These TVs can capture and identify 7,200 images per hour, or approximately two every second. The data is then used for content recommendations and ad targeting, which is a huge business; advertisers spent an estimated $18.6 billion on smart TV ads in 2022, according to market research firm eMarketer.
Obviously
Honestly the least I’d expect of a smart TV.
on our vizio, from the settings side panel: all settings->admin/privacy->viewing data. turn it off.
I wouldn’t trust it anyway. I would only trust a TV that does not have Internet access, period.
I am so glad I don’t have a TV. It’s just the Internet with even more ads, minus the Internet.
It doesn’t have to be. I get everything for free, no subscriptions, no ads. I’m pretty happy with the deal.
I have my old (stupid) tv from like 2013, works perfectly fine. No apps, no firmware, no ads, no tracking. Never felt the need to buy a smart tv, but I’m afraid it’d be near impossible to find a new one that isn’t nowadays I’d mine broke down.
This is the only reason I have a smart TV. I didn’t want one, in fact it prompted me to make an SSID and VLAN just for it, then applied a bunch of DNS blocks. Unfortunately my old 2012 TV wasn’t worth shipping across the country and the image was getting pretty dim and it had started developing dead pixels.
If you want anything above 1080p that’s a dumb TV you have to go commercial like the hospitality market and they charge you way more for it. And they won’t even sell it to you without a corporate account in most places.
The only way to get 4K and HDR without the smarts as a consumer is to buy a giant gaming monitor… and those too ask for quite a premium, because gamers.
Have you tried just not connecting it to the internet, and using a streaming box?
I opted to connect it because it’s the only device in the house Netflix is willing to give more than 720p. I hate DRM.
That’s just some epic bullshit. Netflix’s tiering is just asinine.
They come with the crap built in these days.
I know. Don’t connect it to the internet, and don’t use the crap
Tbf, gaming monitors usually have higher refresh rate compared to regular monitors. So it’s not just RGB lights and racing stripes that accounts for the extra cost.
Yeah but they do still end up pretty expensive. I was able to score a black friday 65" 4K HDR 1000 nits 120 Hz FreeSync TV with local dimming for $700. Not the best but given I don’t use it that often or for very long I didn’t want it to turn into a big investment.
I’m sure it’s pretty average but for my use case it worked out pretty good.
My smart TV is blocked from the internet. It doesn’t know shit.
oh it knows. it just can’t tell anyone!
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SmartTV: This customer loves watching Balance of Nature ads
Me: fuck balance of nature I fucking hate those stupid scammy ads!
I leave the TV on all day for the cats, I’m sure they’re getting lots of useful data while they sleep in front of MASH reruns
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A TV that is not connected to the internet is effectively just a large monitor.
I understand that some TVs lock functionality and coerce you into connecting it to the network, but most of them function well as monitors. I know it’s tempting to make use of the “smart” features since it’s included, but if you care about privacy, it’s better to keep it off the internet.
… but it isn’t able to tell anyone, as it is not connected to the Internet. Poor smart TV.
If there are any unsecured networks in your vicinity it might be telling on you without you knowing.
Pull one of your old routers from the back of closet, and use it to make a completely new network just for your TV. If you don’t connect the router to the rest of the internet, your TV is happy to connect to something, and you get to keep your privacy a little bit longer.
Not everyone has an old router. I do, but not everyone.
Why do I keep an old router?
Mine connects through pihole with all LG domains blocked. I’m not getting any update request, notifications or anything. Just Netflix.
Next up: Televisions that don’t have off switches and never go to sleep.
Ones with voice activation & stuff do this already. TVs will pull a lot of power when ‘off’ since they’re not off.
Yup. A lot of folks don’t seem to understand that this is the case, though.
Pretty soon, there won’t even be soft-off switches anymore.
We could call them telescreens maybe
They could have a built in alarm clock that starts your day with a mandatory workout and the latest news telling us what to believe
laughs in crtv and dvd player
Considering I don’t connect it to the internet I’d be surprised if it was doing anything.
It’s brute-forcing your neighbors’ WiFis
“I’m in”
- your TV after hacking the neighbors tv.
Joke aside, would that make it basically anonymous? Unless it’s actually sending screenshots, it will only tell “somebody around this IP is watching TV/Something from HDMI”
That’s why i don’t connect mine to the internet and I black hole suspicious traffic
