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It’s Still Stupidly, Ridiculously Difficult To Buy A ‘Dumb’ TV

posted by janrinok on Sunday April 17 2022, @02:01AM   Printer-friendly
from the don't-connect-them-to-anything dept.

owl writes:

https://www.techdirt.com/2022/04/14/its-still-stupidly-ridiculously-difficult-to-buy-a-dumb-tv/

Historically, "smart" TVs aren't always particularly smart. They've routinely been shown to have lax security and privacy standards. They also routinely feature embedded OS systems that don't age well, aren't always well designed, don't perform particularly well over time, are slathered with ads, and are usually worse than most third-party game streaming devices or video game consoles.

Yet when if you go shopping for "dumb" televisions — as in just a high quality display with a bunch of HDMI ports and not much else, you're usually going to be out of luck. There are options, but guides on this front will usually shovel you toward computer monitors (too pricey at large sizes), or business-class displays (ditto).

[...] Of course it's challenging because TV manufacturers now make more money collecting and monetizing your personal data than they do selling the actual hardware. Last year Vizio noted it made $38.4 million in one quarter just from tracking and monetizing consumer viewing and usage data. It made $48.2 million on hardware (which also includes soundbars, and other products) in that same period.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 17 2022, @04:28AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 17 2022, @04:28AM (#1237634)

    These TV's do their own network scanning. There is no way to turn it off. It only takes one neighbour with an open network and they're online.

  • (Score: 2) by MIRV888 on Sunday April 17 2022, @05:35AM (2 children)

    by MIRV888 (11376) on Sunday April 17 2022, @05:35AM (#1237654)

    Just hand it an an unrouteble address. Specify your dhcp server by mac address.
    It pulls an address... that doesn't work.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 17 2022, @07:58AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 17 2022, @07:58AM (#1237680)

      The auto-scanning occurs during boot, before you have a chance to configure it. I haven't tried (not my TV or network), but giving it a non-routable IP may even trigger an auto-scan to 'fix' your connection for you.

      • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Sunday April 17 2022, @03:07PM

        by tangomargarine (667) on Sunday April 17 2022, @03:07PM (#1237708)

        The auto-scanning occurs during boot, before you have a chance to configure it.

        So we have to turn on our TVs in a Faraday cage to avoid this shit? Wow, that's completely fucked.

        --
        "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"