Smart TVs like Samsung, LG and Roku are tracking everything

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/09/18/you-watch-tv-your-tv-watches-back/

by lsh • 7 years ago

481 310 7 years ago

I had a very nice Sharp Aquos TV for a long time. One of the first reasonably priced 1080p 65" TVs. It had absolutely no "smart" features, which was perfectly fine with me. I have my TV hooked up to a home theatre system and have my devices (PS4/AppleTV/XB1/Nvidia Shield) hooked up to that.

I recently upgraded to a LG 4K OLED TV. It's an absolutely gorgeous TV, but, I absolutely lament the "smart" features of this TV. I get software update prompts on a regular basis for software I don't use (I'm sure there would be some for the base system anyway, but, an order of magnitude less). The prompts when setting up the TV to accept myriad EULAs are obnoxious. Pop-ups advertising "features" on my TV which I don't want? Ugh.

I really want either a manufacturer who resells these panels with 0 features, or a mode from LG which disables all of this. "Lock to HDMI1 and disable everything but color management features".

More on-topic with the article: I'm a pretty tech and legally-savvy guy, but, even I'm not sure I've toggled the correct order of knobs and declined the correct EULAs to disable that tracking. Moreover, I'm exactly 0% sure that someone else didn't try to watch Netflix (via the TV and not the AppleTV/Shield/PS4/etc) and wasn't prompted to accept EULAs to do that. My point is, if I can't even do this properly, normal people have a near 0% chance of disabling tracking.

That said, it's a fantastically gorgeous panel. I've had a lot of fun re-watching older favorite movies in 4K.

unstatusthequo• 7 years ago

Yeah even when toggling options to stop tracking, I don’t trust it. I will usually find what it calls out to and block it on my home network with Pi-Hole. I also am moving to projector which may have less “smart” bs crammed in there. But, I haven’t researched that yet to see if that’s true or not.

AdamJacobMuller4• 7 years ago

I don't think the options are blatantly false, the legal teams at these respective companies would never allow them to be demonstrably false. I do think they are as confusing as possible and designed to be as difficult as possible to place in "max privacy" mode and as easy as possible to place in "max tracking" mode.

block it on my home network with Pi-Hole

That's a really good idea. I just configured my firewall (Palo Alto) to block the TV, I'm not sure why I didn't think of that.

WA• 7 years ago

Which model is it?

NeedMoreTea• 7 years ago

I think we've reached the point where the only safe way of buying a TV is to buy a business conference room display or large screen monitor instead. Seems to be the only way to get something without all the dystopian crap.

pimeys• 7 years ago

But then you're losing all of the goodies for movies and games, such as proper color space or contrast. Usually the business TVs are anything but good for movies.

bo1024• 7 years ago

Projectors are also an option.

larnmar• 7 years ago

Luckily we’re living in the era where people are offloading their old last-gen dumb TVs for next to nothing in order to replace it with a smart one.

I got my current TV off the side of the road. It’s a 42” LCD Samsung, and that’s good enough for me.

wvenable• 7 years ago

My point is, if I can't even do this properly, normal people have a near 0% chance of disabling tracking.

The other point is that all these features are advertised on the box (Netflix, Alexa integration, etc) but you can't even use them unless you accept those EULA prompts.

o-__-o3• 7 years ago

If you don’t accept you can return for a refund. Something tells me lots of ppl accept tho

ownagefool3• 7 years ago

Yeah, I'd really like slightly better support for plugging in something smart into a dumb TV.

In the UK, if my shield would show freeview TV channels I'd probably never need to leave the interface, and thus I'd be happy to lock a TV into a shield slave.

Unfortunately it just doesn't work like that for us over here though.

nr152522• 7 years ago

I have a HD Homerun and the channels app for that.

I’m using the shield exclusively for smart features and the OLED as a dumb display.

tekstar2• 7 years ago

I recently bought an LG OLED as well.

I never connected it to my network and never will.

  It was a dark pattern during setup.  The options were to connect via LAN or WIFI, and only by scrolling into "nothing" did a skip option appear.

This ImO is the only option and even then I bet it's trying to exhilarate data by like trying to connect to a phone or high frequency audio or something.

marcusjt• 7 years ago

"exhilarate" > "exfiltrate"

xwdv• 7 years ago

How do you install firmware updates??

beezle• 7 years ago

I've got an LG OLED and have had regular LG 'smart' sets before that. I turned off the LG IP channels and other similar settings. The only installed apps are for Amazon Prime, YoutubeTV and their web browser. I have it on its own wifi ap.

I get very few notifications. Obviously, when app or firmware updates are available. I also get a small and brief notification when they add a new ip channel to their lineup. I get no ads or anything like that.

I've not run a sniffer to see what it phones home with beyond info for version checks.

glitchc2• 7 years ago

Just unplug it from the network. That should get rid of most of it. I have an LG smart TV that has never seen the network. I get no ads, no popups, no features, no EULA, nothing. It behaves like a dumb TV.

It was the LG 65UH series from Costco.

codezero2• 7 years ago

I wonder if one day they’ll connect to other TVs that are online to get around the WiFi.

Buttons8407• 7 years ago

HDMI cables can double as Ethernet cables. In the future "just unplug it from the network" will mean "just unplug all HDMI devices".

DrPhish• 7 years ago

What you are looking for are called "Commercial Displays" or "Digital Signage" Expect to pay a premium, but they are generally simple panels built to endure a very heavy duty cycle and harsher-than-a-living-room environment

troydavis• 7 years ago

I looked in to this and at least for large sizes as of earlier this year, commercial displays aren't practical. The premium isn't 10% or 20% (which I'd gladly pay to omit "features" that disclose data to third parties), it's $2000-$5000 (60%-150%).

Also, for that massive premium, commercial displays often don't include HDR, HDMI features (CEC, ARC), and sometimes even 4k. They aren't a realistic solution.

AdamJacobMuller4• 7 years ago

The panels aren't nearly as nice as the ones you can get on consumer TVs. LG C9 OLED is a thing to behold.

Fiahil• 7 years ago

I just bought a LG OLED as well. This screen is amazingly good !

I connected it to the network in order to watch netflix, and unchecked all tracking and advertising related EULAs. I'm also running a pihole on my network, so most third party ads will be denied from reaching the TV.

technofiend• 7 years ago

Just one humble non-lawyer's opinion but I'd love to see merchantability and fitness laws updated to explicitly bar reduced functionality without the forced exchange of consumer data, which is what's happening here. Manufacturers claim they are subsidizing the TVs via data collection, assuming that's true then banning the reduction of features unless the consumer opts in then raises the bar on every manufacturer. If TVs go back up in price so be it.

dawnerd• 7 years ago

I stopped connecting my TVs to the internet when Samsung started pushing notification ads for GameFly on a (at the time) 3k dollar first gen 4K tv - and they lied and said no they’d never do that. They’ve all lost my trust.

jay_kyburz• 7 years ago

Wow, I didn't know it was that bad! I've never connected my tv's to the internet. I normally run a full PC behind them to access our media and for apps.

McDev• 7 years ago

In addition to push notifications, they kept pushing their TV+ app to the first position of my apps selector. I kept removing it. Then I just switched off internet access. Smart TVs are dumb.

petepete• 7 years ago

This might be of use. However I don't blame you for not using it altogether.

https://gist.github.com/peteryates/b44b70d19ccd52f62d66cdd4b...

prawn• 7 years ago

I disabled autoupdates on everything after a smart TV whose dashboard I'd laid out to suit me, auto-updated and insisted on dashboard apps that I never wanted and couldn't delete or hide. Got an Apple TV and have not touched the smart TV features since.

sowbug• 7 years ago

Sounds like Vizio. Five years now and I still re-delete the Yahoo Finance app every couple months.

makecheck• 7 years ago

The smarter a TV is, the stupider it breaks too.

My parents had a TV with a built-in Skype app, and at some point the TV maker stopped supporting it. After that, every single time the TV was turned on the TV popped up a vague modal error message (that didn’t even mention Skype, just “an app” or something). I verified that it is impossible to turn off this message or do anything about it. Think about the stupidity.

c22• 7 years ago

I bought a Vizio tv a couple years ago that came with a very simple remote. The remote had power, volume, channel, and input buttons and nothing else. It seemed like they intended you to pair it with a smart phone to change any real settings. At some point about 8 months after I bought it turning on the screen caused a message to be displayed informing me that there was a new more fully-featured remote available and that they'd send one to me for free if I registered at the displayed url. The message could only be dismissed using a button that did not exist on the included remote. I literally could not use the television for two weeks while I waited for the new remote to arrive in the mail.

gumby• 7 years ago

Surely this is a non-issue if you don’t connect the TV itself to the internet?

rladd• 7 years ago

Not if you use a box like Roku, etc.

cryptozeus• 7 years ago

Won’t the roku only needs to be connected to internet and not tv itself? Right ?

deergomoo• 7 years ago

Also worth noting that with a lot of TVs, you can download firmware updates to a USB stick, then install them directly to the TV.

Occasionally the out-of-the-box firmware on TVs can perform poorly on certain input modes, so it's nice to have an option to get the latest patches without opening yourself up to tracking and ads.

That said, the idea of a TV needing patches is thoroughly unappealing.

Buttons8407• 7 years ago

Doesn't HDMI share internet connection? So if you connect any HDMI device with an internet connection then your TV will have one too?

detaro4• 7 years ago

HDMI optionally does support that, but almost no devices actually do.

arminiusreturns3• 7 years ago

I have heard reports that some smart TV's (and other "smart" devices?) will sometimes connect to any open wifi within range without user consent or knowledge.

myrakle3• 7 years ago

I use the PCWRT router, and it allows me to block the spying by blacklisting the relevant domains.

https://www.pcwrt.com/2018/08/how-to-use-your-router-to-bloc...

butz• 7 years ago

Any way to build something like this myself, e.g. using Raspberry Pi or DD-WRT supported router?

netsharc• 7 years ago

Google Pi Hole, it's mostly for ads and trackers, but someone probably has a list of "call home" domains, or you can add your own domains/hostnames that you want blocked

myrakle3• 7 years ago

DD-WRT would probably let you block domains. Pi-hole might be useful too. To be effective, you need your black or white listing to be device specific, so that you can block your smart TV in whatever way you want to without affecting other devices.

garrettdimon• 7 years ago

We have three TCL Roku TV’s, and while they’re all blocked now, they were responsible for about 98% of the requests on our network according to Pi Hole. Now they’re blocked at the router level as well because it’s hard to trust them at all. Pi Hole doesn’t block them by default, but the endless requests to Roku domains are easy to blacklist.

ImprovedSilence• 7 years ago

Does a pi-hole or the like not already take care of this?

Mirioron3• 7 years ago

At some point I wonder if we might not just start whitelisting domains instead. I think that it could be possible to design a UX that wouldn't be much of a hindrance to using your computer and phone on the same network. Eg any websites you deliberately visit get added to the whitelist, same with the other services you choose to use.

The amount of mostly unintentional (by the user) data transfers is out of hand.

myrakle3• 7 years ago

Actually, white listing is a better idea. You can white list with the PCWRT router too.

egdod4• 7 years ago

And then everybody starts collecting data via AWS or whatever.

Silhouette8• 7 years ago

At some point, a combination of manual/explicit reputation tagging and a web-of-trust system might become a plausible defence against a lot of these user-hostile connections.

If your corporate site, where you advertise your new high-end TVs and laptops, starts triggering warnings in all your visitors' browsers that it might be associated with malware and falling off all the SERPs for similar reasons, you're going to stop loading it with junk pretty quickly (and its trust score will improve pretty quickly as a direct result). Likewise, if your smart device tries to phone home and home has acquired negative rep, maybe that connection gets blocked automatically at the firewall.

We'd need a system that was guided by interested/aware participants who are unlikely to be successfully gamed and that mostly "just worked" for average users, but we've managed to build those in other contexts before so it doesn't seem completely out of the question.

ananonymoususer• 7 years ago

Another good alternative (for those of us who home-brewed their own router) is pfBlockerNG, which is an optional module for pfSense. It can do everything that Pi-hole can do, and more.

zigzaggy• 7 years ago

Can I flash my own router with pcWRT or do I have to purchase one on Amazon? Is this similar to DDWRT? Or a fork of some open source project?

move-on-by2• 7 years ago

How long till the embedded devices us DNS over HTTPS to bypass this? The consumer is under attack

egdod4• 7 years ago

I assume not long. And there’s no good way to stop that.

neonate• 7 years ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20191002013559/https://www.washi...

noyesno• 7 years ago

The paywall JavaScript still kicks in after reading the article for a while via archive.org.

This should not suffer from the same issue: http://archive.is/8Cm3Q

roel_v• 7 years ago

So I have a samsung tv, and I like the apps - I use the youtube one every day, and several others several times a week. How do I leverage the gdpr to find out who knows what about me?

a_imho2• 7 years ago

You probably need to contact the DPO of each company starting with Samsung and/or consult their dedicated GDPR resources. Unfortunately GDPR is not really enforced thus fails to live up to its promise. In theory you should have nothing to worry about unless you opted in to their data collecting shenanigans.

Even if you are prepared to exercise your rights under GDPR in my experience the usual modus operandi is asking for more data via various registration forms and accounts or sending copies of personal IDs. Then if you manage to hand in a Data Request or Deletion Request there is no way to find out whether they really complied or not, making it pointless.

yegor• 7 years ago

Run a Pi-Hole, use it as the DNS server for your "Smart" TV.

Too lazy? Shameless self promotion: https://windscribe.com/features/robert

fernly• 7 years ago

Wait wait wait. Windscribe, which looks like a heckuva VPN, where does it run? Because we are talking about filtering or blocking the data flow between the TV and the local router, i.e. the connection between the TV and my Comcast router. How does Windscribe get involved in that stream?

smileybarry8• 7 years ago

I'm guessing it's just a DNS server blackholing/NXDOMAIN-ing certain domains and the connections aren't actually proxied, like the old OpenDNS home.

walrus013• 7 years ago

In my opinion you should not use ANY of the smart features of a "smart" TV. Don't give it your wifi key and don't put it on your LAN.

I have about 400% more trust of Microsoft and Sony than I do of random smart tv manufacturers. I also have a fairly high degree of confidence that the xbox one and PS4 software will remain up to date with security patches, and address critical issues quickly. I have no confidence for TVs.

Microsoft and Sony have teams of lawyers who've drafted the data collection/data sharing/opt-out policies for what their current generation game consoles track and phone home about. I've seen entirely too many reports of "smart" TVs that start reporting your entire viewing habits, and/or displaying unwanted ads.

Use the TV as a dumb display and hook it up to a PS4, Xbox One, and/or home theatre PC.

Scoundreller4• 7 years ago

I trust cableco providers even less than random smartTV manufacturers.

And those TV boxes are 2-way obligate devices...

smileybarry8• 7 years ago

I have about 400% more trust of Microsoft and Sony than I do of random smart tv manufacturers.

It should be noted Sony's TVs are different than their game consoles in what they collect and do. They run a relatively clean version of Android TV except for "Samba TV", which is yet another piece of show-recognizing (known as ACR) analytics. However, you can apparently decline its privacy policy on initial setup and even disable the APK entirely in settings[1]. (Some people also succeeded in ripping it and other bundled video apps out via ADB)

Even given all that, Sony TVs are probably still the tamest smart TVs out there.

Don't give it your wifi key and don't put it on your LAN.

It entirely depends on manufacturer but I've heard of some actually seeking out open networks for internet access if you don't configure their Wi-Fi. Some people reported an unconnected TV suddenly prompted to update because the neighbour's wifi was unsecured. If you can, I'd set up a specific SSID with no LAN or WAN access just in case.

[1] https://www.consumerreports.org/privacy/how-to-turn-off-smar...

e2le• 7 years ago

I'm not sure creating a network without no internet access is going to be a long term solution. It's entirely likely that they will create future functionality in these devices to cycle through open networks and networks to which they have credentials for until they find one with internet access.

OrgNet• 7 years ago

It entirely depends on manufacturer but I've heard of some actually seeking out open networks for internet access if you don't configure their Wi-Fi. Some people reported an unconnected TV suddenly prompted to update because the neighbour's wifi was unsecured. If you can, I'd set up a specific SSID with no LAN or WAN access just in case.

They probably will use 5G cellphone service eventually...

denkmoon• 7 years ago

Perhaps it is time to wrap our TVs and other consumer electronics in faraday tape.

I can't wait until my microwave tells the manufacturer how often I'm reheating my pizza.

novok• 7 years ago

Many cars are similar nowadays too, except with cell phone service. It's very aggravating. Even if you don't pay for the 'safety' features and never turn it on. It used to be only on star but now even toyotas have it.

greggman2• 7 years ago

My Sony Smart TV is crap and I will never buy another Sony TV. Yes it runs android. It's slow to respond to input. Sometimes when I'm guessing it needs to page out code it can take 5-30 seconds before u can actually use it. It's crashed in the middle of watching shows and I mean the TV is being used as a dumb tv with input from an external source and suddenly android reboots. It also covers the home screen with ads for shows/games/movies. If possible my next TV will just be a 60inch monitor

Thorrez2• 7 years ago

Even given all that, Sony TVs are probably still the tamest smart TVs out there.

The article seems to say Vizio TVs are better for your privacy than other TVs. The article says Vizio TVs describe ARC in 100 words and people must select accept or decline.

That page you linked to says

However, you can accept or decline Sony's Bravia privacy policy, as well as one for Samba TV, the ACR technology Sony uses. You have to scroll through the entire Bravia policy before you'll see the options for turning off various data-gathering features, including Sony Smart TV Services, Program Recommendations, Product Improvements, and Advertisements, as well as Samba TV.

This sounds like a harder process.

Vizio was the only company willing to have an employee be interviewed by The Washington Post. Samba didn't even reply to their emails.

bitL2• 7 years ago

Agreed. My Samsung TV is not connected to Ethernet/WiFi and I have a quadcore Pentium NUC as a 4k HTPC for interacting with it. I have a full control of what I run on NUC (Ubuntu + Kodi) and TV is just a display.

My Marantz is connected to Internet though (used for AirPlay) as it needs updates to its firmware, so there might be some audiophile listening...

o-__-o3• 7 years ago

Marantz doesn’t report home if you disable reports. I also have never upgraded my marantz receivers

yummypaint• 7 years ago

When i got my samsung smart tv 4 years ago i actually read the EULA and was so disgusted i refused to agree. It lives its life as a computer monitor, and a buggy one at that. I doubt there is a way to update the firmware without agreeing. Moral of the story: dont buy smart TVs.

ghettoimp• 7 years ago

If you want a TV, is there any alternative? We got a new TV last year and I (joe shmoe average user) didn't see any that weren't smart.

gdwatson• 7 years ago

Were you not able to return it?

bubblethink• 7 years ago

I have about 400% more trust of Microsoft and Sony than I do of random smart tv manufacturers

This is a really weak trust based argument. Sony put rootkits on cds (different division of sony, but still). MS has been fighting their users forever now. Ultimately, none of these trust based arguments work. If you care about privacy, use kodi, new pipe etc. Don't try to pick overlords. That's a losing battle.

gbear605• 7 years ago

I trust them to keep their products relatively secure from hackers, not to not use my data.

notatoad• 7 years ago

PS4, Xbox One

which are almost certainly also tracking everything.

In general i agree with your advice, and would rather keep smart TVs off my network. but if your goal is to not be tracked, plugging in an additional piece of hardware from another big tech co isn't going to accomplish that goal.

mackal2• 7 years ago

LG and Samsung both use Linux for their Smart OS and there are a few Android TVs.

Also, fun fact, my cable boxes from Verizon also run Linux :P

rraghur• 7 years ago

I have a cheap, Chinese make 'smart' TV... (Le Eco).. e the company has gone under quite some time ago... It runs in it's own vlan with only access to the DNS (pihole).

It's consistently the top blocked client on my home network! Ott. Nielsenccdata.tv

friendlybus2• 7 years ago

Why do you trust Microsoft more? They have the most egregious and base level of data collection compared to any other company. Their collection from the OS is pervasive and deep. The inability to truly disable Cortana is evidence that we don't own our purchased software anymore, merely borrow it from the big tech companies.

In terms of undermining user ownership, MS has done more than most with help from Apple. I can get a different webmail provider and use a different search engine. Changing operating systems to Linux from one that actively fights you to run your computer for you is something else entirely.

walrus013• 7 years ago

I should clarify that I do not trust Microsoft more in terms of data collection, rather that security patches will be automatically pushed to an Xbox one. And that it has a relatively low likelihood of becoming part of a botnet, or compromised by a persistent form of Trojan.

Good luck getting a software update for a four-year-old smart TV running some obsolete version of Android. Or WebOS.

Xbox 360s are 12+ years old now and are still generally considered something that is safe to have on your home network, and not vulnerable to any known in the wild remote code execution.

Xbox one or PlayStation 4 has considerably lower chances of becoming a malicious, virus-infected device on my home network.

Abishek_Muthian• 7 years ago

I concur on leveraging console's(Xbox One/PS4) for smart TV functions due to better security and hardware; But the power consumption in using console as smartTV equivalent should be higher.

Xbox One X has excellent power efficiency, it is my preferred way to gaming as I'm extremely conscious about the power consumption of my devices; but Smart TVs do consume lesser power for what they do.

Diesel5552• 7 years ago

Roku scares me when I'm watching movies on my Rapsberry Pi. They are .mp4 files. I'm not using their software at all... and about 2 minutes in I get a pop-up "You can view this move elsewhere at XYZ." How do they know what movie I'm watching? They are analyzing the feed. Scary.

ojosilva• 7 years ago

By recording and matching soundbites on their servers, similar to what the app Shazam does.

hakfoo• 7 years ago

I can't fathom what possible conversion rate that ad would have.

Even assuming the underlying premise is something like "we suspect this is pirated and here's a legitimate option", you're suggesting I leave a task I'm in the middle of... to perform the same task elsewhere?

I could see if they had the set turn on to a Wii-style menu and they had a box that said "Since you enjoyed watching Show XYZ, you may enjoy Service EFG, featuring XYZ and more", that could possibly convert, but the timing there is completely tone-deaf.

adreamingsoul• 7 years ago

Some will still try to connect to any open wifi and phone home.

I’ve seen that behavior only on the one model that I was analyzing. Still, I assume it’s industry wide and even applicable to every/any IOT device.

krageon• 7 years ago

I have [...] trust of Microsoft and Sony

Stop trusting companies. That's what got us in today's horror show of privacy invasion. Verify what you get and buy accordingly. Trust in corporations is something that's not required and is actively detrimental to society as a whole.

giancarlostoro• 7 years ago

I have an LG smart TV I got when I got an LG G5. I do exactly this. I dont connect it to the internet. I did at first but then I changed the wifi password / reset the damn thing. It is just a dumb TV for my MiBox (Android TV) which I prefer since if that component dies I can replace it. Though I am likely going to buy an Apple TV instead in the future if I see any decent offers on one.

deogeo• 7 years ago

Microsoft and Sony have teams of lawyers who've drafted the data collection/data sharing/opt-out policies for what their current generation game consoles track and phone home about.

Those lawyers are looking out for MS and Sony, not you. Their job is to make sure everything is legal, not ethical.

neop1x• 7 years ago

I would also never connect smart TV to the internet. Years ago we purchased dumb plasma TV and set up a Linux box on older PC. The main part is Kodi (XBMC) which has addons for various online services + we have Tvheadend on another box for satelite and DVB-T2 recording. All two DVB-T2 muxes we are receiving are also sent multicast on the LAN using dvblast. Kodi can be controlled via an app on the smartphone or it's web interface. This has been working for years, some maintenance was needed but I am happy with it and don't plan changing it. This TV box is also a Kubernetes worker node for light workloads :D but that's another story.

trianglem2• 7 years ago

If you don’t want the “smart” features, just never enter your WiFi password.

mopsi3• 7 years ago

Sadly, this will only push TV manufacturers harder to implement built-in always-on 5G connectivity that completely bypasses the end user.

detaro4• 7 years ago

Making devices that just don't work without a connection home seems a lot easier.

eumenides1• 7 years ago

That sounds amazing, a free 5g connection with every tv!

cellular connection is still prohibitively expensive in many parts of the world.

gdulli• 7 years ago

Would the TV still be harmlessly anonymous, though? If you never logged into anything? Would there be any vectors to tying usage to you?

egdod4• 7 years ago

And when the smart TV gets a little smarter and starts using DoH?

trianglem2• 7 years ago

How would this work if it can’t connect to your router?

tyingq3• 7 years ago

This seems fairly easy to me. Just don't configure the WiFi. Add a TV box (FireTV, Apple TV, whatever) that you trust.

Buttons8407• 7 years ago

That FireTV you have plugged in gives the TV an Ethernet connection. So it's more like turn off the WiFi and plug in Ethernet.

tyingq3• 7 years ago

Not sure I understand. How does the TV get that through an HDMI cable?

sjg007• 7 years ago

Fire tv has ads too. Apple TV is really the only option unless u go custom.

thom• 7 years ago

TVs used to be on and showing you a picture before you took your thumb off the channel button on your remote. Good times.

tenebrisalietum3• 7 years ago

The old CRTs I grew up with need a good 15-20 seconds to warm up first, but you did have the audio pretty instantly.

nrp4• 7 years ago

A “Dumb TV” is something I’m exploring developing. There is a gap in the market for a TV with a great panel, no internet connection, and only the processing strictly required for various types of signal processing and format conversion. The closest available solutions are large commercial monitors that cost an arm and a leg.

kingcobraninja• 7 years ago

The commercial monitors cost more because the price isn't subsidized by user data collection.

nrp4• 7 years ago

The data on your viewing habits isn’t worth that sum (making it even sadder that TV OEMs are selling you out). The price deltas are driven by what the market will bear. As expensive as the commercial monitors are, they are a small fraction of the other costs of fitting out the conference rooms and facilities that use them.

alkonaut2• 7 years ago

Dumb TV's are more expensive so you wouldn't be able to find enough people willing to pay that premium I think.

What would be great and much easier technically would be an (open, non-google) Chromecast clone that you can plug into a smart TV and then just not give the smart TV an internet connection.

nrp4• 7 years ago

My hypothesis is that dumb TVs don’t need to be more expensive, and that the savings of not needing a beefy SoC and more DRAM and Flash offsets what would otherwise be coming in from advertising.

sailfast3• 7 years ago

I would be interested in this device.

goombastic2• 7 years ago

Would be interested as well.

soared2• 7 years ago

Did you do any market research? You can very easily go to any store and still buy dumb TVs. I don’t know where people get the idea that 100% of tvs are smart tvs, but that is false.

nrp4• 7 years ago

Rtings pretty comprehensively catalogs and reviews mid and high end TVs. The only TV released in the last two years without WiFi or associated smart functionality is a pretty mediocre 49" TCL. While you can certainly still get smaller 1080p TVs without smarts, you shouldn't have to choose between getting a decent size and panel quality or not having a beefy OS built in.

tenebrisalietum3• 7 years ago

I did. I went to Walmart for their pre-Black Friday sales that start at 6pm, and couldn't find any. Sample size: Easily 500 people in and out of that store per hour, I was there 2 hours.

Walmart represents a store that is easy to go to for much of the US population. That means a good percentage of people in the US are buying TVs at places that don't offer non-smart TVs for sale.

scarejunba• 7 years ago

It's why the device can be so cheap. Pity they don't offer two variants though. I always did like the way Amazon let you opt in to ads for a cheaper Kindle price.

In a past life, I actually helped bridge ad attribution for a bunch of these. Funny.

ga-vu• 7 years ago

paywall... ugh

haspoken• 7 years ago

http://archive.is/8Cm3Q

tzs• 7 years ago

I wish that if they are going to insist on making their TVs smart, they would take the time to think about what people who use some of the apps would want.

For example, my Samsung has apps that can stream radio, and apps for Spotify and other music services.

But it evidently failed to occur to anyone at Samsung that since these are audio apps and do not need to use the screen while playing, I might want to blank the screen once I start the stream.

I'm particularly irked at Samsung because when I searched online to see how to blank the screen (I assumed it was obvious that they would include such a feature, and I was just being dimwitted when it came to finding it), I found that they used to have that feature, and they dropped it starting with the model year of my TV!

oAlbe• 7 years ago

I mean, how are you going to see the ads if the screen is blanked? It's not that they didn't think about it, they did, they just went for the "feature" that benefitted them the most.

qwerty4561272• 7 years ago

It also is extremely hard to fix a smart TV once it gets infected with a virus.

Just don't buy smart TVs. Buy a dumb TV, attach a RaspberryPi or an Intel NUC, install Kodi and enjoy.

rco87863• 7 years ago

Would love to. Who is currently making these dumb TVs? I’m in the market and can’t find anything.

qwerty4561272• 7 years ago

Buy a used one. Or even better - buy a projector.

namibj3• 7 years ago

Iiyama is one if them. Don't consider branding, look for tech specs/price.

flycaliguy• 7 years ago

I got mine at Costco, but suspect my price range must be way lower than all these hacker news users.

Macha• 7 years ago

Unfortunately, I need to consent to tracking by the WaPo to find out how much my Smart TV might be tracking me.

sailfast3• 7 years ago

I’ve found disabling JavaScript on their site also disabled their subscription / paywall API which is all JavaScript.

6gvONxR4sf7o2• 7 years ago

It also happens to disable quite a bit of tracking. Yay for selectively whitelisting JS!

aczerepinski• 7 years ago

Is there any good 4k tv on the market with zero smart features? I would love to buy a high quality display that can't connect to the internet.

krosaen• 7 years ago

Just don't connect it and hook whatever you want into an hdmi port

bitwize2• 7 years ago

Most Sceptre TVs come with no smart features. Price is good, too.

dmm• 7 years ago

Be careful most of the Sceptre tvs are RGBW panels so they aren't true 4k.

aerique• 7 years ago

Why not use a computer display as a dumb TV?

freehunter• 7 years ago

Computer displays don’t often have speakers built into them or robust support for multiple (2+) HDMI inputs or coax inputs for cable/antenna or RGA inputs. All things people typically expect in a TV.

e1ven• 7 years ago

It isn't trivial for most people to buy a 55" computer monitor.

sailfast3• 7 years ago

Has anyone successfully hacked any of these TVs to disable the smart features? I would pay some money for this kind of firmware patch on a future purchase. It seems crazy that the software is so terrible and yet nobody has found a way to disable it.

mackal2• 7 years ago

LG and Samsung use Linux. Might be some fun to had analyzing any source code releases.

milofeynman• 7 years ago

It would be quite nice if there were a single model out there that could be easily hacked and replaced with a speedy interface that does two things, switches HDMI inputs fast and volume control. (And turns off motion blur obviously.) Then maybe you could start throwing other stuff on there.

travisporter• 7 years ago

This would be great! Ifixit should show us how to remove or isolate the 5g/WiFi chip. Makes me wonder- is there a transparent faraday gage solution?

jaclaz• 7 years ago

There are projects to replace/root/modify the OS, unfortunately they tend to be about older models and the manufacturers continue changing things and making access more difficult.

Examples:

https://wiki.samygo.tv/index.php?title=Main_Page

https://forum.xda-developers.com/web-os/general/rooting-webo...

bitwize2• 7 years ago

Just get a Sceptre TV. Up to 4K resolution, no smart features.

codedokode2• 7 years ago

You are discussing here how to isolate the TV into a separate firewalled network, but for an average consumer this is too difficult. What an average consumer wants is to watch Youtube and Netflix and not bother about settings. If I was a TV manufacturer I would install a video camera and microphone and record everything and people would still buy my TVs.

brightrooms• 7 years ago

Not just tvs. All appliances are getting "smart". Refrigerators, washers, etc are or will track you too. You'll have the convenience of connecting to your fridge to see what you need to buy at the supermarket. Eventually, the fridge will just send you notifications of things you need to buy. Very convenient, but the fridge manufacturer will also know what you eat, when you shop, where you shop and everything you do in your kitchen. I suspect sooner or later, there will be period of consolidation amongst the appliance companies so that they will be able to see everything you do in your house.

WWLink• 7 years ago

5 years ago I bough the cheapest side-by-side fridge Best Buy had. It is a $900 whirlpool OEM Amana. It's as dumb as the refrigerator my parents had 20 years ago. :D No complaints here! It works great!

perl4ever4• 7 years ago

I got a GE washer/dryer pair recently that seem to be pretty "dumb" - no wifi, no electronic display, washer is top loading and has an agitator, you can set it to use a reasonable amount of water...

And despite GE becoming a Chinese brand, they seem to have regained a reputation for reliability somewhat, based on the reviews I read.

goombastic2• 7 years ago

You don't get non-smart/dumb TVs that easily anymore.

ph2082• 7 years ago

I shifted house 3 years ago and sold old TV at that time. Thought going to buy new Smart TV. But 1 month passed and I didn't missed TV (also skeptical about tracking thing).

I realised after spending working hours in front of Monitor/Laptop, my eyes can use some rest. So NO TV in weekdays.

I have bought 30 inch monitor, connected to home desktop and use it for entertainment - Netflix, sports etc.

NO TV is an option. Some day going to upgrade to bigger monitor.

jernejzen• 7 years ago

Earlier this year my company pitched anonymization solution for smart TV and smart home appliances to LG and Samsung representatives in Korea.

Their reaction to a proposal was, to put it kindly, terrifying and highly defensive. They said they are doing nothing wrong, no data has been leaked snd that there is no future for our solution, sensing huge discomfort.

Quite evident they have zero interest to gamble status quo on current situation.

soared2• 7 years ago

You pitched them a way to make less money?

advaita• 7 years ago

Quick question for anyone who understands legal side of this, would Smart TV/ Smart TV manufacturers fall under CCPA when it goes into effect?

kitotik• 7 years ago

IANAL, but if the data is being shared with “3rd parties” and/or “service providers” they definitely would. Sadly, I doubt it will actually be enforced by the California AG anytime soon.

jngreenlee• 7 years ago

Just a quick note... hotel/hospitality versions don't have these requirements. Look for them on Alibaba and overstock.

puranjay• 7 years ago

That's a really smart tip. Thanks for sharing!

Diesel5552• 7 years ago

cbg0• 7 years ago

They are analyzing the feed. Scary.

More likely just looking at the title of the file and matching that against themoviedb.

sintaxi• 7 years ago

My guess would be the distribution companies provide them a hash table of MD5s that maps popular torrents to places where they can be purchased. The company that makes the TV sells this services to the distribution company and/or gets a cut of the sales. Furthermore, it probably logs the IP of the person watching the pirated file and sells that data also.

joshu• 7 years ago

no. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_content_recognitio...

GhostVII• 7 years ago

I think they are just fingerprinting the video and audio. They shouldn't have access to the actual file that is being played if you are just connecting the TV to the raspberry pi. I think I saw another thread where someone from Roku confirmed this (I had the same thing happen and it annoyed me so I looked it up).

unwiredben2• 7 years ago

This is the ACR technology in Roku TV devices. It works on the TVs inputs and fingerprints the video several times a minute, sending thumbnails to a server to get visual matches. To disable, go to Settings/Privacy/Smart TV experience and turn off the "use my TV inputs" option.

homerhomer• 7 years ago

My Roku TV is the most blocked computer on my network with the pi-hole.

hypewatch• 7 years ago

And it’s really hard to buy a good quality new TV that’s not smart

stjohnswarts• 7 years ago

My 11 year old philips is still fine.

t34543• 7 years ago

Commercial display panels are “dumb” and a good alternative to the consumer junk that’s forced down our throats.

vasundhar2• 7 years ago

every 2 seconds all devices speak to google, if you have one amazon echo, one fire tv, google chrome cast , roku then your entire life of every moment is in google hands.

34679• 7 years ago

Don't forget cell phones and Fitbits.

vasundhar2• 7 years ago

Every 2 seconds all devices speak to google, if you have one amazon echo, one fire tv, google chrome cast , roku then your entire life of every moment is in google hands.

a_imho2• 7 years ago

How is this different from phones or other smart devices?

arminiusreturns3• 7 years ago

Two wrongs don't make a right. We should be fighting against the surveillance of those systems also.

arminiusreturns3• 7 years ago

Once again, a problem that could easily be solved by requiring a right to root as part of the right to repair. I hate how so many of these are running linux on the underside but you can't do anything with it. I had a friend who got a Samsung smarttv and when I looked up rooting it, the chances were high of bricking it, so we decided not to do it.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, the way we prevent this is in right to repair legislation that includes the right to root.

tehabe• 7 years ago

I own an Samsung smart TV and will so in the future but I wonder if this is only true if you activate the "smart hub" or if this is this true if you just connect the device to your network.

I personally use a Chromecast for my smart TV needs, which of course Google knows everything about. But the chromecast can't see anything else I do, no broadcast TV or if I use the DLNA function.

I wonder when right holders demand those information to sue people who watch "illegal" content on their TVs.

walterkrankheit• 7 years ago

Not connecting to Wifi doesn't really seem to be an option for me. I bought my Samsung smart TV purely with the intention of using it for Netflix, Blu-Ray and Youtube (which is already tracked). It sometimes connects to television if the source gets switched, but I've randomly had it on the same German nature channel since day one. I'm not even sure what the rules are for TV tracking in Germany though.

fulldecent2• 7 years ago

Here is the actual Samsung screen that you can't opt out of:

https://twitter.com/fulldecent/status/1067258123545661441

ozymandias12• 7 years ago

Actually you can opt out nowadays. For Samsung smart tvs:

Menu > Smart Hub > Terms and Conditions

Inside there will be several terms of these tracking companies. Go inside each and all of them and check the box:

    I don't agree with these terms

There. No consent for track.

Have not tested network wise if the tracking persists, but in theory, removing consent should mean they can't collect it.

tyingq3• 7 years ago

TCL says you can disable the internal Roku and make it a dumb TV. https://support.tclusa.com/televisions-setup-configurations/...

benmarks• 7 years ago

We need legislation which deals with the reality of the PII loophole. While the ACR data on its own may not identify me/my household, it absolutely does once it's combined with the rest of my fingerprint in the cloud.

6gvONxR4sf7o2• 7 years ago

The sooner GDPR and CCPA and others outlaw practices like this, the better. I use my TV as a big monitor, and if I happen to have accidentally agreed to something whose fine print allows this, it could have sent some really sensitive information.

Could you imagine if your smartphone screen or your computer monitor did this? I think samsung makes the iphone screens. What if they randomly sent screenshots with personal identifiers back to samsung? Who in their company possibly would possibly think this is okay?

throwanem• 7 years ago

For now, at least, you can turn off ACR in a Roku TV's settings (tested on a 43" TCL Series 5).

dillutedfixer• 7 years ago

Nice, my smart TV has been peeping on me playing Peep Show on repeat.

More seriously, our privacy has been nullified by ferocious marketing and advertising tactics. Data collection has weaved its way into the design of most of the products we use, it was only a matter of time.

I know you can opt out of all of the collection on a Samsung. Just have to not agree to all of the Terms and Services. That being said, I've heavily isolated the Samsung in the house. It sits on its own VLAN that cant talk to anything else on the lan and use some heavy white/blacklisting at the DNS level to limit what it can get to on the internet. I'm sure it's still uploading something about me to somewhere though.

jim-greer• 7 years ago

Sadly, few people are likely to pay more for a TV that doesn’t track them. There’s research on this.

https://www.datainnovation.org/2019/01/national-survey-finds...

opan• 7 years ago

Can anyone recommend brands or models for a fun and hackable TV? Something to let me run my own software on it and remove any ads or unwanted features from menus (I don't want any big Netflix or Hulu buttons). Maybe something running Android. Preferably something with an existing community around it, like an equivalent to OpenWRT or LineageOS for TVs.

ksec• 7 years ago

Which is the reason why Apple should enter the TV market. The argument against it from the likes of Benedict Evans to Horace Dediu has been TV is a low margin business, but so are all the Android Phones in the bottom 60% of the market. I still dont get it.

And since Apple TV sort of means 5 to 6 different things [1], they might as well make an actual Apple TV set to make it even more complicated.

If there are two things that I think Apple should really do, are Wireless Router and TV. I dont want a Google Nest WiFi or Amazon Eero.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21438152

pedrorissato• 7 years ago

I kinda have a felling that in a future not to far, iots devices collecting our data will be mandatory... and if you want a device that do not collect your data you'll probably end it up having to pay 3-5x more for that product. Its kind of an addiction and companies need rehab already.

panpanna• 7 years ago

This is most certainly what will happen if there is not a massive push back from consumers soon.

And I don't see it coming. Older people don't even seem to care that Imo is secretly recording them as longs as they can videochat with their grandchildren. Younger people are just happy for their new shiny toys.

tripzilch3• 7 years ago

If you have one of these types of TVs, may I suggest trying to make a simple YouTube video showing clearly how to navigate the menus to disable these tracking features?

That way, people with less technical know-how (like, say, my parents) can follow the instructions and get more privacy.

At least, I assume they can be disabled? I don't think it would fly with the GDPR otherwise?

Smart TVs like Samsung, LG and Roku are tracking everything

Related Stories