Hisense TVs force owners to watch intrusive ads

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/big-tech/hisense-tvs-force-owners-to-watch-intrusive-ads-when-switching-inputs-visiting-the-home-screen-or-even-changing-channels-practice-infuriates-consumers-brand-denies-wrongdoing

by CharlesW • 4 months ago

95 52 4 months ago

tomshardware.com

Aurornis• 4 months ago

The fact that the ads are rolled out to customers a long time after purchase to escape the return window is extra frustrating.

The part about being able to e-mail an obscure support address with your device's ID to have ads turned off on your device suggests that they're trying to see how far they can push this without damaging their brand. Users who complain enough get solutions, everyone else has to deal with it.

add-sub-mul-div• 4 months ago

Roku has patched so much new garbage into the product since I originally bought mine. I'll never get another Roku device again.

mox1• 4 months ago

Its the only device in our household that I have utterly failed at securing or blocking content from our children on.

My son has found about 25 different ways to access YouTube across our Android, Android TV, Apple and Roku devices. I have found ways in almost all of them to "nicely" block youtube for him (while keeping it for me or keeping the device functional).

Roku is the only one that just doesn't give a crap. Screw Roku.

mindslight• 4 months ago

In addition to being "extra frustrating", it's a straightforward CFAA violation - if laws actually applied to corpos.

longislandguido• 4 months ago

If you deliberately buy a bargain brand Chinese television, you earned the consequences of that decision.

Be happy they're only showing you ads and not implanting malware into your network or turning it into a residential proxy.

notrealyme123• 4 months ago

This is in no way a china exclusive problem.

OkayPhysicist• 4 months ago

When did we start calling things "residential proxies" as opposed to "botnets"? I feel like the latter term, while perhaps not as descriptive, has a much better "this is evil" message.

RobotToaster• 4 months ago

Fire sticks also show ads

nerevarthelame• 4 months ago

For years Hisense has been a highly recommended brand for mid-tier TVs on (relatively) objective review sites like rtings.com. Their customers don't deserve bad things to happen to them. And the Anti-Chinese sentiment is especially weird in the context of advertising, as though the West was spared from intrusive ads prior to this.

Kasutaja1112• 4 months ago

Yea instead of blaming the company for pulling crap like that let's shame the owners of the hardware they paid for because of course that'll help, yeah let's blame each other instead because at least that way we're not blaming the holy corporate overlords

baal80spam• 4 months ago

I wonder who came up with this idea and thought: "This will surely bring customers!".

sejje• 4 months ago

"This will surely raise revenues and get me a promotion before I make a lateral move to a new company!"

throwaway1737382• 4 months ago

If you can sell the ads as a subscription with a yearly contract you can get a 10x multiple on it in your valuation.

mortsnort• 4 months ago

I assume the logic is that you can now sell the TV for less than competitors, which would surely bring customers. Seems pretty straightforward and inline with how the whole TV broadcast industry has subsidized content with ads for decades.

whatevaa• 4 months ago

Not just TV's. Xiaomi subsidizes it's mobile phones by having ads in it's file manager and other default basic apps. Just as an example.

lenerdenator2• 4 months ago

Customers don't matter. Revenues do.

TVs are now a commodity that competes almost solely on price. You can walk into most big box stores in North America and buy a TV that will display at a higher resolution than your eyes are physically capable of processing at the distance of the average living room, have a screen bigger than the average person's wingspan, and it'll cost well under $500. If you don't keep the price low you're going to lose sales. Since you're not making cash on the front-end, you make it by selling the ad space.

Everyone who could want a TV more-or-less has one. You either cut quality so they have to buy 'em more often, or you monetize what's already there. They're probably doing both, but this is an example of the latter.

dlcarrier3• 4 months ago

I have an older Opera based Hisense TV. The platform was renamed to Vewd. (rhythms with 'lewd')

I presume the same mind thought this up.

sockaddr• 4 months ago

The thought process goes like this:

They're a customer already if they're opening the home screen and they probably already mounted it on their wall so fuck them. Show them ads. Also turn on the microphone in the background (what my Hisense tv does).

graypegg• 4 months ago

I wonder if the australian customer support email address is related to Australia's surprisingly strict consumer rights laws. [0] They even offer a form that helps write the specific sort of complaint you should send [1] that presumably, may jump start the process in removing the ads if you had bought the TV under the impression it would continue to work as advertised originally.

[0] https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/buying-products-and-servic...

[1] https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/problem-with-a-product-or-...

moepstar• 4 months ago

Having added Hisense to my shitlist of TV manufacturers a long time ago - did they ever make a model that haven’t had its power supply die after about 4 years? I don’t think so…

ChrisArchitect• 4 months ago

[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47322966

halflife• 4 months ago

Obligatory: never connect your tv to the internet, only use Apple TV for streaming

lenerdenator2• 4 months ago

That works... for now.

It'd be trivial for them to introduce some sort of network connectivity check that would need to be completed before audiovisual signals come out of the device.

I'm pretty sure they already have that in the pipeline. Why wouldn't they?

pier252• 4 months ago

Why wouldn't they?

Plenty of places in the world with bad connectivity or people who can't afford an ISP.

mikestew• 4 months ago

Obligatory: “but they can run Ethernet over HDMI!”

Ignoring, of course, that no implementation has ever been observed in the wild, for purposes malicious or otherwise.

recursive• 4 months ago

Obligatory: "but they could use a cellular modem".

Noting grimly that plenty of cellular modems have been observed in the wild.

everdrive• 4 months ago

The privacy crowd is terrible this way. All objections bear equal weight, and they cannot see things otherwise.

dlcarrier3• 4 months ago

I agree wholeheartedly to the first point, but then why undo that by using a set-top box that only works after phoning home? I'd rather the manufacturer not even know my IP address, let alone get a full login.

testing22321• 4 months ago

One step better: never bring a tv into your home.

It’s called an idiot box for a reason.

My life has improved dramatically without one.

aquir• 4 months ago

I do the same with my Samsung Smart TV but after a couple of months it stops playing videos from the USB drive or stops recognising the same drive. All I have to do is to turn off and unplug from the mains for 10-15 minutes and it starts working again!

crooked-v• 4 months ago

I got a used Sceptre TV (https://www.sceptre.com/TV/4K-UHD-TV-category1category73.htm...) and I'm extremely happy with it. No "smart" features, no bullshit, no slow menus, just a set of 4K@60Hz HDMI ports (newer models do 4K@120Hz) with ARC and CEC and a comprehensive set of display options.

Jgrubb• 4 months ago

I know nothing about hardware, but is there a world where an OpenWRT firmware for smart TVs is possible? Are there that many different chipsets and manufacturers?

dlcarrier3• 4 months ago

There's a homebrew scene for WebOS TVs: https://www.webosbrew.org/ I don't know of any for Android, but rooting is quite common.

Kasutaja1112• 4 months ago

I have that on my LG tv but it's kinda pointless, it doesn't remove the adware from the home screen and hunting the ip addresses down it connects to is a pain in the ass so the tried and tested method was to not give it Internet access

throwaway1737382• 4 months ago

As long as they haven’t done HAB. And provided you’re willing to live with 720p resolution for all your video streams.

cynicalsecurity• 4 months ago

The article showed me an intrusive popup to subscribe to something several times. What an irony.

disillusioned• 4 months ago

If you're going to be forced, Clockwork Orange-style, to endure unwanted ads on your TV, you might as well just get the whole thing for free, right? That's what Telly does: https://www.telly.com/

For me, it worth it to spend marginally more to not have to deal with _any_ of that, but I get the appeal.

levinb• 4 months ago

I've been telling people for 15y that a phone is just "A TV that watches you back"

And at last, the market has finally caught up with me :)

leni536• 4 months ago

This just asks to be jailbroken.

k33n• 4 months ago

The implicit contract when you buy from Hisense is that you'll see ads. They are obviously deploying more aggressive advertising strategies as their more tech-savvy customers break the implicit contract and get around ads entirely -- leaving the less tech-savvy customers holding the bag.

That's all that's happening. Had zero customers done that, they wouldn't have had to go nuclear.

zedlasso• 4 months ago

It's not just TV's. My banking app always spams every time it loads up to sign up for one of its subscriptions.

The insanity needs to stop.

CrzyLngPwd• 4 months ago

All they need next is a camera that watches you, and if you are not looking at the ad then the ad is paused.

How amazing would that be!?

choward• 4 months ago

I've never liked the idea of my display having an integrated computer. Especially one I don't control. This non-sense just furthers that.

Displays last a long time. Eventually the computer will become outdated especially if companies can just remotely load viruses like this onto them. I just connect my computer to my TV and that's the only input I ever use. Full control. The "smart" part of "smart" TVs is idiotic.

krickelkrackel• 4 months ago

That's quite 'Black Mirror':

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits

notorandit• 4 months ago

Don't connect TVs to the internet as they are actually computers programmed to serve ads.

Actually, don't buy TVs at all. Buy books.

Hisense TVs force owners to watch intrusive ads

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