Yeah, this right here. They’re as snout-deep in your data as anyone else. From mywallet.com:
“The company recently revealed that its advertising and media profits surpassed the money it makes from selling the connected-TV hardware . In the company’s latest earnings release, Roku reported $232 million in platform revenue, which includes advertising, versus the $88.2 million generated by hardware sales.”
What data are we afraid of being stolen or used by Roku?
My TV habits? So what.
Yea, I mean this is pretty much the answer.
I have a “smart” Sony 65 inch tv, but I don’t use it as such. I have an Apple TV that runs into my stereo via HDMI, then HDMI out to the Sony.
If someone isn’t into streaming, they can just receive their content through a cable/satellite box or over the air and not connect their TV to the internet. Don’t get the issue here.
This is good to remember, but I’d assume that the TV is collecting data while offline, so I always add a factory reset before connecting and doing the update. edit: And another one after, since my TV doesn’t allow(!!) removing a wifi connection.
We have a lovely new-ish last dumb-TV generation TV we hope will last forever. None of my (20-something) children have a TV, and are mystified when I offer to buy them one. They are perfectly happy doing their viewing on their laptop I guess.
That part; second hand televisions are cheaper than ever, especially if one knows how to shop at a flea market, swap meet, or just by using Craig’s List.
Televisions can still be repaired, too. People have the idea that modern electronics are unrepairable, but mostly they still are. I had a first-gen plasma that I used for 15 years, and sent it in for repair twice in that time. Once for a bad power driver board and once for a pixel band control board. When I did finally upgrade it, I donated it to a neighborhood lady who was thrilled to have it. If the display panel itself goes bad, that may not be worth fixing, but that was true of CRTs as well. Just because there isn’t a TV Repair guy on every corner like there used to be doesn’t mean they can’t be fixed.
Anyone know if android tv has a useable UI compared to smart TVs?
It seems every streaming service has an android app. So I can at lest watch whatever I want. And if I can root it I can install an Ad blocker.
Your GIF is of a person covered in sponsorship. Purposeful or accidental irony?
So is your avatar.
Irony indeed
I realize some manufacturers flirted with embedding a LTE modem. But I understand that is not super common.
Why not buy a smart TV and just never gove it your wifi key? Only using the HDMI inputs.
Some TV’s won’t function without an Internet connection (cough Visio cough)
ETA: bought a cheap Visio TV for the basement rec room and I loathe that piece of $hit. Barely functional even with an Internet connection and half the time it locks up on the Home Screen where I have to unplug it and plug it back in just to get it working again. If I weren’t so lazy I’d chuck it in the bin.
Some of us are not ok with the trade-offs re smart vs dumb TVs.
Like this trade-off. No one in my family is willing to be product-via-smart-tv.
Our home doesn’t even have a TV. Like, for decades. No TV.
I find it helpful to get more done.
We get enough surveillance and screen time on the innernets, smartphones, etc. that we find the limit to our own trade-offs is plenty clear.
If you ever decide to teach that skill, please let us know.
This is a portable, sustainable skill, and in-demand in a tech hotspot like ATX, which has its share of large monitors gone bad.
And you’ll notice the finger points are perfectly aimed.
Like anyone, I have my off days, but generally speaking I try to excel whenever possible.
Right, which is why I don’t use the smart feature on my TV. I thought I made that clear.
Unfortunately modern TV use their own DNS look up tables, so Pi hole won’t work on them.
I imagine there will eventually develop a cottage industry around jailbreaking / firmware swapping smart tv’s.
Pihole offers a recursive DNS server option (along with blacklists) which can block those lookups.
https://docs.pi-hole.net/guides/dns/unbound/
Unless they’re tunneling it over TLS, you can quite easily look for anything headed towards port 53 and send it to your local DNS server, if you’re running something with a firewall.
I just ignored my 4K Tvs pleas to connect it to the internet, and hooked up the fire tv stick…
