Why Can’t You Buy a “Dumb TV?”
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 พ.ค. 2024
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Why is it so difficult to buy a "dumb TV" - that is, a TV without smart features built-in?
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One slight nitpick: you need more than just a big monitor to pick up broadcast tv
haven't these people read 1984
@@infernalstan886 and an antenna
Here’s one for the LTT team. Finding and testing affordable 4k dumb panels or dumb hospitality TVs
Please
Just by a consumer TV with Google TV and use the Basic TV mode.
Unless you fork out some $ that OS gonna be slow as sh!t though…
As they showed in the video Sceptre still makes dumb TV's if you can find them I have one of their 55"4K models and it's not 1/2 bad if you turn off the HDR which makes everything look way too bright, and you don't need a built in ATSC 3.0 tuner.
Just a normal monitor
Imagine spending 2500$ on a TV just get a bunch of ads shown to you. Truly the best timelime.
Let me introduce you to LG and Samsung 😅
@@oh_zoinkerslet me disappoint you:
My Samsung tv has ads in the menu
And that has the power of an Alarm clock
You mean time lemon. I think there's one made by scepter but I don't know how good it is.
@@Lucas_van_Houtoh my glorious god!
All I want is a "dumb mode" so that it boots to HDMI while the OS loads in the background, instead of making me wait for the TV to boot its OS so I can select HDMI from a menu.
It doesn't need an OS at all.
*Literally* every OS for every mainstream smart TV has the option to boot straight to an input.
Google TV has a setting under System > Energy > turn on behavior where you can change to turn on to the last source.
Sony Google TV/Android TV can do that *and* you can set the input for the "TV" button to any input you like so pressing the TV button turns on the system and sets it to... HDMI 3 or whatever, regardless of what the last input was.
LG WebOS: Settings -> General -> System -> Additional settings -> Home settings -> Power on screen -> Set the input of choice.
Samsung Tizen (Does this by default unless in "Store Demo" mode, in which case you should set it to Home Mode.
FireTV (Various manufacturers): Settings -> Display and [or &] Sounds -> Set Power -> Last input
Roku TV (Various Manufacturers, older TCL, etc.): Settings -> Power -> Power on -> Choose the input to which your device will power on.
@@filonin2 It *literally* does. Firmware is a type of OS.
Firmware is required to allow the TV to run the video ISP and optimize the device's output, do bitmapping, and provided decryption services for things like HDCP.
Without it, the device would never know what luminance level of the TV would match to the level of the video input.
My grandma has a TV exactly like this. She has dementia, so she can't even turn on her own TV without help (because it boots in smart mode), and it has no option to boot normally. Yeah, smart tvs are slow and dumb.
@@tim3172damn, you some kind of TV wizard or something?!
Anyway I think it's just that he wants that to be the default. The average user doesn't like to go digging in menus especially not for features they don't even know exist...
We still have our dumb 1080p Sony TV that we're keeping unti it fully dies.
Me to
Keep it alive! Don't let dumb TVs go extinct.
@@chitwansingh Seeing as how you need an external box today for cable and satellite TV, I'd just buy a 'dumb' computer monitor to watch TV on.
I have a dumb samsung, am doing the same
Mine even have some vertical lines that disappear when the panel warm up but I’m not going to change it until it completely dies
Funnily several people I know used to buy whole new printers every time they ran out of ink, because there was a period of time, when a whole printer here was cheaper than a refill, which is ridiculous.
Exactly what I do with razor blades. 8 replacement blades are like 27€, 3.37€ each, but the full razor with one installed and one spare is 4€. It's ridiculous, but I'm obviously buying the full pack each time...
@@Vercingetorix45 Spend a few tens of Euros on a decent single-blade safety razor, and then spend the rest of your life not worrying about the cost of razor blades. I get a better, closer, smoother shave with less irritation from my grandfather's World War II-era solid brass Gillette safety razor than from any contemporary multi-blade scam razor I've ever tried, and the old-school safety razor blades cost less than a (US) dime apiece.
@@Vercingetorix45look into DE razors or a razor like the LEAF razor
cool made up story. there is literally no chance this is real.
@@bartolomeothesatyr If you really want to save money, get a straight razor. You will never get a better shave.
If they review the best practically available dumb tv, I'll probably go out and buy one
Sceptre
32" monitors are commonly $200. Really nice color accuracy.
@@DirranProductionsdoesn't work if you want something bigger tho. Trying to look for a 4k hdr 50 inch dumb TV is basically impossible
@@loganatori6117 haha, you'd probably have better luck finding a giant CRT than those unicorns.
Somewhat ironically, it's hard to find a small TV now too.
Search for Commercial TV
Even computer monitors aren’t safe anymore. My 34” QD-OLED Samsung monitor is also a “smart tv”. Thankfully, if you press skip enough times you can keep internet connection and whatnot turned off.
What? what model is this EDIT: ah the G8, fucking disgusting
Imaging buying a computer monitor with smart features when the device you're going to connect to it can do everything the smart software can and then some.
Definitely a skill issue of buying a non smart computer monitor is difficult.
@@rashira9610 search "The unfixable 8000 dollar stove" and watch the first minute and 20 seconds.
@rashira9610 "skill issue" 🙄
Pretty sure the point is no one has had any reason to even think a MONITOR" would have anything like that on it, but way to pretend you're special.
@@MaddJakd I mean if the advertisement literally says it has smart features you should probably assume it has smart features and avoid it.
It's really not hard. If you buy a computer monitor that's plagued with the same issues as modern TV'S, that's on you.
Even my G9 came with "smart features" and forced a EULA down my throat to "help" serve better adverts. Now windows gives me ads, Google give me ads, TH-cam gives me ads, content creators give me ads, and my monitor want to give me ads 😭
all your attention span are belong to us
Well, the obvious solution is of course [the rest of the reply after this ad break]
And this advert is a segue to our sponser, ad break 😂
Know what doesn’t give you ads? Apple TV!
@@johnnemesh5459I don’t get why “smart” TVs can’t come with Apple TV like how “smart” cars come with Apple’s CarPlay
I don't understand why advertising works anymore. In 2024, isn't everyone terrible jaded with the onslaught? I don't pay attention to 99.99% of ads. Do they get their revenue from the 0.01%?
Right?! How has marketing not died already? At this point, any advertisement memorable enough to consciously register is also intrusive enough to get its advertiser added to my mental "do-not-buy" list.
@@bartolomeothesatyr exactly!
Unfortunately, as much as we'd all like to think we're immune from ads (myself included), we're not.
@@kristianTV1974 I'm not saying I'm immune. But I have no interest in probably 90% or more of what is targeted at me. That is why I was speculating that its the 10% they are interested in. Its like spam and scammers i guess.
@@cella630a fool and his money are easily parted
Here in Germany, there still is a brand that mainly sells "dumb TVs". They're called Metz. I did an internship at a small electronic business and a lot of older people just wanted to watch regular television, some Blu rays or DVDs. Also their remote still features a lot of buttons compared to newer ones. The blokes in the business always sad, pay the extra for them, because they don't break and people are used to the controls. Also they have the advantage of being made in Germany and are premium overall, they don't have cheap, bad sounding speakers, but rather a decent integrated soundbar. If you want a really good TV, I can always recommend them, even if you need a smart TV, they have them too.
You're not paying extra for a dumb TV. You're just paying for the TV. Smart TVs are subsidized by corporations that use them as advertising devices.
I will look into Metz when I have the funding.
I much rather buy a really good "dumb" TV and add extra features with an externale device that can easily be updated or swapped.
I just looked at the Metz site, and all but one are "smart."
(I also noted that almost every TV has an energy rating of "F"... But then, this is the first time I've seen that rating system, and I doubt any other manufacturer would willingly display their ratings in such a clear-cut way-- lest we discover there are ratings lower than "F.")
@@ichijofestival2576 If that's true, than it's sad.
About the energy rating. Don't think I've seen a TV with an energy rating bellow E.
Pretty sure the energy rating is very strict.
@@AndreasElf Yeah, screens are massive energy hogs. I suspect the only way to get (close to) an A would be that screen Linus reviewed a few weeks back that had no backlighting.
I watch all my content through the web browser on my laptop hooked up to my TV as a monitor. I haven't seen an ad for over a year. Absolute bliss.
you seem like the target audience for a "media PC", but hey if the laptop works for you then why not.
Sounds like you're the last sane guy in this comment section
This is why the first thing I did when I got gifted a smart TV was remove the wifi module. If it broke the TV, I didn’t care, having the ability to connect to the internet or even so much as try to survey for networks was already broken as far as I was concerned. Am I paranoid? Maybe. Do these manufacturers have the financial incentive to do shady shit just to make ridiculous profits on something I already paid for? Also yes.
I just never connected it to the internet. For the one time I wanted to download VLC I just connected Ethernet.
What I wonder is why haven't we started jailbreaking/rooting these things yet, I cant imagine it'd be much harder to install a cracked os on a tv than it is on a phone.
I would imagine this is primarily due to DRM schemes like HDCP. Otherwise I could envision a whole cottage industry springing up around lobotomizing smart TVs.
Then again, white hat hackers routinely break into DRM-encumbered devices like game consoles. So who's to say?
It kind of is, you can enable network debugging and use a pc, and some TVs have usb ports as well as flashing roms from the usb.
The biggest problem is that doing anything like that would alter your device fingerprint and that causes the streaming services to start blocking your device.
@GMPranav
That's the dumbest shit I've ever heard. Why haven't those streaming services blocked any of my other devices? My Android TV stick?
...because all they see is "android device". They're not doing shit about a rooted TV.
@@kunimitsune177 Hardware-based decryption with a verified boot chain is a thing. Otherwise you get lower resolution video in many popular streaming services. Yes, even some Android phones running custom roms and even linux desktops have the issue.
My Hisense U8K upon turning it on the first time, gives me the option of using the OS or being a dumb TV. More companies need to do this.
Nice. My TCL asked to connect to the wi-fi, I told it no, and it never asked again
But Chinese tvs are notorious for spywares. Beware.
@@Collin_J I just deleted all the WiFi data off of my 43 inch TCL 4k. It's basically a dumb TV because the home screen just shows my HDMI inputs.
TBH it's hard to blame the manufacturers. Get that bag, it's free and most importantly recurrent income for doing basically nothing at all. The advertisers though, can go right to hell. They know the worthless context of every crevice their garbage is being pushed into, and continue with efforts to piss me off. They'll PAY to bother me, so now it's personal.
You'd think there was a marked for someone to make actual dumb products like before. "Use our printer, and it will just print your stuff, even if you lack a color you're not going to use".
"The printer will try its best even without ink, its the thought that matters"
Well, there's certainly demand, but it's probably been established as "not profitable enough", so no capitalist company ever will.
Unfortunately, the reason for that is government spying and tech lobbying! Look up why printers won't print without color ink. Interesting stuff.
Printers are required to print encoded identifier dots, and on color printers it uses yellow.
What can be removed is the mixing of cyan and magenta into the black "to make it look better" and the extreme amount of ink wasted on head cleaning (it doesn't need to use so much or do it as often)
@@ttomkins4867 Why?
(1) Buy whichever TV most closely serves your purposes. (2) Never connect it to the Internet.
On way to fool a smart TV is to connect it to your WiFi, and then "pause" the Internet connection to the TV using your WiFi router's control software. My two smart TV's (Roku and Samsung) have not seen the Internet since Roku pulled their little "click to agree or buy a new TV" stunt. They will never see the Internet again.
why you discriminate you give wifi to pc and smartphone but not tv
@@TRYING-NOT-TO-OFFEND-YOU LMAO
@@TRYING-NOT-TO-OFFEND-YOU Bro works for Roku 💀
The moment manufacturers find out they can just add a sim card and use one of the $1 per year mobile services for IOT devices even disconnecting from internet wont help.
@@TRYING-NOT-TO-OFFEND-YOU Because my TV has one purpose - to show the video signal I send it. Nothing else. Why didn't I just buy a computer monitor? TV's are cheaper, and I don't need a high refresh rate. I'm one of those people who can't see fast refresh rates. To my eyes, LED bulbs never flicker, and I can't see the difference between a 60Hz monitor and a 240Hz monitor. I can - sometimes - see the difference between 30 and 60Hz.
"buy a really large computer monitor"
**has to physically get up to power monitor on and off like it's the 50's**
you could get a smart outlet/plug that just kills power to the display when you're not using it. Then when you turn power on it'll to into standby until it receives input. could even connect it to a Google home/Alexa so you can toggle it with your voice
you know every operating system has an auto-off/wakeup feature right
If its plugged into a pc you can use ddc to turn it off from pc. Clickmonitorddc or twinkletray are good software that use that protocol, it works via dvi hdmi displayport
That's actually a problem when you use a TV as a computer monitor. Real computer monitors go into standby when you turn off the computer - TV's don't.
I'm sure you can build a remote for it.
Remember when things were made to last lifetime ? Personally i always thought that was nostalgia from parents or something else.
But when i was taking courses for engineering, there was a particular subject in statistics, where a in text book a problem was "given the information above, calculate the approximate life time of the product, and verify its just a couple of days after the warranty period is over"
I'd pay extra for a dumb TV. And I know PLENTY of people who would do the same.
Fuck that. They should cost less
@@MutleeIsTheAntiGodI don't think you watched the video if that's your take away
@@MutleeIsTheAntiGod If you aren't paying for it then YOU are the product. If they can't display ads and sell you services then you can't be the product, so the cost has to come from somewhere else. hit: your wallet. You either pay with your time and sanity or your wallet (or both if you don't know how to sail the sees)
@@MutleeIsTheAntiGod They SHOULD. But it would be worth extra money not to have that "smart" junk on the TV.
The dumbest shit is when I have my Samsung TV on, it's on the correct hdmi in, I turn on my laptop, the Windows homescreen pops up for .5 seconds then the whole TV goes to a loading screen and says "detecting input" like it wasn't already there.
Also it defaults back to 60 hz every God damn time I plug it in. So I have to re set it to Game Mode and Free Sync on to get 1440@120hz
I bought a TCL 55 inch Q75 TV, updated the firmware, turned off all Wifi AP service on it, and refused to add any accounts to it. If they aren't going to make a 4K dumb TV for me, then I will make it as dumb as possible.
Custom firmware?
Good luck, i had 2 tcls that lasted 3-4 years
what if they make turning WiFi on a requirement from factory? in a similar vein to how Windows 11 goes out of its way to stop you from making local accounts?
that's a grim future
@@kamo7293 No need, they'll just put 5G in them
@@kamo7293they would then have to force a working WiFi connection as well. The more advanced users will probably find a way to put the TV in a VLAN with little to no internet connection. In the end it will be a cat and mouse game. This is something that needs to be regulated.
To summarize, you can’t easily find “dumb” TVs because of corporate greed.
It’s also this level of greed that is leading companies to now monitor what you’re doing when you’re just using HDMI to start injecting ads there too. Because how dare you deny them money on something you already paid for by not using features you didn’t want but were forced to get.
>because of corporate greed
You could also say it's because people will only buy the cheapest thing even if it's shittier, so the manufacturers are forced to resort these measures to have any hopes of having their stuff bought.
@@chuuni6924 That makes sense at the low end, but why can’t you find higher end “dumb” TVs?
Like was pointed out in the video. It all comes down to the TV manufacturers not being able to make even more money after the sale of that $1000 TV.
I blame it on patents and copyright that create a higher bar of entry for competition.
just don't plug network into it. i've got a samsung whose smart OS i've litterally never seen because the OSD is seprate from it and i've never had a reason to hit the button on the remote that brings it up.
@@StolenJoker84 there is no market for that. The amouth of people willing to buy a 1000+ TV AND have the dealbreaker requirement be that it must be "dumb" is dozens at best. People want cheap shit, so they make them cheap and gain the money elsewhere. They're not gonna manufacture what doesnt sell, even if they wanted to
I hate smart TVs. Mine is running android tv and it's lagging a lot, even when not connected to the internet... It's sometimes even lagging out while adjusting volume.
Try using a custom launcher like Projectivy. Way less bloated. You can also use Fast Task Killer to free up memory.
That's not really a smart TV thing. It's a cheap smart TV thing. They probably just cheaped out on the cpu and shit...
I would watch the heck out of an LTT video that highlighted some of the best “Dumb TVs” out there. I promise to click your affiliate links if I see something I like!
give it a couple of years before your toilet seat won't open up without a monthly subscription or you can opt for the ad supported tier.
How I miss the world of the 2000s- cable channels aplenty, most still fulfilling the mandate implied by their names, new content being produced, yes we had to pay but the increase in value over free over the air was huge, and the technical complexity was low. A magical time.
All those things have declined in quality, but remain. When I am at last forced to give it up, I might give up on TV. Too much work, too many separate services with overlapping content, too much content appearing and disappearing at whim. It's like paying for a dvd library and having people come and take it away weekly.
You're forgetting that TVs designed to receive HDTV signals already need some pretty heavy compute to decode the mpeg stream, that they're increasingly relying on simple microprocessors instead of specialized hardware to decode those signals, and that adding smart TV functionality is a matter of a bit more RAM and PROM, some software and some extra buttons on the remote. So it's a really easy add-in.
It's easy to add in these features, but they're so unnecessarily forced onto us.
Just because you can connect the TV to the internet and allow it to access TH-cam or Netflix or whatever, doesn't mean that either everybody wants it or it's necessary, y'know...
Besides, the fact that the processors built into the TVs are pathetically slow compared to using the Chromecast, Apple TV dongle, and Amazon Firestick, means that all that extra stuff in the TV and on the remote is pretty much useless - unless Google decides to one fine day enter the television set market and build a TV that processes the apps no differently from the Chromecast whatsoever, which might happen when pigs fly.
The worst thing is that Google has also been lately pushing for people who use TH-cam without signing in, to sign in, lest they have to get frustrated every time they're watching something, and the app just randomly *reboots itself*, and you lose where you were on the video you were just watching.
Nah, you have a dedicated chip to handle the input stream, and it's a lot cheaper compared to doing the decode on a generic ARM chip (at the cost of compatibility, but not an issue for tv signals since it's pretty limited in what they can send). A chip that can handle 4K blu-ray (that's a much harder bitrate and processing required compared to whatever you'd find in streaming those days) is like a dozen bucks now, maybe less.
And most people would be fine with only having hdmi inputs and nothing else.
The problem is that those dumb TVs lasted too long. I still have a 30 inch “dumb” Vizio in my room after 16 years still works as good as day 1. At work we have Samsung and Sony smart TVs and I swear they always break after just 3-4 years. having a computer inside the TV gives the manufacturer a lot more control over how long they last. And there’s no doubt that the manufactures don’t want them to last long.
That's not a problem, that's good quality. Engineered obsolescence is obviously bad for the people who buy those products, because it means the product was deliberately designed to be crap (In terms of failure rate).
In addition to it being morally wrong, that technique should only work when there's effectively no competition in the market, because why would anybody buy an intentionally inferior product if they know there's a superior alternative?
@@goodfortunetoyou indeed. By “the problem” I meant it’s a problem for the manufacturers who need to engineer obsolescence into their products. Adding a computer to these has made it 10x easier for them to do so.
Derp, your 30" Vizio has a computer in it.
How do you think the interface comes up and shows you the input?
How do you think an encrypted Blu Ray signal shows up on it?
How do you think it figures out how bright the signal should be and what the translation of a 24Hz signal should look on a 60 or 120Hz panel?
There's a little computer that does that.
(JFC you people, I swear...)
@@tim3172 lol extremely unknowledgeable take
@@jamestlynn I agree with you. 👍
I genuinely want a “dumb TV” so I can just plug in an Apple TV.
(Edit) *googles biggest computer monitor*
Consider buying used bit older TV then
if you don't connect a smart tv to the internet then it basically becomes a "dumb tv"
@@gamecubeplayer exactly....I run all my streaming from my gaming pc.
@@brokeandtiredyou can also stream locally by connecting an ssd to the tv's usb port
@gamecubeplayer this is big brain time 😂
seriously, like what happed to a volume knob, or an on/off button, they were handy :()
I am dumb enough for the both of us
You guys should make a review/comparation of a couple of dumb TVs on LTT.
I can guarantee there will be plenty of viewers.
I doubt, majority of the peeps right now are not that techy and want a "On the go" feature... hench why people is loving Apple for it despite the higher price
@@LeRouxMashinrou Apple is mostly bought for the logo. I worked in company that replaced all our computers with macs because "they look better on pictures" completely ignoring the fact that software we were using worked significantly worse on macs and this change cause everyone to work 3-4 times slower.
After management found out about the slowdowns they said "it was worth it" and ordered us to change tools, which caused even worse slowdowns due to having to learn all the new stuff. Plus the new tools were crappy and constantly crashing, sooo...
@@LeRouxMashinrou People buy smart TV for the "on the go" features...
I've never seen someone use a TV on the go.
I'm impressed that "people is loving" isn't the dumbest thing in your post.
I have a dumb TV but I just use a Raspberry Pi anyway for TH-cam and Spotify
That’s a big brain move right there.
That's pretty sick. Is it responsive though?
My Next project is actually using raspbery to filter bullshit (telemetries/ads) before the router inputs ... Ad free Network wide ... bim bam boom
@@clebbington I'm typing this on my rpi 4, and.... no.
@@Hackanhacker you are talking about pi-hole. This does not work as well as it once did. It is a DNS filter. Most big companies like twitch or TH-cam stream their ads through their own domain which makes it near impossible to block them for a pi-hole.
It is a great project to learn tho.
never connect the TV to the internet. just use a playstation or google tv box
exactly I use my series X as my streaming device and its literally a billion times faster than the garbage RokuOS that's installed on my TV.
I work for a streaming company, and I legit ALWAYS recommend that the customer use a plug-and -play device for streaming instead of the smart TV's apps for this very reason: save on "having" to "upgrade" and buy a new TV. Plus, the customers are almost always older ppl, so saving them a trip to the store for a new TV is probably appreciated.
@@deanfranz yes, I'm still running my Shield TV I bought in 2016. Bought a TV as the same time and the built-in Samsung smart features are all but useless.
I have a 720p PLASMA TV from 2007 and it still works. It has HDMI and will never 'upgrade' to the latest TV.
back when Plasma TVs were all the rage...
We still use a Toshiba 42" LCD (fluorescent backlight) from 2007 and it's on most of the day and still works fine. I think the power supply in it is made in Japan with high quality parts so even that hasn't died yet, unlike a lot of other TVs.
2007? Damn! 😂 Makes me feel vindicated for staying loyal to my 2011 flatscreen.
Bloatware has always been a profitable business. Looking at you Samsung.
Consumers have been at fault though over the years accepting and normalizing this. I'm reminded of how annoyed I was when would get a Dell/etc and the amount of bloatware to uninstall. Evidently we are in the minority for being vocally opposed to it.
And Microsoft!
They make refrigerators that have wifi connectivity now. Fucking refrigerators.
'Oh wait, you're running out of milk. Want me to order it online from the nearest branch of your favourite national corporate supermarket?'
My TV has never been connected to the internet. I use a computer and the tv is my screen. The remote is right next to the mouse, takes less that 2 secs to turn on the tv, less time than it takes the puter to wake up... The puter is usually just put to sleep, not shut down. Easy peasy. Also my 65" crystal UHD was cheaper than a 27" monitor.
It's even worse when you want to use the manufacturer's app (on your smartphone), as a controller for the TV. I have never been so enraged by the amount of bullshit they do with the app, by limiting functionality (usually behind paywall) and showing super invasive ADs on it. People pay a premium for a TV and get mostly shit from manufacturers. Wake up, people!
I basically just want a huge monitor with a few HDMI and DP inputs and none of those TV Antenna and USB slots, terrible build in speakers or TV OS that gets replaced with an external device anyway.
We gotta bring 'em back.
Or at least root the smart TVs and prevent all the superfluous stuff from starting. Literally why can't we do this?
Yup, buy a computer monitor. Responsive and none of the bloat.
Has no RF port
How are you supposed to watch tv
@@Xnoob545there are boxes that have an rf input & an hdmi output
@gamecubeplayer on top of that, before someone says something about speakers, a soundbar or Bluetooth speaker are relatively cheap now.
@@Dogsparkster a logitech z333 is also relatively cheap
LOL that was my thought. "Would a monitor work?"
Before smart TVs were a thing, my TV was smart because I had a PC connected to it. These days, I have 2 Samsung TVs, but I never use the installed apps. I like the Roku OS, so I have one for each of them, but I also have a PC connected to each. I think the best way to watch TH-cam is on a PC. But having it connected to my 82" TV means I can relax on my couch while watching TH-cam and type comments with my wireless keyboard in my lap. I don't use the PC in my bedroom all that much. That PC has a Blu-ray drive installed, so I do use it to watch DVDs or Blu-rays. I have a 4K Blu-ray player for my living room. As for buttons to launch different streaming services on either my TV or Roku remotes, I'd prefer remotes without them. That's because I only press them when I do it by accident. Maybe someday, a manufacturer will sell a high-end TV without such buttons on the remote or, at the very least, make those buttons programmable. That would be nice. I'd pay (a little) extra for that.
Louis Rossman on one of his videos was stating his $3000 USD still had all the data collection options checked by default.
There really needs to be a dumb TV option.
I feel I have to go back and check his videos to see who I need to not buy from. His recent video has him sitting outside and ranting about the delete key and how Apple doesn't seem to understand its function.
Why did he connect it to the Internet if he was paranoid to the point of delusion about his privacy?
(A smart TV not connected to the Internet becomes a dumb TV.)
@@tim3172a smart TV not connected to the internet is a smart TV not connected to the internet.
A dumb TV doesn't have any access to the internet. Just an HDMI port or three, and that's it. No fancy processors for the internet. No extra RAM. No TH-cam or internet app buttons on the remote. I want the TV remote to have no more and no fewer buttons than the buttons for the features my ten-year-old Samsung has. I want it to be a remote with numbers. Is that far too big an ask?
@@tim3172 the only one delusional is you to think the data collection is not ongoing when it has been shown multiple times. and he didn't connect it to the internet, because of he did it would start sending data by default. that was the whole point.
@@tim3172 it wasnt connected to the internet and regardless this is just victim blaming nonsense, why the fuck does a 3k usd product ever need to collect your personal information? you can make the argument for artificially cheap products or free products but this is a premium product at a premium price tag.
I hope my old "can't do anything TV" will stay with me for a looooooooooooooong time 🤞
Corporations: "Why can't we kill piracy?"
Also corporations: *does this stupid shit*
(hint, it's because pirated media is a better experience than paying $2k for a TV that shows you in-OS ads, then paying $20/mo for Netflix to show you more ads)
You forgot patent roku puts ads outside even if they are not using external Roku
@@drakonhallo On the plus side, if they patent this shit, it makes it harder for other assholes to do it.
You can't run ads through a dumb tv. Roku recently filed a patent for tech that would allow them to push ads through the HDMI port whenever you pause your content like a game or DVD.
then just don't buy a roku tv
@@gamecubeplayer If it's profitable, they will all be doing it.
We have an HDMI splitter that messes with the ads that try to come through
There are ads between the segments...
I got a NEC "monitor" which was a used menu display for a Wendy's. 55" 1080p. Super bright backlight if you want it cranked up. HDMI, displayport, composite and more. I got it for free I just had to buy a $25 remote. Pixel response is not bad. Definitely better than your average budget Walmart TV including being a dumb TV.
Big PC monitor is literally my plan . . . . but my 2011 1080p Samsung TV is still doing an admirable job. When it dies, PC monitor.
Nice! Buy a panel optimized for RGB input and give it YUV input instead. That should work out well!
You could also... NOT CONNECT THE TV TO THE INTERNET.
Got a 55 inch 1080 Vizio that still kicks around. It works fast and doesn't require me to wade through annoying menus and a minute of startup
Yea, I completely gave up on TVs about 15 years ago when I found streaming sites, so I've never even used a smart TV.
Especially since a TV licence is €160 per year here in Ireland.
still rocking my $1500 Samsung 40" LCD from 2006. Had to open it up to resolder some capacitors during the pandemic but i ain't replacing this until i have to.
Honestly I’ve found that setting up a Roku TV without internet leads to a relatively close emulation of a dumb TV. Nevertheless, we are, in fact, living in a dystopian hellscape. Panasonic Viera plasma TVs from 10-15 years ago will always be my favorite. I never needed 4k anyway!
I’ve just read some other comments and it seems my Roku TV might be a slightly older model that is still blessed with this ability. Enshittification marches on I guess.
> Panasonic Viera plasma TVs from 10-15 years ago will always be my favorite. I never needed 4k anyway!
I have one, it's great! I only wish I'd gotten the larger model.
@@greggmacdonald9644 I found one from 2006 that was owned by an older couple, they never used it. Mint!
so . . you jailbreak the smart tvs, hit em over the head per say, and get a dumb tv.
It's frustrating to see how TV manufacturers are heavily monetizing smart features. The smart TV overload was already driving me crazy and now it makes sense.
I just never connect my TV to the internet. No wifi, no privacy concerns.
One issue with using a monitor as a TV is that you would also have to buy a separate TV tuner for local channels if you weren't also getting those through a cable service.
Just do not.
It's another example of a technology push. Companies and other organisations assume that putting "smart" features in a TV is what everybody wants, just as car companies, until recently, assumed that everybody wants an EV or where everybody is assumed to be computer savvy to some degree without actually checking the market itself.
For example, my mother is nearly 90 years old and has no clue about computers, nor does she want to, so you can imagine her frustration when the local council wants her to go to a website about something or other and does not offer a phone number as an alternative. Same for her doctor. Same when it comes to her TV - she's old enough to remember when the BBC came on air after the second world war! (She's just old enough to have been around for the original first BBC transmissions but I doubt she ever saw it) And she isn't alone!
I'm different in that respect, having grown up around computers and still working around them to this day but I can still appreciate that technology isn't a right nor an obligation.
Or inserting ai into everything
People that old are no longer part of the market for anything but pine boxes. There are not considered as they are not a factor.
@@filonin2except that generally they are the ones with all the money and with declining birth rates and better medical care they're a growing percentage of the population
Bought a 24" dumb TV recently. It is so nice. Virtually instant startup (boots in about the same time that a tube took to warm up) And no pointless, slow, outdated interface to navigate to get to the inputs I want. And, as a bonus, no security concerns.
Derp.
Literally every smart TV OS has a "boot to input directly" option.
What are you doing on your TV that you're paralyzed with fear over somebody finding out about?
@@tim3172 It gets to displaying what I want in a fraction of the time of a smart TV and there are no channels or advertising to cluttering the menu when switching inputs. A smart TV, even when disconnected from a network and with all the garbage stripped away, still is clumsy and slow by comparison. The remote is devoid of any sponsor buttons on it so no accidental presses firing up an app that can't go anywhere and initiating requests for network configuration.
@@tim3172 Put a webcam connected to the internet in your bathroom. What are you hiding if you are against this? Maybe people don't want some shitty corpo monitoring everything they do every second of their life.
This is why it's a really good idea to get a used business PC to connect to your TV, even a used mac is an option.
For over the air TV, you may be better off with a tuner/DVR box and a monitor. The tuners output HDMI. For many, no network connection is needed. You just hook the antenna to the box and the box to the monitor and do a scan. Using a system like that, I get over 120 channels of which about 5 are worth watching. Because of the lower compression used by the over the air signals, the picture quality is better.
Good option. And PC tv tuner cards are available in some graphics cards, or as addons.
@@Hrafnskald I have one which is a USB stick. It works nicely and the software can record.
Enjoy while you can... did you know with the new ATSC 3.0 you will FORCEFULLY conect to the internet beacuse the channels will and currently have DRM, and they send more ads,you cant record the live tv and they can delete your shows if you use a DVR,if your device/tv/tv box is not certified or authorized,you cant watch the new channels with atsc3.0, that's already happening in most cities, various organizations are complaining about this
(Sorry for my bad English)
@@pixiesinc743 Yes, I know that DRM will destroy over the air TV. I will take time for all stations to be gone. Things like PBS may remain longer. When the shows I want to watch can no longer be watched without connecting my TV to the internet, my TV will go out to the curb. It makes a nonsense of "the public airwaves" but that is to be expected.
@@kensmith5694 yes,the drm will kill the TV,here in Monterrey Mexico we can watch with a good antenna KTLM 40.1 from Rio Grande/McAllen TX From 150 miles away, if they put drm and need internet to unlock the channel, with the IP they can identify your location and block the channel if you are from another city ( or country ) ... the people will gonna find the way to bypass that lock,but shouldn't be the case with" Free Tv Over The Air" as the name means
I haven't watched any TV in nearly 20 years. I don't even know whether my current TV, which I bought for 200 bucks from a relative 10 years ago, has any "smart features", because I never even tried watching TV on it. I just use it as a second PC monitor in my bedroom and I get all my entertainment through my desktop PC internet browser.
My Changhong from 2015 came with none of this smart tv crap and you can just stick a chrome cast on it but now all the tvs are “smart”
I took my old 32 inch 1080p monitor and out it in my room with a roku box. Pluged in a sound bar and boom. Much better than any 32 inch TV on the market as far as how fast it can go between screens.
OK, now hear me out, DONT CONNECT YOUR TV TO THE INTERNET
Isn't there a tv that has the ports disabled until it gets connected to the internet?
You're forced to connect it when you first set it up. I had to manually turn it back off on my Insignia Fire TV
@@FigureFarter forced how? it does not function at all without an internet connection?
@@WarmPudgy Manufacturers got wise to that trick so now some new TVs are bricked until they are able to phone home.
@@WarmPudgySome TVs won’t let you setup unless you first factory reset or go into a secret menu and only then are provided the option to bypass WiFi setup etc. Others won’t let do normal bog standard things like some FireTVs not letting you use the HDMI ports and some Roku TVs not letting you rename the HDMI ports for example.
Wait but a dumb TV is just a PC monitor but larger.
I haven't used any smart functions on a TV since... ever.
You can always disconnect from Wifi network, and they practically almost dumb TV.
Because the costs of multiple SKUs (for both the producer and retailers) are more than the cost of just integrating the basic computer into all of them?
Oh I'm sure that happens all the time. The display circuitry is different for each panel but the "brains" are just cheap drop in boards, like they showed in the video
@@clebbington Yes, it's what what made certain models from the Sony Bravia line so good back when 1080p was 'the new thing'. They were using the same panels as a few other brands, since there's only a few panel makers, but their image processing stuff was on point.
Use PC monitors, with any spare piece of hardware such as an old computer with LibreELEC -TV, torrent server and all local movies/series/music/etc. If you want something bigger, go for a projector. They are not that expensive.
but even projectors have smart features now because customers like not having to plug in an additional device to them. especially portable projectors
@@clebbington don't buy those, then. there are plenty without smart crap
All I want is a T.V. with the buttons on the front again...
I work in a small holiday business, and trying to find dumb TVs so customers can't try to install apps or leave themselves signed into their Amazon account when they go home is a constant battle. It's really tricky, especially in the UK, to find commercial-grade sets that aren't astronomically expensive or far too big.
“Just buy a really big computer monitor!”
Monitor manufacturers watching this: “…Maybe we should make smart monitors. 👀”
shouts to my ten year old dumb TV.
Hear hear!
My parents still use a TV from 2006, and its great! Its a Panasonic 1080p plasma TV, and its perfect. Still no burn-in (somehow), still very bright despite its age. We have a Roku box hooked up to one of the 2 HDMI ports. It still amazes me how they bought a 1080p screen in 2006
My older "smart" TV isn't connected to the internet. Thus making it blissfully dumb.
I still have my 2 1080p Panasonic "half-smart tv's". "Half-smart tv's" are dumb tv's with smart tv features only when you press a specific button and connect to the internet. Don't press the "smart tv button" and you have a nice dumb tv. Also no agreeing to anything unless you actually use these features. If the button wasn't working, you wouldn't even know it's a smart tv.
Hate to break it to you, but there's nothing "half" about it.
Either there *is* a button on the TV set or the remote to access the internet, or there isn't.
Ergo, you have two full HD smart TVs.
@@KaleunMaender77 While technically yes, they are smart tv's, I don't believe it's a smart tv. My parents have been using one of the two tv's and they never noticed the smart features. It just worked like a dumb tv.
What about smart TVs that can be dumbed down?
just don't connect a smart tv to the internet
You can set Google TV to "App only mode" which removes a lot of the smarts. Then use a custom launcher like Projectivy to take care of the rest.
Worth mentioning that some smart TV operating systems can be functionally disabled, such as Sony’s Android TV’s. Or with others (like LG) you can refuse to accept the terms and not connect them to the network. This makes them a good third option for getting a “dumb tv”. Way cheaper than an actual dumb tv and with more features than a computer monitor
It is crazy that these 70 inch $200 TVs are everywhere.
Hilariously, My TV has an Always on microphone that can't understand me because I don't always speak English lmao
that's horrifying
big brain move right there, just speak a language the spyware doesn't understand lol
Yeah we cant understand u bro
It's just one update away from understanding you.
I suggest disabling the microphone somehow. Would covering it in glue work ?
I suggest desoldering that microphone out because if it connects to the internet, it doesn't matter what language you speak.
You can't uninstall the recommended apps and they have so many it takes up the full memory of the Smart TV You can't even use the thing.
"Just buy yourself a really big computer monitor!"
Yup, that's what I did. LG 48" OLED. It's four 1080p screens in a 2x2 grid with no bezel when I want to be productive. >D
My "smart" TV gets to communicate with my computer so a separate program can set it to suspend mode when I'm not using my computer and wake it from suspension when I sit down again. It doesn't get internet access.
Buy what ever TV you want, never connect it to the internet and use whatever service you would with a dumb TV.
Simple solution….set the tv to hdmi 1 and never use the “smart” bullshit, and never connect it to WiFi. Easy, done.
I tried once to use “smart” features and could tell it was all trash. Did a factory reset and never used any of the shit again.
Vizio TV make you agree to the Google eula when you turn it on.
@@The_10th_Man there’s nothing forcing you to connect it to WiFi, though….if you do, then just block the MAC address from your router once it’s set up.
Isn't a monitor a dumb TV? Aren't projectors dumb too? Just hook up an old computer to one of these and boom, a tv that is faster and easier to keep free of advertisements and bloat and that you can do so much more with, like have an actual keyboard on so you don't have to take 5 minutes to look up a certain TH-cam video.
Why are TVs even a thing at all anymore?
You can just never hook it up to your wifi and most tvs basically becomes a dumb tv.
Probably the biggest reason i still use my cheap, basic 2013 1080p Toshiba TV. Pretty good refresh rate and even has Component hookups so older consoles can still look pretty good with the right cables.
does it handle 240p correctly? or does it handle it incorrectly as 480i?
@@gamecubeplayer I haven't tested it recently since i don't have 240p consoles hooked up that often, but from what i've read up on it, it does handle it correctly (don't quote me though). It's the L1350U and there's a really long thread on it on the AVS forum if you need more info. Idk if I'd necessarily recommend it for your needs, but i've still been using mine to this day as a daily use TV even for modern consoles.
Create DHCP reservation for TV
Block all traffic to or from that IP
TV is now dumb.
Or you know. Don't connect it to internet in the first place...
@@zwenkwiel816 What if you want to pull content off your LAN?
Sounds like overkill
All this and no one thought of the most obvious solution? Don't connect it to the internet! Bam, dumb TV.
Roku forces you to connect it to the internet to use it. Even you try to just use the HDMI ports.
@wileymonair In cases of blatant anti-consumer behavior, it's best to avoid the company entirely. If we, the consumer, continue to buy from companies that do this kind of thing, then eventually, reputable companies will also follow suit. Spend wisely!
@@wileymonair either there should be a law against it OR ample presale info about that sticking point
@@Thomas-VA I think I remember L.Rossmann saying it was Roku that changed the terms post sale and nicely pushed out the 'accept the new EULA' (words to that effect) into their smart TV's with ho way to decline. If you didn't accept then yout TV is bricked. Hopefully, someone will throw the book at them because if this becomes standard (and it's rearing its head in many places already) then it'll be too late..
@@elone3997 Yeah they'll do it with every other smart device in your home.
One of the most annoying things for me... I have a small tv setup as a camera monitor in a theater, it is for the cast to be able to see the stage from backstage. Someone, at some point in time, was stupid enough to connect it to the wifi... there is absolutely no option to disconnect from wifi without resetting the wifi network, and the rest of the company while you are at it. No one uses this tv for anything other than viewing the stage camera, which is directly fed to it via RCA cable.... but thanks to that idiot... it now has ads.
**facepalm my face off**
After the 20 second ad you can access the fridge.
Mark my words.
Why won't you mention the worst way smart TV's make money? Selling your data. That's a huge subsidy for the likes of TCL and Hisense. It's relevant to the discussion yet you completely omit it.
With my Shield TV I glued the NETFLIX button so I can't even "accidently" bump it and turn on that WOKE Netflix crap
IMO woke doesn’t mean anything and even if it does just watch the old non woke stuff
Way back when people were transitioning to smart TV, I wanted the most high-end TV with no OS (I like changing inputs and not scrolling through apps) but then I found out about Roku, and now I’m in love with them even though they are budget tv’s because they have the best OS in my opinion compared to the built-in OS’s
One slight nitpick: you need more than just a big monitor to pickup broadcast tv...
Sure, you'll need a TV tuner. But most people with digital cable currently use external boxes as tuners anyway.
I manually set all my tvs network gateways to 0.0.0.0 so they can still access my local media server without being able to talk to skynet.
Team #NeverHookThemUpToTheInternet
It's pretty dumb if you never hook it up to the internet.
A big computer monitor is almost certainly going to be a lot more than an equivalent TV.