We have a HiSense 60” and have never connected it to any network. It works perfectly as a Dumb Monitor with multiple HDMI inputs and HDCP and HDMI-CEC work perfectly with our AppleTV (HDMI 1) and PS5 (HDMI2) We have TOSLink Optical Audio to an Amp(receiver) and it works almost perfectly, until the Amp chucks a hissy-fit because people forget to turn it off.
Privacy
A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
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I was looking for information like that when I last bought a TV in February and couldn't find anything.
I punted and bought a SAMSUNG 65-Inch Class Crystal UHD 4K CU8000 Series (that's like 1/4 of the amazon title) and have not connected it to the internet at all. As far as not being connected to the network, it's… fine.
- There have been no issues with it trying to lock me out of features.
- I didn't try to opt-out, but my intuition tells me that's unlikely.
- No camera that I know of. I think there's a microphone in the remote, but I've never used it, and since I've never connected it to the internet (and I never use the remote) I don't really worry about it.
- I've not experienced any nag screens.
- I have not measured the power usage directly (and would have nothing to compare it to since I'm not willing to connect it to the internet even as an experiment) but I do have it connected to a power-usage sensing outlet strip and it uses dramatically less power than my previous Samsung 42" HD LCD (with florescent backlighting.) So much so that for it to not turn off the switched outlets I had to add my AppleTV to the control outlet (and for extended dark scenes even that's not enough.)
- If it's connecting to networks surreptitiously I would expect to start seeing ads or some change in behavior, which hasn't happened, so I'm going to say probably not.
As far as how good of a TV it is, (which you didn't ask, but since I'm here):
I'm not the most discerning viewer, but I think it's got a good picture. Sometimes I can see the backlight adjust itself on very dark scenes, but it's hardly a show stopper. I have an external speaker system, so really the only thing I do is turn it on and off (with the AppleTV remote). My only other gripe is that it takes a few seconds to decide to display the selected input full screen.
Just set up a TCL and it has a "basic" option which makes it work without anything. I'm still trying to decide if I should buy a Nvidia shield to pair with it so I enabled it "fully" for now, will probably switch it back. It's basically android so many of these behaviours are just like on android phones
Samsung is known to be one of the more cancerous of ad-ridden "smart" TVs
I haven't had any issues with my Sony TV but I bought it several years ago and don't really use it (I generally consume content on my PC with 3 monitors). It is not connected to any network.
No one makes a 65+" oled monitor so before anyone suggests "just buy a monitor" you can't, I have looked.
Up until last year, I would have said get a good quality projector but even projectors have started getting infiltrated with smart "features" now.
Digital signage was also an option but oled options are basically non-existent and they often have matte screens that make the colors kind of mushy.
From what I have read online, the Sony tv offerings seem to be pretty unintrusive and don't really care if you hook them up to the internet. The smart software is android tv based and can potentially be modded/stripped of google services. I have to do some more research though so don't quote me on the above.
Our current TCL/Roku tv is dying and has turned out to be really bad smart/privacy wise and has gotten consistently worse performance wise over time. I'm currently evaluating options for its replacement and the Sony 65" oled is looking like the best one so far.
Buy a store display meant to show logos and menus. Something like these:
https://www.amazon.com/s?rh=n%3A18746933011&language=en_US&brr=1&ie=UTF8&rd=1
I haven’t evaluated any of them; I just know people talk about them being the only tv screens without smarts.
I recently found myself in the market for one of these when my father in law decided to connect my Vizio TV to the internet. All the updates since 2019 installed and it became unusable with all the crap they installed/changed. No way to downgrade firmware.
I bought a 55” Samsung display and it works great as a dumb tv. I can connect via HDMI and my antenna just like a regular tv. The interface is a little clunky at times but that’s because it’s set up for a display board. I can even plug my flash drive into it for videos/pictures. It will never connect to the internet although it has that capability (and apparently an app for if it’s used as a display).
So I just bought a brand new "dumb" TV for $150 off of Amazon (43" 1080 Sceptre). It isn't high end in the slightest, but it IS brand new and not some weird old stock and the picture and sound don't feel too far off from my significantly more expensive higher end LCD TVs. I wanted one that I could put on a rolling stand and move between a few rooms and saw no benefit to 4k at that screen size. Other than that, there are some decent "digital signage" TVs that were decently priced available as well from Samsung and a few other brands. I didn't see anything that was OLED, but I was burned hard (quite literally with burn-in) on earlier OLED gear, so I am avoiding it until the prices get low enough that I can be fine with the chance that it will be crap after 4-5 years of use.
Can you tell us some of the things to search for so we can find those?
Try "lcd tv non-smart", "lcd tv hospitality", or "lcd business tv" or any variations thereof.
Personally, I say F smart tv's. The smart bit is going to be old and useless in three years. The panel will last me over a decade.
Yes, you can ignore all the nagging and smart stuff and just set it to an hdmi input or something.
Then hooking up a 3rd party smart box is what I recommend.
the answer is basically all TVs are subsidized to some degree. A list is somewhat pointless because they all do some sketchy shit and as lg has recently shown they reserve the right to change the terms years after the fact with firmware updates, even if you buy a flagship model that cost 3-5k
Basically you need to use it intelligently. Either don’t connect it to the internet at all, only connect it to an intranet/isolated vlan, or (least effective) block every suspicious outgoing request with your router or a dns thing like adguard/pihole.
The alternatives are to buy a non consumer display (eg something for signage or for like a meeting room in an office) which are usually more durable but also often far more expensive (no ad subsidies), the panel quality is generally noticeably worse (unless you’re buying a mediocre tv), and you lose out on enthusiast features (earc, vrr, etc). Or you can get a solid projector; the cheap projectors are usually kind of junk but nice ones are quite nice and often (but not always, they’re increasingly “smart”) have barebones ui/os. This can be pretty impractical for your living situation though
I get what you're saying. What I'm running into is that there is little information on what happens if you 'dont connect it to the internet at all'. I would happily do that, but as another comment notes, some devices keep whining until you do connect them, while others don't. I can also easily set up a separate 'fake' network to black-hole all the communication attempts of the TV, but I have no idea whether that would stop the nagging -- or the attempts for it to connect to public WiFi access points.
It would be really cool if people experimenting with this kind of thing could pool their findings, that's all.
Get a screen, not that.
For best privacy, get a monitor and a tv box (like nvidia shield, or roll your own software a single board computer like a raspberry pi). That might be the only way to trust a tv: dont use it at all.