I’m considering buying a new TV. There’s plenty of posts about trying to find dumb TVs, comments like ‘just don’t connect it to the internet/network’.

What surprises me is that there isn’t a good overview of (popular) TVs or brands with basic information, answering for each TV:

  • Can you use it as a basic TV by choosing not to enable smart features during setup?
  • Can you opt out by just not accepting a bunch of agreements?
  • Does it have a camera and/or microphone? Where in the device are these? Is there a physical disable switch for microphone?
  • Does it nag when not connected to any network?
  • Does it have higher than normal power usage when not able to phone home?
  • Has it been discovered to connect to public WiFi networks? Does it have the (theoretical) ability to connect to 5G mobile networks?

And similar.

There are extensive lists with a lot of detail about VPN services but nothing like that for TVs. Am I ignorant of a good source, or does this just not exist (yet)?

  •  Zorsith   ( @Zorsith@lemmy.blahaj.zone ) English
    9·
    1年前

    Samsung is known to be one of the more cancerous of ad-ridden “smart” TVs

    I haven’t had any issues with my Sony TV but I bought it several years ago and don’t really use it (I generally consume content on my PC with 3 monitors). It is not connected to any network.

    •  SpiderShoeCult   ( @SpiderShoeCult@sopuli.xyz ) 
      1·
      1年前

      I have a sony as well, and you can use it as dumb TV, by not agreeing to their privacy policy. If you want to connect it to wifi afterwards, it points you to the privacy policy again, so it seems like the TV follows that. But I’ve also purchased it 4 years ago, so not sure what the status is now.

      So far, I’ve seen no ads. I mostly use it mostly via HDMI and sometimes for watching freely available TV via antenna.

  •  Boomkop3   ( @Boomkop3@reddthat.com ) 
    5·
    1年前

    Personally, I say F smart tv’s. The smart bit is going to be old and useless in three years. The panel will last me over a decade.

    Yes, you can ignore all the nagging and smart stuff and just set it to an hdmi input or something.

    Then hooking up a 3rd party smart box is what I recommend.

  •  Salvo   ( @Salvo@aussie.zone ) English
    5·
    1年前

    We have a HiSense 60” and have never connected it to any network. It works perfectly as a Dumb Monitor with multiple HDMI inputs and HDCP and HDMI-CEC work perfectly with our AppleTV (HDMI 1) and PS5 (HDMI2) We have TOSLink Optical Audio to an Amp(receiver) and it works almost perfectly, until the Amp chucks a hissy-fit because people forget to turn it off.

  •  zod000   ( @zod000@lemmy.ml ) 
    4·
    1年前

    So I just bought a brand new “dumb” TV for $150 off of Amazon (43" 1080 Sceptre). It isn’t high end in the slightest, but it IS brand new and not some weird old stock and the picture and sound don’t feel too far off from my significantly more expensive higher end LCD TVs. I wanted one that I could put on a rolling stand and move between a few rooms and saw no benefit to 4k at that screen size. Other than that, there are some decent “digital signage” TVs that were decently priced available as well from Samsung and a few other brands. I didn’t see anything that was OLED, but I was burned hard (quite literally with burn-in) on earlier OLED gear, so I am avoiding it until the prices get low enough that I can be fine with the chance that it will be crap after 4-5 years of use.

  •  FriendBesto   ( @FriendBesto@lemmy.ml ) 
    4·
    1年前

    Personally, I got a large dumb flat TV and use a small PC attached to it with Linux with all the privacy trimmings, VPN, etc. Use a browser, like Librewolf or FF with ArkenFox, along with Freetube on it which we control with KDEConnect from our phones. Once you setup the proper commands on it, it is fly and forget. You can pick a stripped, privacy focused distro, too. Most of my PCs/phones are on WiFi but for that box I plug it to the router via cable, directly, for faster display speeds. You can download other media software and run it through, if you wish.

    Power usage is minimal or at least I do not see my power bill go up substantially, or noticeably. Have had this type of setup for over 15 years. Never had to worry about microphones or cameras as there are none to worry about. No terms to agree to that will get changed on a moment’s notice, either. No spying or dialing home. Sometimes, the best way to win is just to not play their games. Have 0 complains.

    •  Tab   ( @czim@feddit.nl ) OP
      3·
      1年前

      I currently have a similar setup, but with a very old TV (that served me well for 16 years). Not easy to find good dumb TVs these days though.

    •  The Doctor   ( @drwho@beehaw.org ) English
      1·
      1年前

      From trying to get people to do that (with no success), it’s because it seems too much like work. Folks want something they can plug in and go… but plugging in one extra thing is just a bridge too far these days. It’s frustrating as shit.

      •  Tab   ( @czim@feddit.nl ) OP
        1·
        1年前

        I hear you, but I’m not an example of this. I have a Pi-hole set up, firewalled my phone, happily use LibreWolf, etc.

        Besides that, I also want to do the research on what screen to get. If a worse screen (small one, monitor or digital signage) is the only acceptable solution, then that’s what I’ll pick – but having some idea of what it would mean to pick a typical smart TV and try to limit the consequences is also something I want to consider. The only frustrating thing to me is that it’s hard to find out details about this (and that includes details about digital signage screen quality, for instance, since businesses don’t seem to care all that much).

        •  The Doctor   ( @drwho@beehaw.org ) English
          1·
          1年前

          That’s great, I didn’t say you were. I was speaking specifically about people who, on the one hand lamented the risks of smart TVs, but on the other hand didn’t realize that they would just be plugging their existing digital cable STB’s HDMI cable into what amounts to a very large flat panel display.

  •  Tenkard   ( @Tenkard@lemmy.ml ) 
    3·
    1年前

    Just set up a TCL and it has a “basic” option which makes it work without anything. I’m still trying to decide if I should buy a Nvidia shield to pair with it so I enabled it “fully” for now, will probably switch it back. It’s basically android so many of these behaviours are just like on android phones

  •  rutrum   ( @rutrum@lm.paradisus.day ) English
    2·
    1年前

    For best privacy, get a monitor and a tv box (like nvidia shield, or roll your own software a single board computer like a raspberry pi). That might be the only way to trust a tv: dont use it at all.

  •  Nicro   ( @Nicro@discuss.tchncs.de ) 
    2·
    1年前

    Interesting discussion, but many of the questions have pretty lame default answers. I have a Sony bravia from 2015 for reference.

    • The TVs that come with an OS instead of just firmware are smart-TVs in all aspects. Your cable TV or hdmi input is an app just like Netflix is, and is subject to a launcher. You can’t make it dumb by disabling stuff.

    • You can mostly reject targeted ads and disable personalized data collection. But smart TVs are priced with ads included, so completely turning off everything will require unsupported modding.

    • cameras are only found in telepresence hardware, unless you want to be paranoid. Check the feature list. Microphones can be in the remotes of some TVs, but this will usually be advertised as a smart assistent if present.

    • I haven’t seen any TV actively complain about missing wifi (except for during setup for updates)

    • unless you are tricking the TV into thinking it’s online, any connection attempts/power usage would be a bug. Do note that smart-TV will by default have a standby-draw influenced by WoL or similar.

    • This is pure tinfoil-territory. No hotspot/carrier carries data without being payed for it. It’s also not economical when telemetry can be sent over the customers home-wifi in 99% of cases. There is no gain in hiding sim-cards in every TV. Unless you are a person of interest and are sent a modified TV in that case.

    Hope this helps.