, even though I’ve shown them how to do this without connecting the TV to the network.
I connected it once, then set it in the router as „enable child protection -> disable internet access“, gave it a static IP address and also blacklisted that address on my pi hole so that DNS won’t work for it. Then I immediately disconnected it. The router recognizes the TV with its MAC address when it gets reconnected and immediately bans internet access when it gets reconnected.
I’ve set up mine to automatically start on a specific HDMI port, that fixed the issue for confused family members.
To find the feature though was not easy. Had to look up how to access the hotel mode hidden menu. Apparently LG has extra features it only wants hotels to be able to use.
Apparently LG has extra features it only wants hotels to be able to use.
It’s more that hotels will buy in bulk if a TV has the features they want - and those “hotel mode” controls being hidden from typical hotel guests is one of those features.
I have simply blocked internet access (but not local network access) for mine. I only use it for jellyfin and Nintendo Switch tho.
best thing is to never hook 'em up to the internet. provided the manufacturers don’t all start requiring internet to ‘set up’ a tv.
next best thing would be a revert of firmware or a full ‘reset’ of settings; if possible. to return it to an ‘out of box’ state–then above, never connect it to the internet.
replacing a cheap streaming device is a hell of a lot cheaper than replacing the tv once the software gets obsoleted for whatever reason.
my coworker (and boss, technically) just casually mentioned that her inlaws ‘updated’ their tvs when they were visting over the holidays. i cringed so fucking hard because i have the same model, just smaller–so i know what happens.
they had just recently hooked-up wireline internet and could actually stream stuff now… so i had just given them a new streaming stick to use instead of connecting their now 3 year old tv to the wifi.
provided the manufacturers don’t all start requiring internet to ‘set up’ a tv
That’s an important caveat. And it appears that increasingly manufacturers are adding that requirement.
I have heard that some TVs attempt to connect to every WiFi they can find using default credentials even if you never connect it yourself
default credentials
Wifi doesn’t have default credentials any more… These days, there’s legislation (at least in California) that requires default passwords to be randomly generated, but it’s recommended to have no default password at all and instead prompt the user for a password when setting up the device.
That’s why some access points have the default password either printed on the box or on the bottom of the device.
i wonder if they were dumb enough to just use algorithms based on mac or the default ssid or something… so if you knew the scheme and knew the password composition (characters used, or wordlist, whatever), you could come up with the ‘default’ password for a wifi point.
Companies are probably doing the easiest thing, and it seems easier to make it completely random. I can imagine something very basic like a giant spreadsheet of all the devices being produced, and running some formula to enter a random value into every cell in a particular column.
but then they have to keep that data–and you just know they keep all those passwords. (support call… q:i dunno what the password is/can’t read the sticker. a:gimme x or y off your unit, and i’ll look it up for you).
but if they do it programmatically, all they’d need is the code to recreate any password if given the constant used to create it (the ssid or mac or sn, for instance).
hopefully they would use something that can’t be obtained off the wifi broadcast, like the sn on the unit.
Hmm, yeah, good point. It could be based off a hash of the serial number or something similar.
Oh yeah, that makes sense, thanks!
They’ll just connect via yourneighbors’ smart tv
You’d still have the TVs default OS running on a potato. I’m thinking more along the lines of replacing that with a bare bones old school OS that was responsive.
True, but a 3 year old TV with original firmware would have been pre-adpocalypse. My never-connected LG boots pretty quick when it was last on an HDMI port before turning off.
i haven’t even turned on my tv in over a year because of that bullshit. i’ve just been using a monitor + laptop + 2.1 pc speakers.
We still watch free, over-the-air TV, so need the tuner. Free PBS and NHK for the win.
Same, but I go the other route. Laptop to wall sized tv and sound system.
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Its only a matter of time.
Insert verification can copy pasta
Is Sony actually a good guy for holding this patent so that no one else can go and do this shit either?
either
Is there any indication that they won’t implement this shit at some point?
Also, should we be trying to come up with the most insane “features” in this vein that we can imagine (knowing full well that some corporation will come up with them eventually), and then patent them to protect humanity from them?
Is there any organization that collects patents just to block them (in the consumer’s favor)? A kind of white-hat patent troll? And, if not, should we create one?
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?
Because it’s “convenient” and people are lazy.
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.
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.
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.
OT, and I’m usually not the type that comments with gun trivia, but
the cold metal of a glock
Wasn’t Glock famously made of ceramic polymer and became popular for evasion of metal detectors?
Sorry for the sidetrack, that single point irks me even if it’s way outside my wheelhouse.
Nope, that’s a line in Die Hard 2 that the armourer hated.
I recently got into amateur radio and the radio usage in Die Hard 1 is bonkers. They both talk at the same time a ton, it’s just all over the place.
As a qualified amateur operator, I’ll just say: that problem isn’t exclusive to die hard movies, nor die hard 1.
Over and out!
Just don’t.
I was in the signals corps as a cadet and every time I hear it… grrr…
Yeah, I recently got licensed and have had an interest. Someone mentioned the movie Frequency and I saw the same thing in the trailer lol.
Pretty much everything gets it wrong in stone capacity. Some get very close, but fall short of representing radio in reality.
You may find this video fascinating. I didn’t realize how much of it would be about radio technology. It’s about Amelia Earhart’s last flight and how she navigated and stuff. Really interesting.
I think I’ve already watched this. Interesting stuff.
Maybe I got lucky with my Philips oled running Android TV, but it’s pretty quick, no ads other than recommended shows from networks, and I can choose which ones. I don’t recall it asking about data collection, but whatever the streaming services are doing it already. I like having all the streaming apps built in, then I don’t have to manage another device for this. Overall I’m surprisingly happy with it.
Fucking ads on my tv home would be an instant refund, unbelievable.
I got no ads on an lg oled, but it’s infuriatingly slow.Isponsorblock can be run on a local docker machine with the original youtube client to make the experience more bearable.
Mine isn’t any slower than the AppleTV I used before. No issues there either. My only wishes would be for it to have parental controls and let me change the screensaver.
Thanks!
And it won’t stay on the selected input. No signal? Gotta go back to the screen with ads.
Which brand is this? So I never have to go near it…
I have a Samsung TV from a few years ago, never connected it to the TV, so when I turn it on it just goes to the last used input (HDMI1 in my case). The bootup isn’t even that slow , maybe 5 seconds or so. Not great, but not terrible…
Vizio.
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.
99.9% of all these “problems” can be solved by using an ablocker DNS and a couple of adb commands (on Android).
I thought this doesn’t work cause AndroidTV forces its own DNS server, specifically 8.8.8.8, Googles own.
It works, but it needs a bit of work. In particular, you need a router capable of redirecting all DNS call to the DNS you specify (Asus routers can do that, for instance). Moreover, one should also use a blocklist to forbid the connection to most common DoT/DoH public servers, such as
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists/main/adblock/doh-vpn-proxy-bypass.txt
tl;dr It can be done and it’s relatively easy, but one has to learn how to do it and choose proper tools (HW and SW).
I’d be setting up a pihole if I had a smart tv
I went from pihole, to Adguard Home to (finally) ControlD. I chose to eventually outsource the DNS because I was letting all family without connection when playing with my miniserver :-P
Too bad adv commands are blocked on firetvs 😢
Last I looked, we could still buy commercial displays. They’re dumb TVs. They cost more, of course.
We have a Samsung “smart” TV, hooked up to an AppleTV box. The TV’s original remote is in a drawer somewhere, forever unused.
I have the apps that I need, the tiny Siri Remote turns on the TV and handles volume, and, apart from the aggressively, insanely, mind-blowingly horrible on-screen “keyboard” / text input (we don’t have Apple phones we can use to mitigate this, sadly. Also, what the fucking fuck, Apple?!) we’re happy. For now. I trust Apple to make the experience incrementally worse as a fact of life.
Not perfect, but leagues better than dealing with Samsung’s interface.
Can you give a recommendation? I too looked for big displays and found commercial ones to be used as digital billboards but the specs weren’t all that good (no oled, no hdr).
OK, but it’s edge-lit and extremely tiny. You can get much better Smart TVs for less money, and then just never connect it to the internet
I remember the ancient times when you could buy something, turn it on, then have it do what you want it to do. Setting the clock was the difficult part. Other than that, it just worked.
Learning ESPHome has been the most liberating thing. Take back control of your home. Local first. Privacy respecting.
Esphome is limiting though. Want to have a sensor that spawns a camera stream only on PIR detection, and then sleeps? Forget about it, those two will run in parallel, and the debug messages are terrible.
I find it more liberating to write in C, and then setup my own mqtt protocols when I want for HA to interact with
I spy a research rabbit hole in my near future … 🐰
Edit: ESPHome is a system to control your microcontrollers by simple yet powerful configuration files and control them remotely through Home Automation systems.
Maybe give https://nowsci.com/only-sensor a shot? I built the guides/schematics/models for ESPHome devices as a learning experience for myself.
@SkyNTP@lemmy.ml I felt the same way. Now I just keep making new things for it, currently on garage door opener, blinds opener, and may even automate turning on my DIY solder fume extractor.
