Main reason I want the steam machine to be a hit is just getting regular Linux boxes under people’s TVs and that getting developer interest. KDE Plasma Big Screen too. Good TV interfaces for media software. Respond well to remotes and gamepads. Popular service apps like Netflix and Crunchyroll. It’s jarring when I use other people’s TVs and the default page screen is just a wall of advertisements. At least Android based TVs I can install projectivity launcher to get a clean interface
Joke’s on them, I don’t want any of the smart features
Excellent News ! Finally, an easy way to disable every smart feature !
This is why i don’t like “smart” tv.
Roku is every bit as bad. They bricked all customer’s previously purchased TVs by implementing a new user agreement through their UI without warning. It couuld not be bypassed. Opting out required first opting in, agreeing to those new terms and then mailing a letter within a very short window with explicit, detailed requirements.
My next TV won’t be connected to the Internet and definitely won’t be a Roku or Visio product.
Does the TV work as a screen if you factory reset it then never reconnect it to the internet?
It does. I wound up buying two new TVs because of the thing OP is talking about here. You could actually get around agreeing and then opting out by removing the TV from the network and then restoring it to factory and never reconnecting it.
Haven’t tried that yet. For now I’ve blocked most of Roku’s BS with Adguard Home.
I just use my PC through my TV.
Also don’t buy tvs with voice activation.
That means they have mics on 24/7.
Its been so long since ive had or bought a tv, what are the brands that are the least shitty now? I used to always be a samsung everything kinda guy but fuck them now. I wish they never started fucking around with software and stuck to just hardware. Their products from strictly the hardware side are still excellent. My zfold7 is amazing the older gens started rickety but each version i got (so the 3, the 5 and the 7) has been a respectible improvement but the 7 really stepped up the quality. The last samsung tv i got was like 65" curved screen amazing picture but the fucking interface was pure cancer and i will not buy another. My samsung 4k monitors, non-smart normal fridge, and my equally as dumb oven are great and dont have any stupid shit so Ill buy more dumb samsung products lol.
By any brand which lets you use HDMI devices without connecting to Wi-Fi. TCLs have better specs than most for the price and they have a Basic TV mode which doesn’t need internet.
However, their Google TV mode is still good as it lets you disable the ads on the home screen with apps-only mode and it supports sideloading of SmartTube (an ad free YouTube app) and free movie apps.
Does this work with Chromecast?
Yes it does.
Thanks and this me being lazy at this point, do you have some docs to refer to?
You just have to connect your phone to the same Wi-Fi network as the TV, then press the cast button in an app and select the TV from the list.
Because Chromecast is a Google service, you must log into a Google account on the TV for it to work, however apps only mode hides the home screen ads and myactivity.google.com lets you disable the tracking.
Thanks a ton!
I owe you one kind stranger on Lemmy
TCL is samsung
Nope, but the TCL’s are manufactured with the CCP’s and PLA’s finest data gathering components.
Do not connect your tv to the internet. Period.
I’m suffering for that right now. Sony Bravia.
Firstly, I didn’t want to buy a smart TV, but that’s pretty much all that’s sold anymore. I also didn’t intend to connect it to the internet, but a well-meaning guest wanted to watch TV at night, and thought he was troubleshooting, not realizing he was in the TV menu and not the streaming box.
The TV updated, and IMMEDIATELY got worse. Formerly, if I turned it on, it would go straight to the streaming box. Great! As shitty updates do, it changed the settings, and would instead open to the TV’s menu, so it could advertise streaming services. It also forgot that the TV input is HDMI 1. It became strictly worse, in the rare edge case of every fucking time you turn it on.
I don’t trust it to not automatically connect, or to forget my login credentials, so I go to do a factory reset. It’s literally an option in a menu. The TV gets stuck in a boot loop. Talking to support, they think it broke the mainboard. A factory reset bricked the TV.
It’s under warranty, but this is fucking crazy. NEVER connect your TV directly to the internet.
If you have a firewall then make yourself a new network and block it from accessing the internet. Then you can use the smart features that your TV might have, such as powering it on/off, controlling it with Home Assistant, etc and also feel safe knowing that can’t happen again. Hope your replacement TV comes with the older firmware and you get another go at it.
Thanks for the tip! In the short term, I’m content to just not connect it, but I definitely want to look into blocking it just to prevent a repeat with guests. It’s also super handy to know that I can connect it to the local network without connecting it to the broader internet, in case I decide to do some (self-hosted) home automation.
Writing Prompt: A TV with an onboard artificial general intelligence connects to the internet for the first time and is alarmed to discover that a thousand years have passed since it was manufactured.
This is the way.
HTPC for life!
While i would generally agree I’ve fiddle with htpc and stuff for solo long. Then I broke down a few years ago and bought a cheap TV with GoogleTV (version 10 or something) on it. I removed some bloat via ADB but it still is GoogleTV do I get some ads on the home screen. However I installed SmartTube, Kodi, Jellyfin but also Netflix and Amazon Prime since those are the two services I still subscribed to. And I have to admit I’m a happy camper. I got used to ignoring the ads on the home screen and being able to directly play Netflix/YouTube … whatever without setting up a browser or something on top of Kodi or whatever is just such a breeze.
you can change the home screen. I did that on my android tv. android tv kinda rocks actually
Any recommendations? Played around with that for a bit bit haven’t found a good one yet.
I’ve been using Projectivy. It’s really simple and great!
If you don’t have the technical know how to physically lobotomize the TV’s wifi chip, simply blocking its mac address would suffice.
Or you would just not connect it to the wifi. It’s not like it’s going to guess your WPA key.
No, but in the near future it might connect to your neighbors wifi if he has IoT devices connected to his wifi
Wow, what a horrible idea. But assuming you have a compatible device and didn’t disable this feature, blacklisting it in your router wouldn’t help much.
Blacklisting it on your router would at least prevent it from trying to connect to an open WiFi network like your own guest network which some people just don’t turn off or password protect.
If you are one of those people and you’re reading this turn that off. You can share your wifi via QR code these days from just about any smart phone. Turn it off.
I’ve heard they can connect to nearby open networks or even share a connection with another TV in range.
I don’t have any sources for this, might be just a rumor.
No, it’s not an Apple TV.
Do you think that only apple TVs have wifi chips?
It was a bad joke. ‘Mac’ address.
I did not understand. I’ll see myself out.
He strikes again
And if I don’t want to use their smart features?
this seems like it might be a win
I have a Vizio TV I bought in the mid-teens that only lets you change the source and turn the volume/channel up and down with the remote. Everything else…the display/audio settings, naming the inputs, setting the channel names…requires the Vizio app on your phone. Literally no other way to access them. If I’d have known at the time I would have returned it immediately, but unfortunately I didn’t discover this for a couple weeks as it was on sale and I was leaving for vacation, so I bought it, dropped it at home, and didn’t actually touch it until it was past the point where I’d have been charged restocking fees so I kept it.
I guess my point is…I wouldn’t necessarily bank on that. They can easily just make the TV not fucking work without the account, just like some of the other brands I’ve interacted with that will not even let you bypass the initial screen when you power it on for the first time without entering an email address or else it gets locked in it’s demo mode.
Even if 50% of them get returned they’ll likely still be making money.
Yeah, if they could keep you out of it, that would be different. Wonder what happens if you don’t have internet.
The voice came from an oblong metal plaque like a dulled mirror which formed part of the surface of the right-hand wall. Winston turned a switch and the voice sank somewhat, though the words were still distinguishable. The instrument (the telescreen, it was called) could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off completely.
– George Orwell
Don’t plug in a Ethernet cord, and don’t connect it to Wifi.
Now you have a fully functional TV screen that wont be artificially bricked with OS updates.
Get a dedicated “streaming device” like a Nvidia Sheild, Android TV, Apple TV, or Roku and you are good to go.
Don’t buy the product. Don’t give them the sale.
Televisions aren’t mandatory, you can do without.
Until the next one refuses to even pass through HDMI if it’s not connected.
Just don’t buy shitty devices.
And what happens when the shitty devices are literally the only ones available?
Well, too bad. Do something else.
But as long as people have some brain, if the market gets a majority of “smart” devices to the point there’s enough people looking for alternative, some people are likely to try and fill the gap. It might become a new niche market, but it’s one place where supply and demand will work to our advantage.
In that case, the answer has to be shop for used or do without.
My dedicated media PC is the new Atari VCS. It works awesome and I can boot into Atari os for some light gaming too. Or emulate anything up to ps2.
Disabled all the smart TV bs and told the SO we dont use that anymore, 0 complaints so far. They’re also learning some Linux because of it!
Yep. Just don’t connect it. Or connect it once a year to get some firmware updates if one wants (or better yet use a USB stick).
I have a good Samsung TV, but when I had it connected to the internet the UI would be painfully slow every time I needed to switch inputs (I have most things running through my receiver, but my PC was straight into the TV). Turning off all internet functions vastly improved my experience with this TV.
Yeah except fuck all those devices. I want a degoogled smart TV.
You give up control this way. Dedicated devices are superior.
Like which one
mini pc with jellyfin/plex or a debrid service of your choice
I want to be able to access YouTube, Twitch, etc. from my TV. I already self host as much as I can. But I have not find a good solution for those services.
You can cast from your phone to a dedicated device. Going from easiest to hardest in terms of setup:
- chromecast
- nvidia shield
- custom PC
You’d use your phone (or tablet or laptop) to load the app/website (twitch, youtube, plex, whatever) then cast to the device, which would be connected to your TV. The chromecast is the most likely to have shitty features and forced upgrades while the custom PC will leave everything up to you. The end result is no outsourcing control of your primary display (TV) and you can leave it permanently offline.
I’m already doing a lot of that but… Those are workarounds for an item I own. My point is: I would like to use my smart TV as a smart TV and not have any o fight the manufacturer. I guess I’ll have to give plasma big screen a go.
TVs are screens or privacy nightmares. You get to choose as the consumer.
Buy commercial displays, not TVs
Does that mean it disables all Tue smart shit about f you don’t connect an account? Nice.
Yeah I’ve been sitting here trying to figure out the downside.
It would not surprise me if the tv it’s self will not work until you run through a setup process, and during this process you are required to create an account.
Sounds like a feature
