And if I don’t want to use their smart features?
this seems like it might be a win
I have an extremely expensive smart TV that probably cost around £4,000 (I didn’t buy it so I don’t know what the actual price tag was) and it’s UI is awful because of stuff like this and it’s all stupid. It has an app, it’s a TV, I already have a method of controlling it why do I need an app?
As a result it’s purely a media streaming platform I don’t use any of its smart features. It’s just hoocked up to a mini PC and it’s just been a display.
My mini pc or laptop connected via HDMI to a projector setup makes me more happy every day when I see crap like this. Bonus is you can move it to the patio for outside movie night and it’s a whopping five pounds. Same goes for moving apartments because I’ve always moved too often.
WTF? And Walmart of all things. Fuuuuuck them.
good. maybe people will stop buying them then.
This is how you get me to never buy a Vizio TV.
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.
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.
I use a TV for my monitor - last job I worked I really needed the screen real estate for excel.
I hate hate hate when I shut the computer off or power goes off and when the TV comes back on, it auto-plays some “free” streaming channel, which is ALWAYS fascist propaganda. I rush to turn that shit off just as quickly as I can. Fuck that shit.
so don’t make an account and it’s a normal tv?
Do not connect your tv to the internet. Period.
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.
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 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.
This is the way.
HTPC for life!
You’d be better off buying a non-smart Samsung commercial TV from eBay and getting a $20 Onn 4K TV Box from Walmart. The latter can be Degoogled and sideloaded with Stremio, Cloudstream, or your streaming app of choice to make it the ultimate privacy-respecting media center.
side note . if you like stremio try nuvio . it works 10x better for me . looks like a fork.
You da freaking GOAT! Thank you for introducing me to this!
So Vizio is offering dumb TVs without Walmart accounts? I am actually kind of interested.
Vizio is likely offering unusually large paperweights without Walmart accounts.
now require a Walmart account for setup and accessing smart TV features
In a functioning society I think that would be criminal.
it’ll still be listening and spying.
Just don’t connect it to the internet 🤷♂️
Walmart acquired Vizio with the express purpose of using TV’s to serve ads. In fact, that is exactly what they said they were going to do.
No surprises here.
Welcome to Earth where using Smart features is Dumb.
