• FriendBesto@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    5 days ago

    I still have and will continue to purchase TVs for as long as I can. Not smartTVs.

    As a side note, I went to Best Buy and asked them about non-smartTVs. They literally said they had 2 models. A small, tiny TV and a larger TV which they did not have a model on the floor. They would have to bring it out or I would have to go the back.

  • FourWaveforms@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    9
    ·
    7 days ago

    I got a Samsung TV a couple of years ago. I use it with a Roku. It’s not on my network. I’ll keep it until it stops working because I think eventually TVs will refuse to work without an Internet connection.

    • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      7 days ago

      Sad people buy more to try to make themselves happy. Retail therapy.

      People who serve ads have a vested interest in knowing when you’re unhappy and what makes you unhappy, so they can capitalise on it.

  • TON618@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    174
    ·
    edit-2
    8 days ago

    Leveraging people’s property to trash their privacy and serve them ads is really a good way to get me to avoid an entire brand for everything.

    • wewbull@feddit.uk
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      30
      ·
      8 days ago

      I agree, but with TVs (or large displays" we’re at the point where there are no good options. Commercial displays are over engineered for the home and lag in technology Vs home TVs. So they’re not an option. Lg and Samsung are the display technology leaders, but their TVs are full of crap— so no. Monitors don’t go large enough for the living room.

      Guess I’m stuck with what I have.

      • knatschus@discuss.tchncs.de
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        35
        ·
        8 days ago

        Monitors are still bigger than TVs our parents had in our childhood, no way I’m buying such a surveillance machine just for a bigger screen.

        • schizo@forum.uncomfortable.business
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          17
          ·
          8 days ago

          For real: I’m using a 38" ultra wide, and if you had told child me that a 38" monitor would be the smallest display in the house I’d have told you that you’re full of shit.

        • Leon@pawb.social
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          8 days ago

          Really. A bigger screen just gives my dog a bigger target when he flails his toys around.

      • sinceasdf@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        edit-2
        8 days ago

        Why would you ever accept this anti consumer bullshit for a slightly better screen? It might not even take a year before the current cutting edge not “the best” anymore with how fast tech cycles. I would absolutely go out of my way to get a device I can deprive of an Internet connection and still use.

        • OhVenus_Baby@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          7 days ago

          You can get them now days up to 360hz refresh rate. Gaming projectors and projectors in general have came a long way from the faded blurry shit they were 10 to 15 plus years ago.

      • Bwilder@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        8 days ago

        Huh, I’ve heard that commercial displays are the way to go. What do you mean when you say they are over engineered?

        • Not a replicant@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          8 days ago

          They’re designed and built to run 16/7 or similar. If you have TV on 16 hours a day, a commercial display is worth considering.

          No, I’m not joking - I’ve seen folk who turn it on at sunrise, and off at bedtime.

        • wewbull@feddit.uk
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          7 days ago

          They’re industrial boxes with a screen. Not aesthetically what I want in my living room. The displays are chosen for their longevity, not their picture quality. They’re often actively cooled with fans, so adding a noise level to their operation.

          • Taleya@aussie.zone
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            7 days ago

            Might wanna look around, there are plenty used as wallboards in offices that high def and whisper quiet

  • catloaf@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    82
    ·
    9 days ago

    I recently bought an LG TV. I didn’t connect it to the Internet, I just use it with my Chromecast or Switch. Works great, no ads, no AI BS.

      • Ulrich@feddit.org
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        56
        ·
        edit-2
        9 days ago

        I find it highly likely that TVs will soon cease to function without an internet connection, complete with some BS explanation about protecting your privacy or security.

        • 👍Maximum Derek👍@discuss.tchncs.de
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          34
          ·
          9 days ago

          I can’t set my dryer to medium heat unless I do so with an app over the internet even though the controls exist to do it on the unit. I bought a window AC unit and the only remote control is an app - thankfully I was able to put that on a subnet with no internet gateway and it still works.

          • KnightontheSun@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            43
            ·
            9 days ago

            Name them. Bosch does this with some functions too. I bought the model below and didn’t care about delayed start or whatever. I am not loading your app!

            I swear we need to start some appliance hacking clubs or something to sidestep this crap.

            • 👍Maximum Derek👍@discuss.tchncs.de
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              6
              ·
              8 days ago

              Neither mentioned a network connection was required. The AC unit didn’t mention it at all, and consumer reports mentioned the dryer had “smart features” and an app but never said basic controls were locked behind a network connection

        • pc486@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          8 days ago

          Broadcast TV is already going that way. ATSC 3 requires an internet connection to get decoding keys. For your protection, of course.

      • tal@lemmy.today
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        12
        ·
        9 days ago

        I mean, a camera is an easy thing to block, as long as you’re aware of it, understand the implications, and have the desire to block it. Just obstruct the lens. Roll of black electrical tape, put a strip over it, done. Now, most people out there may not actually do so…

        Only becomes an issue if other services that you actually want are tied to the camera, or if the TV refuses to operate without a usable picture of the viewer or something.

      • cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        9 days ago

        Luckily my neighbors are way out of WiFi range and there is barely enough cell service here to send a text from inside the house.

      • Buelldozer@lemmy.today
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        8 days ago

        Some TVs already have the ability to connect to sidewalk. More worrying is that every newer “Smart” TV has the ability to cast to it so if anyone ever does that using an internet connected device like a SmartPhone then bam…your TV just got an internet connection and can now send out stored data and potentially grab a firmware update.

        Surprise!

    • shyguyblue@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      9 days ago

      This is the way to do it

      I blocked my lg from the Wi-Fi after i got a “Kobe Bryant memorial” ad, while playing on my switch… TF?!

      • 5in1k@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        8 days ago

        Do you think he thought avoiding all that traffic was worth it as he plummeted?

        • QuantumSparkles@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          8 days ago

          Okay so fuck rich people destroying the planet with private air travel—however, he was still statistically more likely to die from driving that day. And so was his daughter and the other innocent kids on that flight

    • aubertlone@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      7 days ago

      I’ve heard this line many times from so many people.

      So basically just Nintendo and google profit off your personal information? And doesn’t Chromecast serve ads? In the background, but still?

      I fully support your decision to not connect your LG TV to the internet. I do the same thing but it’s often just for convenience. I get better performance from my devices rather than from the TV itself for whatever application.

      Just was thinking about that recently is all.

  • obsidianfoxxy7870@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    77
    ·
    9 days ago

    If they ever make this a standard feature in all TVs and make it where I can’t just disconnect it from the internet, I will be using old TVs for the rest of my life.

    My TV is there to display a visual output. It does not and should not do anything else.

    • Stovetop@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      38
      ·
      9 days ago

      Luckily digital signboards will always be an option to replace TVs with if the situation becomes truly dire. The sorts of no-frills displays corporations buy to display whatever media they want in store.

      Might not come with sound, but you can pick up a cheap sound bar and it will still be better than whatever cheap speakers commercial TVs try to cram in there.

      • chaosCruiser@futurology.today
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        8 days ago

        As long as my 1080p plasma tv works, there’s no need to upgrade. Going 4K would also mean I would have to upgrade my HTPC hardware, because that old APU probably can’t handle resolutions like that.

        In the meantime though, I’ll just keep on watching online videos in my living room without ads or interruptions. It’s been great even though all of this hardware is cheap and ancient.

        • ddh@lemmy.sdf.org
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          7
          ·
          8 days ago

          But that’s the thing: televisions are complex and can be very difficult to repair, so what do you do when you can’t buy a dumb replacement anymore? I have the same issue with cars. I would like to replace ours with an EV, but they are a privacy nightmare whereas my car’s peak technology is FM radio.

          I was thinking earlier today about how much technology waste there is because old stuff is superseded so quickly. Maybe in future we will treasure the tech we had before it all went to shit.

          • chaosCruiser@futurology.today
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            edit-2
            8 days ago

            Kit cars have been around for ages, and Framework offers DIY laptops. I think we should have kit displays as well. Surely, someone has already made something like that with a raspberry or something.

            • ddh@lemmy.sdf.org
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              3
              ·
              8 days ago

              Yeah, hopefully we can just buy cheap panels and put it together how we want. If that also opened up options for hackers to build entirely new display applications, or in new ways, that would be the dream.

    • TheRealKuni@midwest.social
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      26
      ·
      8 days ago

      I have an LG TV. Absolutely love it.

      However, it’s not connected to the internet so it doesn’t do any of this shit. It’s just a really nice dumb TV that has the potential to spy on me if I ever gave it a chance to be smart, and I still get to take advantage of the various picture improvements that come from having the processing power of a smart TV.

      Just need something else to do streaming if that’s what you want. Like an Apple TV, nVidia Shield, Roku, or game console. Some of those will also advertise to you, but I’ve had good experience with my Apple TV.

      • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        20
        ·
        edit-2
        8 days ago

        I wouldnt be surprised if it randomly connects to unsecured/public wifi networks to still send the spy data if it can find any in its area.

        • Bloomcole@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          8 days ago

          Always asume the worst with any (tech) product and any major company, and a lot of times you will be proven right later.

        • TheRealKuni@midwest.social
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          8 days ago

          Maybe. If they’re following the rules they need you to agree to their privacy policies, and to do that you have to connect to the internet. I know from the time I did have it connected (before they rolled all this shit out) that they would let you use the TV without those policies accepted. They would just bother you about it constantly. Since I factory reset and didn’t let it connect, it hasn’t asked.

          But that’s assuming they follow the rules. I’m not knowledgeable enough to find out if they’re doing this or not.

        • MDCCCLV@lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          8 days ago

          It does have Bluetooth on and you can’t turn it off . But the wifi setting can be turned off

  • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    56
    ·
    8 days ago

    Continue to never buy LG products again?

    Gotcha. The advertising works, i guess…maybe not how they wanted to, though lol

    • Treczoks@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      11
      ·
      8 days ago

      Oh, they do have products without all that shit. They offer large screen monitors that are basically their TVs without the “smart” part.

      • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        8 days ago

        i wager it has all the TV stuff gutted out, including the tuner… Which admittedly is only a problem if you use OTA and not cable.

    • Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      8 days ago

      My next TV will be either a business/signage monitor or a computer monitor.
      At least something without any connection outside. No network, no anything.
      At most something like a Chromecast or similar.

        • Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          8 days ago

          You can still set up your own HTPC in your living room and configure it yourself.
          And there are more solutions like from Apple (but they absolutely fucking track you as well) or other streaming box/stick solutions I am not aware of.
          Unsure how good an Nvidia Shield is in regards to privacy. Your best bet for privacy is probably to just build your own solution on Linux.

          • sinceasdf@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            8 days ago

            Nvidia is huge on producing AI and is certainly data-hungry. Without actually knowing, I would bet it’s about as bad as anything else. Since all your data is passing directly through their servers it’s trivial for them to do whatever they want with it.

  • MagicShel@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    47
    ·
    9 days ago

    I’m about to live in a camper full of paper books. I hate everything tech has done in the last twenty years.

    • Basic Glitch@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      13
      ·
      8 days ago

      I would make an inappropriate Ted Kaczynski joke if I didn’t know everything we do is being constantly monitored at all times by a bunch of turds with zero sense of humor.

  • kipo@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    43
    ·
    8 days ago

    Can we please ban electronic advertising already? And billboards? Society would be better off without them.

    • moopet@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      8 days ago

      If we ban people from “earning” over a certain amount, they’ll get round it through “gifts” or exchange in-kind or something, right? Same with ads. If we ban them, then product placement with plausible deniability will be rife, paid through essentially money-laundering methods, worse than it is now.

    • Simulation6@sopuli.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      8 days ago

      Buying a TV should be a one time cost. These companies trying to create a continuing income where none exists is just rampant greed. Don’t want to pay the cost of updating and distributing your software? The open source it and get back to making better TVs.

  • 74 183.84@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    40
    ·
    8 days ago

    Holy shit there were so many ads in that article that I just stopped reading. It sucks LG is going down this route. They make really nice displays but now I dont ever want to buy an LG tv if its spying on me to serve me these ‘better’ ads. Fuck advertising. Its turned into a complete monster

    • Magnus@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      8 days ago

      I’ve owned one of their 850UK 4K LCDs and currently their C4 OLED. I can say unequivocally that their software is ABYSMAL. They make great panels. No doubt. But they really have no business deploying them. The worst I’ve ever used.

        • Magnus@lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          8 days ago

          LOL. I give it wifi to update and then disable it. At least in the new version it remembers your password (which is another ridiculous thing that it didn’t for the longest time). But it stays disconnected.

          I would actually lay a premium for literally a panel and nothing more. I’m shocked no one has jailbroken TVs to rip out their telemetry or made hardware bypasses. I would love to install a hardware mod chip that gives me access to the raw firmware features.

    • empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      8 days ago

      You can’t hardly even buy computer monitors without them anymore either. Every one of the higher end Samsung or LG monitors is starting to include “smart” bullshit.

    • moopet@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      8 days ago

      It’s just the addition of “AI”. We’ve been doing the same thing for a long time. I used to work for an advertising data company over a decade ago, and they filtered all the ads for one of the big channels’ streaming services in exactly the same way just with regular algorithms rather than AI. It’s what would make ads for men’s razors appear in the middle of a soap opera at 11PM because it knew the user was a man getting home from the pub.

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      8 days ago

      Sounds like you need an ad blocker. I didn’t see any ads on the article except text links that were relevant to the story, which arguably aren’t ads.

  • brot@feddit.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    39
    ·
    8 days ago

    Let’s be honest: I, as a customer, want to make informed buying decisions. I want to buy food that is tasty and maybe is healthy, but not based on some image that some marketing guys want to push. I want to choose the car which is best (and cheapest) for my purposes, and don’t want to be hearded into buying something else. I want to choose the best insurance for me and not be mislead by some emotional ad showing me a happy family.

    And I really do not want to be manipulated in an emotional vulnerable moment so that I buy something. That’s shady as fuck

  • filister@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    36
    ·
    9 days ago

    Enshittification in progress. Sadly their OLED TVs are amazing, if not for the intrusive ads. It is really crap what all those companies are doing shoving ads our throats.

    I am trying to block everything using ad blockers, DNS filtering, Pi hole, etc.

    • expr@programming.dev
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      29
      ·
      9 days ago

      I just… don’t connect the TV to the internet. Never had an issue with anything like that.

      • SwizzleStick@lemmy.zip
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        8 days ago

        This is the best way, really. Generally, you have much more control over what you plug into it.

        A display shouldn’t have anything even approaching what can be called an ‘OS’ on it. Yet here we are.

    • SwizzleStick@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      13
      ·
      8 days ago

      Sometimes even that’s not enough. I’ve had some questionable kit before that would just ignore the DNS settings fed to it if it thought they were no good, and fall back to something else preconfigured.

      pfSense is a wonderful tool for situations like that. Anything intended for local use only here just doesn’t get outside at all. Handy for stuff like a fire stick that only needs to be calling up a local media library.

      It can also mangle any DNS requests going out to a different server and redirect them to itself instead. You could do this without it with iptables/nftables on a generic Linux box, but pfSense makes it much friendlier.

      There are other packages that can do the same, but physically all you need is one piece of hardware as a bouncer that manages connections between inside/outside.

      • WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        8 days ago

        what can it do if the TV uses DoH, DoT, or something else similar? I expect that it can do nothing. unless the TV is on a separate vlan with very strictly only access to internal services

        • SwizzleStick@lemmy.zip
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          8 days ago

          At that point I would expect control of it, or at least for it to respect the configuration it is given. If neither are true, then it just doesn’t go online at all. If that’s part of the main function, then I find an alternative or live without it.

          Nothing on the inside should be sending anything to the outside that can’t be inspected before it leaves, with the exception of stuff that is directly driven by a human (guests browsing, etc).

    • Darren@sopuli.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      13
      ·
      8 days ago

      I got an LG OLED a few weeks ago. Hands down the best TV screen I’ve ever owned.

      Fuck knows what the stock OS does because I’ve only watched Apple TV through it.