I want a TV with NO OS.
Look into Sceptre. 4K with no OS, no ads, doesn’t ask for WiFi - just a TV.
I can find only computer monitors there.
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The walmart link has some TVs, but apparently not the Amazon one, just monitors.
It’s hard but not impossible, as even ‘retail displays’ run an OS in the background to control input switching, image settings etc.
Honestly the best thing to do is buy whatever TV you want (we have a couple of the LG OLEDs in our household), and don’t ever plug them into your network (or WiFi). Otherwise, with updates OS and apps become sluggish, with more ads crammed in.
Instead, use a seperate media player (e.g. Apple TV if you’re already on the iOS ecosystem, Nvidia Shield or similar for Android, HTPC if you’re so inclined etc.) - they’re more powerful, arguably more secure & private, and portable between displays if/when you upgrade.
Unfortunately EtherNet over HDMI exists so your your TV can still access the Internet if the Apple TV or Nvidia Shield has Internet access. To prevent that you have to make sure use older HDMI cable less then HDMI 1.4.
I didn’t think any devices even adopted Ethernet over HDMI
You’ll see these marketed as monitors sometimes, from what I’ve seen. Mostly it’s for businesses but if you want a dumb screen to connect things to, it might be called a “monitor” even if it has the form factor of a TV.
My current TV is clawing my firewall like squirrel with rabies. I’m sure the next one will too.
An ad giant already owns and controls my current TV’s OS
Don’t ever connect them to the internet. Period.
If it’s required, buy a different tv. It’s not difficult to look that up beforehand.
I suspect in the near future it will be impossible to buy a TV without spyware/adware. The only option will be to not connect it to the internet and run your own Raspberry PI/SBC based solution.
Monitors aren’t being pumped full of this stuff and so won’t the premium televisions.
The super budget/sold at a loss TVs will absolutely be gutted for spyware.
Monitors aren’t being pumped full of this stuff and so won’t the premium televisions.
I have a feeling premium TVs won’t escape adware/spyware either. They can get their margin on the hardware and earn some more money on spyware; I don’t see what incentive they have to not do both. I hope I am wrong though.
You’re not wrong, there are a number of videos from Louis Rossman (right to repair advocate) on YouTube lambasting LG for doing this very thing on their high-end G-series OLED TVs; including defaulting to opt-in to marketing and providing PIR data after an automatic update.
Premium televisions are already pumped full of this stuff
Yup. I don’t know if it’s all of them, but Louis Rossmann had a video where he ranted about this BS in his high end TV.
Monitors aren’t being pumped full of this stuff
I hope this is just marketing then…
Looks at the top of the line Samsung Odessey 49"/54" ultrawide monitor. Looks at specs. Reread this comment.
Uhuh
If I worked for the manufacturer I’d just piggy back on other TVs networks to communicate. Wouldn’t work if you live in the country but for everyone else I’d just need a similar brand within wifi range.
Anyone know of a reasonably priced OLED/QLED, >60", 4k TV without smart features?
I really don’t want the spyware and adware that come with newer smart TVs, and I’m willing to pay a bit of a premium for it. I’d also be happy with a unicorn smart TV that doesn’t have any of those anti-features.
What about just not connecting it to the network? Then put a video device on it like Roku or Apple tv or whatever.
just not connecting it to the network?
Some TVs require connecting to the network to set it up, and I’m concerned TV manufacturers will get more brazen going forward. If there’s a company that doesn’t do this nonsense, I’d rather reward them for being good instead of working around misfeatures in popular brands.
Roku
Has ads that can be disabled, at least as-of last year. Not sure how long that’ll last…
Apple TV
Apple also seems interested in ads.
Any other option will likely degrade to having ads at some point. I could probably get rid of them w/ a PiHole or something, but that could end up being a game of whack-a-mole.
I’ll probably end up w/ a Raspberry Pi or something running Kodi or similar, which is really annoying because that’s yet another thing I have to self-host just to avoid this stupid obsession with ads.
In the future we might have to hack our TV’s to make them ours…like disconnect the camera and the microphone or feed them bullshit data or inject trick hacks… 🤔 Hmm what is this thing? rm -f…copy paste to see what it does! Oh shit! Half the country looses Disney plus for a few days. And it repeats 5 times every month so they stop fucking with us.
Yeah, I’d really rather not bother and just buy a quality product for a fair price.
I know this isn’t purely TV-related, but there used to be a secret menu for Roku where you could disable home screen ads. That stopped working for me several months ago. So I recently bought an Onn box (which is basically Android TV, but had as very cluttered UI) and side-loaded one of the open source launchers onto it. It’s been a much better experience than Roku, not least because there’s are no more home screen ads.
there used to be a secret menu for Roku where you could disable home screen ads
That’s the first link. If it no longer works, I guess Roku isn’t an option anymore. 😟
I should clarify: the secret menu can still be navigated to and the options there set. But ads now appear regardless. I went back into the menu and verified the options hadn’t changed (they hadn’t). It’s like Roku has gotten wind of the exploit and ‘fixed’ their OS to ignore those options.
Some TVs require connecting to the network to set it up
Change Wi-Fi password, connect to Wi-Fi and complete setup, restore old password.
The problem is they are showing they’re willing to force firmware updates to use the TV. So even if the setup experience is decent in reviews, that could could absolutely change for the next person (i.e. they could require updates every N months).
If a company pulls that BS, I’m uninterested in buying it. I don’t care if there’s a community workaround, I’m unwilling to support a company that thinks it owns the hardware I bought.
“A convicted felon and sex offender wants to control your next country”
What’s with the clickbait title?
This is not news, it has been happening since Smart TVs started being a thing.
One of the most common TV OSs is AndroidTV / GoogleTV. Google is the biggest ad company in the world.
Now all you need is a built-in camera to prove Orwell was right… only off by a few decades, really.
normal people can’t just… grab a single board PC and… install Linux on it! What are they supposed to do!?
I dunno, suffer, I guess. Pass the keyboard. I’m feeling Friends.
edit: my cousin and his wife came over about four months ago and saw we used a keyboard and the TV was just a computer and he went “why the fuck haven’t we just done that?”. He doesn’t know know Linux, but he has a Steam Deck and got by alright.
Sometimes, they just need the idea, a little push.
For a lot of people it’s a good use that’s the difference. I’ve been fucking around trying to set up home assistant for a year when I have time (yeah idk I know it’s supposed to be plug and play but it isn’t for me), but my wife and I were talking this morning and she’s the computer person and once we live somewhere there’s a smart thermostat she’s probably going to set it up because at that point it’s worth the effort, and if she didn’t at that point it would be worth me dedicating the consistent effort to make happen. What you’re describing is similar. If I see it I might try it if not doing it is inconvenient
The biggest ad giant in the world already controls my TV’s OS
How bout no
For fuck’s sake.
Pi hole FTW.
Not good enough. Any OTA updates your TV can get over the web will eventually be trying to circumvent your IP blacklists to shove in any ad-riddled garbage they can.
Literally just blacklist your TV’s MAC address, and use a dedicated set top box of some kind to avoid this shit. My current choice is my NVIDIA Shield Pro 2019, which I installed a 3rd party WOLF launcher (there’s also F-Launcher) and turned off auto-updates so I could avoid NVIDIA and Google doing the same.
At some point, I will probably need to switch to a NUC or other HTPC with some flavor of Linux on it, as eventually the Shield may succumb to this shit as well.
So stupid! Everyone knows if you want people to see your company’s logo, you gotta put it on the back of the cereal box, at the bottom of the cereal bowl or on the front and back of the poon! The spoon is literally observed by every single human on every bite…here come the rice crispiest!..jeep! I gotta get me a jeep! Look! It’s on my spoon!
Good thing I don’t care about owning a tv I don’t already know how to jailbreak.
