[delecti]

A smart-but-disconnected TV can meet all of those functional requirements, and your nonfunctional requirements (low processing power) frankly don't matter to most people. My smart-but-disconnected TV turns on just as quickly as my PC monitors can return from sleep (a second or two); changing inputs is just as quick (input button on remote, left/right to select, okay to confirm), and the automatic input selection when a device turns on means I barely even need to endure that tiny hassle; the interface it displays is more than a dumb monitor's OSD, but not by much.

You seem to be of the opinion that it's the principle of the thing, mine is avoiding ads and bloated/slow interface. To me, keeping it disconnected avoids all of the problems of it being smart. Those "smart features" are not features to me (or most people here), but neither are they anti-features.

[potatolicious]

> "A smart-but-disconnected TV can meet all of those functional requirements, and your nonfunctional requirements"

Ehhh I beg to differ. I got a Sony TV a year or so ago with Google TV built in. It's been a nightmare - the GUI is basically unusably slow (literally 5 entire seconds from button press to response) and the whole experience sucks.

So I did what most reasonable people did - plug in some HDMI device that doesn't suck (in my case, an Apple TV) - except that didn't fix the problem entirely.

You see, this TV really really really wants to boot into Google TV. So sure, you have your dongle plugged into this HDMI port full time but it just won't reliably boot into it. Even after setting the HDMI port as the default, half the time it insists on booting into Google TV anyway. And sure, I can grab the TV remote and switch inputs - but again, it's multiple button presses on a software suite that takes ~5 seconds to respond to a single button press. It's a good 20-30 seconds just to switch inputs.

It's maddening. So maddening that I am in fact in the market for a dumb TV just so I can be rid of this cursed UX.

I'm not particularly puritanical about this. I'm willing to live with "just disconnect it", but that solution doesn't actually work for me!

[nerdix]

Are you using HDMI-CEC? You shouldn't be touching your TV remote at all. You shouldn't need to set a default HDMI input. All you have to do is press any button on the AppleTV remote and it will turn on the TV with the correct input device selected. I have a 2 year old Sony TV with GoogleTV and it works fine. I can go directly to a PS5 and Switch by just turning on the respective controller.

[potatolicious]

Yep, I'm using HDMI-CEC. I would love to just touch the Apple TV remote and have everything "just work", but for whatever reason a good 1/3rd of the time it just boots into Google TV anyway despite not touching the TV remote at all.

This sort of annoyance would be far more tolerable if the onboard software wasn't such a gigantic pain.

But it could be worse - I owned another (slightly older) Sony "smart" TV that wouldn't even display the Input switcher until ~60s after boot. It would literally give you a "TV is still starting, try again later" prompt for a good minute after the screen turns on. So I guess this is something of an improvement.

[thwarted]

Sure, that stuff "should" work and there are set ups that one "should" do, but one can say the same thing about how these things work as well: The manufacturer "shouldn't" be requiring things to work this way and "shouldn't" be forcing this software on everyone.

[Schnitz]

This isn’t what I’m experiencing at all. I have a Sony Bravia TV. The TV works flawlessly with HDMI CEC and the Apple TV port set to default. It never opens Android TV, I haven’t seen that interface in months. I also never even set up Google TV or logged in with a Google account, which is optional.

[nsxwolf]

I’ve never had HDMI-CEC not do something that absolutely infuriated me.

[j45]

HDMI-CEC is a very underrated feature not more widely known.

[Pephers]

Indeed. I was surprised when new Apple TV 4K remote was able to turn on/off my 2009 Panasonic plasma TV. And the Apple TV remote could be IR programmed to adjust the volume of my NAD amplifier, too.

This is perfect for me as I still find the picture quality of plasma sufficient and don’t want a “smart” TV.

[sgerenser]

My LG C9 OLED from 2019 works great with my AppleTV. It starts up quickly, and I only ever see its interface if I accidentally bump the TVs remote (all normal interaction including power on and volume go through the AppleTV remote). Of course I never connected it to WiFi.

[speeder]

I have one of these and was happy with it until it decided to use the notification system to nag me.

1. Lots of ads of local TV stations on the system update notifications.

2. Often it nag me about other random things too, like asking me to change the brightness settings or telling me that using the TV for too long is unhealthy.

3. Often it decides to stop work properly unless I accept license agreements. Sometimes I accept and immediately deny them again, and then the TV works fine for about a week.

4. It started to show ads for porn stuff. When I complained to my country authorities they said it was just "documentary recommendations, not ads". And thus why I can't disable them by refusing to accept the EULA for the ad service.

[sgerenser]

It’s doing all this tuff without an internet connection? Did you update the firmware since you bought it? I’ve never seen anything like you describe on mine.

[speeder]

I made the mistake of letting it update. :(

[kitsunesoba]

What year/model of Sony TV is it?

I've had a couple of Bravias over the past 7 years, with the newer of the two having been purchased in 2018 and I've not seen the smart TV homescreen once since configuring the last used input as the default. Neither were ever connected to the internet though.

Also, as I understand recent Sony TVs include something called "basic TV mode" that turns off all smart functionality and make them function much more similarly to dumb TVs, perhaps yours has this feature?

[wilburTheDog]

Hadn't heard of "basic TV mode" but it seems to be a feature of any Google TV device made in the last year or two. They say it will disable all smart tv features and leave only the HDMI inputs and antenna input.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/02/the-best-feature-of-...

https://support.google.com/googletv/answer/10408998?hl=en

[mmahemoff]

I bought a Sony 2 years ago (2019 model apparently and not a Bravia). It’s been great as a dumb telly. I have Chromecast 4K plugged in, use its remote for everything (sometimes control it from Google speakers and phone apps too). The official remote is sitting out of the way gathering dust.

[odysseus]

Thanks for this, I will stay away from any Google TV sets for my next purchase.

[HnUser12]

Kinda related note: I also have smart but disconnected Samsung TV. Everything was great until a new neighbour moved in and started repeatedly trying to connect her watch to my TV. Apparently my TV has a bluetooth that's always on and has no way to turn it off.

[bj-rn]

If you don't mind voiding your warranty, physically disconnect the BT module. There are "how to" videos on yt. Had to disconnect the WIFI module on mine (also Samsung) to make the remote work again...

[actually_a_dog]

When this happened to me, I just renamed my tv to "STOP TRYING TO PAIR WITH THIS FUCKING TV"

[jonathanlydall]

Some feedback from being sort of on the other end here.

I rent a room and the tenant is on the same WiFi network. They politely messaged me one day saying “I think you’re trying to connect to my TV”. Which as it turns out was our toddler mashing the screen on YouTube Kids. I worked out on YouTube kids how to disable the option in the app.

My point being that it’s not always a rational person you’re dealing with, being able to at least disable the option is essential.

[drewmol]

Very tangential, but this reminded me of a much more obscene [0] Wi-Fi name controversy.

https://gothamist.com/news/park-slope-childrens-salon-trolle...

[ARandomerDude]

Funny! But probably not the wisest way to introduce yourself to the neighbors.

[hot_gril]

> changing inputs is just as quick

Problem is, it's not. And turning it on is slow. Changing channels is also slow. I'm not picky or principled at all when it comes to TVs, I just want it to work without pissing me off by taking forever to do stuff, and they're failing the test. My old TVs were always fine.

Also, my last smart TV bricked itself, which I'll write off as me being unlucky but it probably wouldn't have happened with a dumb one. When I was shopping for a replacement and asked the BestBuy employee if they have any dumb TVs, he said he gets that question a lot, and no. So I don't think I'm a weirdo for wanting one.

[arcticbull]

A lot of smart TVs turn all the way off by default but have a quick power on setting buried in there that uses a bit more power when not on.

[hot_gril]

Not mine, unfortunately.

[Hikikomori]

IPtv will be slower than analog as you need to request the channel when switching.

[hot_gril]

I meant regular cable TV over coax. (Included in my apartment rent, and occasionally I want to watch sports.)

[imglorp]

Ads are really the least of our worries.

Data about attention (viewing habits) is so immensely valuable, who knows what the next generation will do to obtain it? Years ago, the TV execs told us not to have a private conversation in the TV room. We all know how very easy it would -- if they wanted -- to exfiltrate your data in a variety of ways: Kismet, group Xfinity/Fios wifi passwords, or even ultrasonic beacons between cell phones. Why would they leave cash on the table if they had the option?

[fnordpiglet]

You mean like using a pervasive low bandwidth cellular data service or Sidewalk or other such tech? I’m surprised blackholing your TV even works any more given how cheap low bandwidth data services are to both add into the set and provision at scale, compared to the value of collecting all the smart tab data that’s not connected. Don’t forget a lot of TV users aren’t savvy enough to configure them, on the other end of the spectrum.

[j45]

Running a Samsung Tv for example thru pihole can solve a lot.

[1101010010]

It's only disconnected until your neighbor's AP decides to advertise an open guest network for it to automatically connect to.

[snvzz]

Your neighbor's SmartTV might volunteer to the task of relaying tracking and ads to your SmartTV, with no manual setup involved.

[chongli]

Best solution for that is to open up the TV and disconnect the antenna.

[serf]

the best offered solution should probably be a bit better than "throw away your warranty and labor to do X."

[olyjohn]

I think that's why people are just asking to buy non-smart TVs.

[1101010010]

Any guides or recommendations on accomplishing this on LG equipment?

[Godel_unicode]

There are some videos around on the internet that show how to find the Wi-Fi module on an LG tv, for example the below. If you break your tv by trying this it’s on you.

https://youtu.be/gRrBZ2Eu5-I

[doubleg72]

Open the thing up and figure it out!

[Godel_unicode]

Great advice for breaking a $1000 piece of kit.

A convenient rule of thumb for this advice is that anyone who should follow it doesn’t need it. Everyone else should be redirected to a teardown video.

[kjs3]

Or they embed a 4G/5G radio.

[gruez]

There's no evidence that smart TVs actually do that, aside from a few scant anecdotes from reddit.

[roywiggins]

They don't do it yet. I don't think it's crazy to imagine that changing, especially with stuff like Amazon's Sidewalk.

[Godel_unicode]

I have tried pretty hard (I came up with 100 common Wi-Fi names by googling around) and have never been able to get it to happen. With enterprise grade Wi-Fi gear it’s pretty trivial to create a ton of AP names and route them all to a test VLAN.

If it sounds like the idea comes with a tinfoil hat, best to investigate with a skeptical eye.

[Larrikin]

Networks with no password and no captive sign in portal are extremely rare nowadays. They are on by default and anyone with the IT ability to go in and change it will already know the dangers of letting anyone use the Internet you are paying for.

But also are there any actual confirmed cases of TVs doing this? The comment section here always fear mongers about it (kudos for not mentioning Amazon sidewalk), but it isn't anything worth worrying about currently.

[1101010010]

> Networks with no password and no captive sign in portal are extremely rare nowadays.

In my suburban-American experience, they are in fact they are more common these days as more consumers purchase and own ISP-provided equipment.

> But also are there any actual confirmed cases of TVs doing this?

Given the nature of proprietary closed source software, I am willing to accept a less than charitable assumption of what they do.

[Godel_unicode]

Which ISPs are giving out APs with no key needed and no captive portal? Every one that I’m aware of requires some manner of secret to login to the shared AP.

[roywiggins]

There's nothing actually stopping an ISP from making a deal with a TV manufacturer to provide connectivity though, is there?

[Godel_unicode]

There’s also nothing stopping any of them from including an Iridium modem in their sets. Or using aircrack to try and break into a nearby network. Or any other tinfoil hat thing we can come up with.

There are literally thousands of paranoid security researchers who would love to post about something like this (hi), and none of them have. That’s hardly conclusive, but if it’s not good enough for you then maybe you should reconsider whether society is the place for you.

[kjs3]

Why would you think LG/Samsung/Sony/etc don't have corp creds for every ISP AP on the planet?

[Godel_unicode]

That’s moving the goalpost pretty far, don’t you think?

[chillfox]

Not really, The default wifi router supplied by the biggest ISP here has got a guest network turned on by default.

[Larrikin]

Which ISP? Comcast in America does that crap, but it's worthless to snoopers since you need a Comcast account to do anything on it, so will actively need to log in.

[Godel_unicode]

Can you connect to it and get internet without hitting a captive portal that requires your ISP creds? That’s usually how it happens in the US.

[scythe]

>A smart-but-disconnected TV can meet all of those functional requirements

One of them will. This thread is full of conflicting anecdotes: one user's smart TV turns on quickly and works like a dumb TV when it's not connected to the Internet; another user's TV takes a full sixty seconds to get going. The fact that one smart TV will do the thing does not at all imply that another one will.

And if you have to search for what kind of smart TV will act like a dumb TV when you want it to, you are already looking for a dumb TV! You still have to look at reviews and seek out the other people who didn't want any of this corporate surveillance catastrophe to find out what happened to them. It is the same search process with a slightly broader scope at the cost of a more complicated definition of that scope.

Meanwhile, I got a 40" Sceptre dumb TV from Walmart last year and it's been a very satisfying decision. It was cheaper than most if not all of the smart TVs, too. And I don't have to treat it like a contamination risk or worry about it finding an open WiFi network. Maybe I'm just one of those old curmudgeons who doesn't care about image quality. Couldn't tell you.

[kelnos]

> My smart-but-disconnected TV turns on just as quickly as my PC monitors

Probably because your smart TV is never actually turned off, but sits in a standby state that wastes electricity.

[singron]

You have to be careful. My Samsung smart tv throws up a splash screen whenever any HDMI input is plugged in or wakes up, which can only be dismissed by using the remote. Sometimes it even shows a few frames of the HDMI input before switching to the splash screen. Infuriating!

[lesuorac]

This kills me about the Apple TV.

It didn't used to display an ad for Apple's channels but now it does and it requires the remote to dismiss... Previously you could just blindly airplay something but now you have to airplay + dismiss the ad with the remote.

[fnordpiglet]

I’ve been using Apple TV since the first generation and haven’t gotten an ad in my experience - did something change or a new version of the hardware I’ve not noticed yet show up? Are you using the Apple TV app itself?

[desro]

This has never happened to me in 8+ years over dozens of Apple TV's in both home and office settings.

[justsomeadvice0]

That sounds horrible and I would immediately quit the ecosystem... I have never experienced this in nearly a decade of use, but I also pay for TV+; is it possible you got the bad luck of getting a terrible A/B test or something?

[beardedwizard]

I frequently use AirPlay with Apple TV and have never experienced this

[harry8]

I have a 75" Sony bravia smart tv and it draws 10-20 watts in standby.

I have a 70" dell monitor used as a a tv in another room it draws 0 watts in standby.

[wholinator2]

Maybe my ignorance here but a 70 inch monitor? At what point is it just a dumb tv? Like is monitor a term used to describe its actual engineering and functionality or just how it's used. Also if engineering, is there a substantial price difference?

[throw0101c]

> Maybe my ignorance here but a 70 inch monitor?

"Dell 75 4K Interactive Touch Monitor - D7523QT":

* https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-75-4k-interactive-touch...

"Dell 65 4K Interactive Touch Monitor - C6522QT"

* https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-65-4k-interactive-touch...

Use-case seems to be conference rooms.

[shric]

I've never seen a 70 inch monitor either, but usually text looks a lot better on a monitor and of course many monitors offer much higher refresh rates.

Ads aren't the only reason why a 42" 4K TV is generally much cheaper than a 32" 4K monitor

[aix1]

In addition to what others have already mentioned, it would generally be completely acceptable for a monitor to not have built-in speakers. For a TV, not so much.

[macintux]

Ugh, opportunity to rant a bit. As of some iPadOS release last year, I can no longer connect my iPad to a monitor while simultaneously using Airplay to send audio to my HomePod. I assume this is a DRM-imposed bug, but it’s frustrating as hell.

I finally bought a cheap speaker with a 3.5mm input because none of my existing Bluetooth speakers have one, so I could plug it into my monitor, but it’s crappy audio and a crappy workaround for a crappy limitation.

[astrostl]

Look for a power setting related to quick boots. They are common and increase power draw (at a benefit of quicker on/off cycles).

[cybertronic]

Is the Sony tv disconnected?

[actually_a_dog]

20 watts standby is only about 14.7 kWh per month. Even at on-peak, summer PG&E rates, we're only talking about $7/month. Granted, I'd much rather pay $0 than $7, and I'd rather not waste energy, but we're probably not talking about anything close to the amount of energy the average household wastes. I'd be looking at refrigerators and other large appliances for energy savings long before I'd be thinking about how much electricity the TV uses on standby.

[kortex]

That's 20W and $84/yr to do absolutely nothing. There is absolutely, positively no reason the standby power draw needs to be that high. I'm fine with like, 100-1000mW to allow whatever background circuity is required to wake up, but 20W is absurd. That's enough to reasonably illuminate a bedroom (your average 100W-equivalent LED bulb is 14-20W).

[prepend]

$7/month is a really high amount. Especially for nothing. Or something I actively don’t want.

I have lots of dumb devices in my house I don’t want piling on $7 so the manufacturer can try to earn $0.30/month in data fees. I have multiple TVs, a washer, a dryer, a fridge, a cryo tank, lots of things. I don’t want them to waste $7 each.

[justinclift]

cryo tank?

[warkdarrior]

A tank you go in and cry every evening after work.

[jfim]

Probably a cold immersion tub.

[kelnos]

Are you seriously trying to suggest that paying $7/mo for literally nothing is a reasonable thing to do? Not to mention the waste this causes...

Sure, other appliances may suck down more power, but at least you are getting something valuable for that energy use and expense.

[actually_a_dog]

I am not. I am suggesting there are other savings in the average household energy budget that are more significant. Besides, even "waste" electricity heats a home in the winter, so it's not quite as bad as it sounds even.

[tapland]

And it heats it when you want it cool in the summer. So it’s actually net worse?

Unless you have a crazy old bad refrigerator that TV would be up there with the most costly appliance per month for most people. WHILE BEING OFF.

You are off your rocker here

[samtho]

I would argue the TV is the most wasteful thing you mentioned. The refrigerator, even if it is inefficient, still does it’s job by cooling food. That ~15kWh monthly to your TV to exist in an off state does nothing for your quality of life. It’s not like the energy is uses somehow charged the TV for future use, it’s just running internal systems that we have no insight into and most likely does not benefit us.

[tapland]

$7/mo would be something like 1/5 of my electricity bill and we run 2x old overclocked fx-8350s, (w/ dual monitors) and do all cooking at home.

That’s a lot for something functionally off.

[justinclift]

So, about US$100 a year?

Doesn't that seem like a pretty crap deal if you're planning on using the TV for 5+ years or so?

[cameldrv]

Say you keep the TV for 7 years, that's $588. You can get a 75 inch Sony Bravia TV for $1500. You want to pay 1/3 of the price of your TV just to power it while it is turned off?

[n0zmer]

Exactly this. More than 7$ a month leave my bank account every month on so many random things, subscriptions I forget to cancel, virtual machines I forget to destroy etc etc. I'd rather have my TV shutdown / turn on quickly over sweating about a random $7 savings on an electric bill that I wouldn't even see anyway.

[serf]

you don't need to be put into a financial crunch by the $7 in order to see it as wasteful, and it doesn't take 20W of energy to get a television to do things quickly.

we're in this sorry state of affairs because of people accepting lower quality without protest, while expecting everything to be cheap. Companies are in a bad spot, and so are consumers.

[amw]

Demand doesn't really drive supply, not the way we're told it does. The manufacturers want to make devices that give them a further income stream, and they just have a marketing budget for making sure demand doesn't drop too low for what they're making.

[emodendroket]

I also wonder if an older device with lower processing power doesn't draw more power, which is a metric I find it easier to care about.

[rolenthedeep]

Just because a problem doesn't affect you personally doesn't mean that it isn't a problem.

[somedude895]

> A smart-but-disconnected TV can meet all of those functional requirements

I agree. The question should be "What TV doesn't force smart features upon me" instead. I've had an LG Smart TV for four years. Never connected it to the internet, only use it with Apple TV and PS4. I notice none of the issues that GP mentioned.