These TVs can capture and identify 7,200 images per hour, or approximately two every second. The data is then used for content recommendations and ad targeting, which is a huge business; advertisers spent an estimated $18.6 billion on smart TV ads in 2022, according to market research firm eMarketer.
Obviously
Honestly the least I’d expect of a smart TV.
I have my old (stupid) tv from like 2013, works perfectly fine. No apps, no firmware, no ads, no tracking. Never felt the need to buy a smart tv, but I’m afraid it’d be near impossible to find a new one that isn’t nowadays I’d mine broke down.
This is the only reason I have a smart TV. I didn’t want one, in fact it prompted me to make an SSID and VLAN just for it, then applied a bunch of DNS blocks. Unfortunately my old 2012 TV wasn’t worth shipping across the country and the image was getting pretty dim and it had started developing dead pixels.
If you want anything above 1080p that’s a dumb TV you have to go commercial like the hospitality market and they charge you way more for it. And they won’t even sell it to you without a corporate account in most places.
The only way to get 4K and HDR without the smarts as a consumer is to buy a giant gaming monitor… and those too ask for quite a premium, because gamers.
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Yeah but they do still end up pretty expensive. I was able to score a black friday 65" 4K HDR 1000 nits 120 Hz FreeSync TV with local dimming for $700. Not the best but given I don’t use it that often or for very long I didn’t want it to turn into a big investment.
I’m sure it’s pretty average but for my use case it worked out pretty good.
laughs in crtv and dvd player
Next up: Televisions that don’t have off switches and never go to sleep.
We could call them telescreens maybe
They could have a built in alarm clock that starts your day with a mandatory workout and the latest news telling us what to believe
Ones with voice activation & stuff do this already. TVs will pull a lot of power when ‘off’ since they’re not off.
Yup. A lot of folks don’t seem to understand that this is the case, though.
Pretty soon, there won’t even be soft-off switches anymore.
Check this out: https://www.freetelly.com/
This thing gives me serious 1984 vibes. I hadn’t read the book when I first heard of this, but I now realize the name is pretty much and open play on the tellyscreens in the book. Reminds me of the black mirror episode where you have to pay to stop watching.
Since I didn’t comment elsewhere on the thread, my plan of attack for now is usually older TVs (even just a few years old are still really good quality), even if they are smart but not ever connected. Apple TVs on each one, also buy the 2-3 year old version of this used for about $40-$50 not any more then I used to spend buying Roku sticks. Gives me a good enough balance for now, and before Apple haters pile on, yes it’s not perfect, but there have been some studies showing these are some of the best behaved streaming devices. More importantly than what the streaming device is, I have the ability to chuck them and add a PC or whatever else without having to replace the actual TV.
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It doesn’t have to be. I get everything for free, no subscriptions, no ads. I’m pretty happy with the deal.
It’ll never tell anyone because it’ll never be hooked up to the internet.
I had read a story once that if I recall correctly, one manufacturer would send the signal back thru the coax cable to the cable box just in case to make sure your data was captured somehow.
My smart TV is blocked from the internet. It doesn’t know shit.
oh it knows. it just can’t tell anyone!
I leave the TV on all day for the cats, I’m sure they’re getting lots of useful data while they sleep in front of MASH reruns
just plug a SBC running Kodi/jellyfin/whatever non-proprietary to a regular tv
It’s extremely difficult to find a dumb tv in sizes larger than ~55”. You really don’t have much choice at the moment. I personally host a jellyfin server and play that via apple tv over hdmi, but content recognition still does its thing. Best i could do was deny wifi/ethernet to the tv and have no open networks.
Yes, do exactly this. If you have AppleTV connected to your TV over HDMI or whatever, why does your TV need an internet connection?
SmartTV: This customer loves watching Balance of Nature ads
Me: fuck balance of nature I fucking hate those stupid scammy ads!
Mine connects through pihole with all LG domains blocked. I’m not getting any update request, notifications or anything. Just Netflix.
So… Can someone explain how this is legal if you’re watching DRM content? Capturing and uploading copyrighted, protected content doesn’t seem very kosher.
advertisers spent an estimated $18.6 billion on smart TV ads
Jesus. Spend a fraction of that developing good products that people will actually want to buy so you can end this unethical, scumbag way of making a buck.
It says in the article there’s a privacy request option if you own a samsung tv. I went ahead and sent a request to not sell my data, although not sure if it’s effective since I’m not in CA.
Doubtful, since I don’t have one.
on our vizio, from the settings side panel: all settings->admin/privacy->viewing data. turn it off.
I wouldn’t trust it anyway. I would only trust a TV that does not have Internet access, period.
