Ask HN: What's the best hackable smart TV?

7 days ago

I want to get a second TV which will more or less be a second monitor for my System76 laptop which is plugged into a bunch of music equipment, like a korg midi keyboard, and a novation drum pad, all of which work great with linux.

I want to buy this TV used. I'm seeing a bunch of Samsung, LG, RCA, Sony, etc on Facebook Marketplace. What a cesspool Facebook has become, right?

Any suggestions on the best brand or even model for that kind of thing? I don't really want to battle with a bunch of shit that tries to coerce me to install another app from a streaming provider slash gambling entrypoint.

I imagine mostly it will just need HDMI to work, and all the TVs will support that. But, I thought maybe there would be a fun brand that offers interesting other options.

192 comments

xrd

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paulgerhardt  3 days ago

Do recommend the LG C series (C5 or C4 are new or the C1 series if you want a deal on classifieds - same hardware as the higher end models but needs a firmware bit flip). The OS is very rootable and it makes a great TV that doubles as a monitor. Supports free sync / g-sync. OLED is nice at this scale.

Text is very readable, refresh rate is good. It uses the same panels as the fancier G series in the larger sizes. One can root the firmware to make it go brighter. (Though this is screen works well in medium or dimly lit rooms. It does not shine in very bright rooms).

Plenty of YouTube videos singing the C series praises as a TV / Monitor.[1] LG webOS is also trivial/friendly to root in developer mode and network control of the tv is a nice to have.

Would avoid Samsung. I love the matte on the Frame and the design of the Serif but the OS is frustrating / impractical to root.

[1] https://youtu.be/Qtve0u3GJ9Y

  • aljgz  3 days ago

    I Second avoiding Samsung. I had an LG, had to let it go to my ex, and got a Samsung because the rtings said it has a better color space coverage. The quality in the out of box experience is day and night. Samsung does every trick to take you to the homepage to show you ads. Even when using as a monitor, will analyse your content and phone home to use in showing you more "relevant" ads. I disconnected it from the rest of the world completely. If I could sell it for 70% of the price, I would, and would get an LG again.

    • godelski  1 day ago 

        > I Second avoiding Samsung.

      I'll third this, as a Samsung owner who uses it as primarily a monitor. My "favorite" feature is that when I use an app like Netflix and then press the "Exit" button on the remote there's a 50% chance I just land back on my desktop and a 50% chance that the menu that covers the bottom third of the screen is open. It can also frequently not find the signal of the computer, maybe 1 in 50 times. Sometimes it'll connect in a few seconds, sometimes a few minutes, sometimes after replugging the HDMI, and sometimes updating the screen by doing things like pressing buttons that would cause something to change (my computer neither hybernates nor goes to sleep). Not to mention that it frequently will ask me to update the terms of service (I cannot reject them, I can only select "remind me later" and it starts to get aggressive) and it will change some settings when it force updates on me.

      Do not get a Samsung...

  • baby_souffle  3 days ago

    Another +1 for LG but it's worth mentioning that there are a few things that a TV firmware does that you don't necessarily want in a Monitor. Simple example: most TVs will stay on _forever_ with the "no signal" image bouncing around... but a proper monitor will interpret that as a sign that the PC has gone to sleep so the monitor should, too.

    I have not looked into hacking the firmware to change this behavior but if there's a "custom rom" out there that can do this, I'd appreciate a link!

    One of the best things about LG in general is their serial port. It's hit/miss which of their models will have it exposed on the back, but if yours does, the protocol is well documented and is very simple.

    My LG TV (used as a monitor) is really chatty on the network and so I keep it disconnected so I don't get periodic interruptions from little overlays telling me that $someApp has been updated and needs me to agree to new terms (yes, really!).

    To re-gain remote control for automation, I use the serial port. I have an ESP32 connected to a mmWave sensor for active "at desk?" detection. This is integrated with Home Assistant which knows which PC my KVM is pointing to and if it's on or not. This lets me re-implement basic "if not at desk and no PC is on, put the display to sleep" automation.

    My biggest complaint is more of an ecosystem issue; why is DisplayPort not common on TVs? Because this TV-As-A-Monitor is HDMI only, my KVM has to be HDMI and so does every PC that's hooked up. Would have been a lot nicer if the whole chain could be display port :/.

  • rcarmo  3 days ago

    I second this simply because LG is the least evil of all smart TV manufacturers _and_ has the best panels and (usually) connectivity.

    • IshKebab  3 days ago

      Less evil than Sony? I have an LG TV. I can't recommend it purely because they have the audacity to omit a play/pause button from the remote control. Pausing requires pressing the "centre" button one, two or three times depending on which app you are in. Pure insanity.

      WebOS is trash too.

      Probably going to buy a Sony next time.

      5 replies →

  • esperent  3 days ago

    > same hardware as the higher end models but needs a firmware bit flip

    I have a C1, and I got the technician's remote to try this. But it didn't work in my case - it seems that only some of them use the same hardware, probably based on supply chain needs. Still though, amazing screen. Takes a bit messing around with picture settings (there's some good guides online) but I've never found the "TV" parts to get in the way, just connected it via HDMI, put it in PC mode, disable wifi, and it's good to go. I guess I've been using it around 4 years now.

    The only serious issue is the shininess of the screen. It's not terrible but I did have to rearrange my office a bit to make sure it wasn't facing a window.

  • kelthuzad  3 days ago

    I bought the Samsung Frame TV and I love it, but you're correct about Samsung's OS (it's sluggish, filled with ADs and by far the worst TV OS that I've used so far)

    • BozeWolf  3 days ago

      Contrary experience from me: i hate my samsung frame, especially because of the ads. And more especially because of that samsung tv channel which autostarts. And I hate it even more because these ads change the menu in such a way that you cannot navigate it blindly because it inserts itself as a button mid way in the menu bar. You cannot disable or disable those things easily. Built in airplay is unstable.

      Bought and connected an apple tv, always switch on the tv with that. Most problems solved.

      6 replies →

    • batrat  3 days ago

      Ads? I thought HN crowd already know how to use a pihole or at least adguard dns. I got Samsung TV's in every room because they are easy to use with a Galaxy phone, using it as a remote and a keyboard. Also wireless DEX is soooo underrated. Want a specific app on tv? no problem. I'm basically using them as displays for my phone.

      5 replies →

  • zdware  3 days ago

    ++ for the LG homebrew community. The homebrew store literally has an app now that will auto refresh your dev token so your TV doesn't go out of devmode and uninstall all of your home brew. Used to have to setup a cron job to renew/refresh dev mode.

  • iguessthislldo  3 days ago

    I have one of them (don't remember which number) and OLED part is very nice. I haven't done anything with the TV itself, but I forked an old library (https://github.com/iguessthislldo/libLGTV_serial) to control it remotely through serial and Home Assistant without connecting it to my WiFi. I originally set this up for a much older 1080p LG TV, and was able to use it with a newer one with a few modifications.

    edit: Apparently I specially have C3PUA according to the model data I added. Also if anyone is interested in this, I can update the README because I didn't change it after I forked it.

  • whalesalad  3 days ago

    I have a C2 OLED and it is a really nice TV. I've never connected it to the internet or tried to root it though. It behaves as a simple no-frills display.

  • mmastrac  3 days ago

    I am curious if the Cx series has the same issue as my B2 where Dolby Vision (Atmos?) seems to kill the video processing circuitry and requires me to power-cycle it.

    Apparently the only fix is to disable it in your source, but it works like 75% of the time and I'd hate to lose the excellent picture quality of Netflix and YouTube via Google TV.

    • tracker1  3 days ago

      Worth trying are a different cable, and maybe a different source depending on your setup... my previous AVR had pretty consistent issues against my TV that I constantly had to soft power off and on to work around, it only happened when using the ARC port. On another setup, it turned out to be an issue with the cable.

      YMMV.

      1 reply →

    • lossolo  3 days ago

      I have CX, works without issues here. I'm watching raw .mkv and .mp4 files with DV, HDR and Atmos.

  • michalf6  3 days ago

    I was looking for a 40-43in 4K TV for PC monitor use, considered the LG C series, but it wouldn't work in my bright room.

    I went with Samsung QN90C instead and I'm super happy with it. It's very bright, fights glare well, and there's Jellyfin for it.

  • kjkjadksj  3 days ago

    How much pause should oled burn in give you though? Both from the buying used perspective and using as a secondary monitor where there might be fixed ui elements?

hamdingers  3 days ago

For "fun and interesting" consider an LG WebOS TV. Many can be rooted[1] which allows installing a homebrew channel[2] of unauthorized apps or writing your own.

I initially did it for Jellyfin before they made it into the official app store, but the Moonlight game streaming app has unlocked many hours of entertainment.

1. https://cani.rootmy.tv

2. https://www.webosbrew.org/

matt_heimer  3 days ago

I have Sony Bravia TV that has Android TV so I went looking for the docs to confirm you can enable developer mode, access adb, and sideload apps. While looking at the docs I discovered I can load HTML5 apps from USB! I never knew that but I'm going to do some experimentation in the near future.

https://pro-bravia.sony.net/develop/app/getting-started/inde...

  • cosmic_cheese  3 days ago

    It’s difficult to do better than Sony for an Android TV. Their Android build is one of the most junk-free out there. The newer ones can also use their internal speakers as a center channel when external stereo speakers are hooked up (giving dialogue a boost) which is pretty cool.

    I use mine as a dumb TV but the built-in smarts are serviceable.

  • slipperybeluga  3 days ago

    best thing i ever did with my bravia was install a custom launcher via adb to finally rid myself of the endless ads, upsetting news, and terrible suggestions constantly shoved in my face without my consent. nice to be able to uninstall the misc bloat that you can't get to with the gui and just have a simple interface. all i want is to access jellyfin and maybe one or two other apps. much better all around experience now.

    here's a nice reference for a lot of the stuff installed on bravia that you can elect to remove via adb:

    https://github.com/therealhoodboy/skinny-bravia

    • agile-gift0262  2 days ago

      OMG! thank you! I was unaware this was possible. I can't stand the fact that my expensive TV came with ads built-in. I use it in "only apps mode" so at least the only ad id showed is the top third of the screen one, but not the "recommended" content tiles. I'll do this instead once I go back home

RajT88  3 days ago

Craigslist an older 1080p TV. People are getting rid of old "dumb" TV's, and sometimes you can get them free. I see seemingly undamaged LCD TV's out by garbage bins all the time. I sourced one such a TV for my wife for $100 a few years ago to use as a monitor - works great. No apps or anything - dumb as they come.

  • gruez  3 days ago

    You're missing out on resolution (4K) and picture quality (HDR, contrast ratios, color gamut) improvements by doing this.

    • MyOutfitIsVague  3 days ago

      My experience with HDR has been pretty abysmal on a $500 4K TV. Badly tuned HDR is way worse than no HDR at all.

      I have 20/20 vision, and I really can't tell the difference between 1080p and 4K for video games and movies. I will never do below 4k again on a desktop, but 1080p is more than fine for a TV. Higher framerate makes a far bigger difference than higher resolution for video games too.

      5 replies →

    • Atomic_Torrfisk  3 days ago

      Yes, but I think you are missing out on the part where it is close to free. I have a nice monitor for photos and other crap, but most of the shit I do is text. I do not need 4k.

    • squarefoot  1 day ago

      When those are needed, digital signage displays are the answer. They're more costly unfortunately but can be bought used and are guaranteed to work 12-18-24/24 in much less friendly environments than a living room. They're increasingly making use of Android or WebOS, unfortunately, but being aimed at the professional world they lack all those annoyances and the general crap the industry crams into home TVs.

    • RajT88  3 days ago

      If I (like my wife) was going to use a TV as a monitor at her desk, I would definitely want a 4k monitor. Up close, that is a video wall, with no need of window scaling.

      Such as it is, I use 3x 1080p displays. It's fine for me, and approximates a larger curved super-wide display (while also being cheap). She does just fine with 1080p resolution however - rarely has more than 2-3 windows on screen at a time.

    • reaperducer  3 days ago

      You're missing out on resolution (4K) and picture quality (HDR, contrast ratios, color gamut) improvements by doing this.

      Not everyone suffers from FOMO.

      I've only seen one movie that was worth the bother and expense of seeing it in 4K (Rear Window).

      The rest of the things you mention are mostly for a very small slice of theoretical people with perfect vision in perfectly lit rooms at the perfect height and viewing angle.

      Beyond icons on a sticker checklist, they mean nothing to the 99% of people who just want to watch sportsball or eat popcorn while watching Disney films with their kids.

      You can put lipstick on a pig, but most people are still watching pigs.

      14 replies →

    • cheschire  3 days ago

      HDR is a mixed bag on PCs, and 4K comes at a system performance cost. OP said this was intended to be a monitor.

  • shayway  3 days ago

    Be warned, 'seemingly' is a key word there. I have picked up eight TVs up from alleys over the past few years and each has had a broken screen only visible when plugged in. I have no idea how people are breaking so many TVs.

    • RajT88  3 days ago

      I can help: Children.

      I can remember when the Nintendo Wii came out, and people I know were damaging things when the remotes would go flying. It's like the Wii release every day in a house with kids. My brother-in-law is on their third TV in 5 years.

      1 reply →

jqpabc123  6 days ago

I bought a Hisense model from Costco and set it to "store mode".

For all practical purposes, it is just a dumb HDMI display attached to my computer.

  • otterley  3 days ago

    Are you able to adjust its picture settings when it's in store mode?

    • jqpabc123  2 days ago

      No. Brightness and contrast are maxed out but it's not bad with a cheaper model.

      My opinion --- in some cases, the difference between expensive and cheap boils down to the picture controls being intentionally limited for marketing effect.

      So the cheap model maxed out looks like the more expensive model at medium. People can recognize the difference in the store so they opt for the more expensive one. But the actual displays themselves are virtually identical.

      It may actually be cheaper to make one grade of display and differentiate using the controls.

  • mongol  3 days ago

    What does store mode do?

    • hamdingers  3 days ago

      It disables smart features and many of the settings making it more like a dumb HDMI screen.

      This may seem like a good thing, but it also usually enables a "vibrant" postprocessing picture mode, motion smoothing, and maximum brightness so the display looks good in a well lit big box store. Unless your viewing environment is similar (or you don't care so much) that's probably not what you want.

      6 replies →

    • jimt1234  3 days ago

      This is interesting to me. I never heard of "store mode". Is that common for "smart TVs" these days? My interest here is for my elderly mother who tries to watch TV, but her current LG is constantly bombarding her with notifications for software updates, recommendations and ads. It's very frustrating for her; it's to the point where she's afraid to turn on the TV.

      I want a TV for her that will power-on directly to YouTube-TV, and that's it, nothing else, no notifications, nothing.

chatmasta  3 days ago

Why does it need to be a TV? Why not a monitor? I don’t know why we even differentiate between the two of them these days… basically the only difference is that a TV might have an IR receiver for a remote.

I’d go with a basic monitor and factor out the “smart TV” into whatever device you prefer – Apple TV, Chromecast, Firestick, any SBC with Kodi loaded onto it… an Xbox… why couple the smart features to the display?

  • robertakarobin  3 days ago

    I had the same thought but found there are very few TV-size monitors on the market, and the ones there are cost an arm and a leg. There are also very few "dumb" TVs -- we finally got one by Insignia, Best Buy's store brand, which has been fine. If someone knows a better alternative please let me know!

    Worth clarifying that when I was a kid "TV-size" meant anything above 13", but the times have changed considerably. :)

  • whitehexagon  3 days ago

    I bought a decent 4k monitor to go with my 4k media box, and the required 4k cable, but wouldnt play because 'for your safety, blocked because not a TV' or some such nonsense, think it was HDCP? Annoying enough for me to cancel 4k paid tv, plus they were busy agressively reducing the broadcast bitrate. Also ended up with a load of bluray 4k discs I cant use, and they wonder why people download stuff.

  • dreamcompiler  3 days ago

    TVs are much cheaper than monitors. They are produced in larger numbers and their lower price is enabled by spying and advertising.

    • atmanactive  3 days ago

      Agree, but also, much worse image quality. Put a, for example 32" TV and a monitor one next to each other, set native resolution, put up a screen with a lot of text, and you'll see - the difference is night and day.

      4 replies →

  • raffraffraff  3 days ago

    I got a nice Philips Evnia 43" OLED monitor. 12 years belt that, I bought a 42" 1080p LG monitor. Monitors all the way.

  • palata  3 days ago

    > Apple TV, Chromecast, Firestick

    Those are not exactly hackable, are they?

drnick1  2 days ago

Best hackable smart TV should be a Linux box connected to a monitor or to a "smart" TV via HDMI without Internet access. The best thing about this setup is that you can stream Youtube ad-free though clients like VacuumTube. You can also open a browser and head straight to the high seas. Plus countless other things that are arbitrarily restricted or made difficult in locked down environments, all without your viewing habits being sent to the mothership, data brokers, and possibly the government.

The main downside is that there is currently no great "ten foot" UI for this use case on Linux. But the KDE Bigscreen project is being revived and could offer a definitive solution for free TVs.

  • throwawayk7h  2 days ago

    one should use a mini pc or similar for this; raspberry pi won't handle video so well imo.

    • drnick1  2 days ago

      Agreed, I don't have first-hand experience with Pi's, but I have seen reports that they struggle with 4K playback, even at 30fps. An advantage of the Pi however is that it supports HDMI-CEC.

gdulli  3 days ago

What does hackable mean in this context, and what's the downside of any old smart TV not connected to the internet and the input left on your laptop, where you'd never see anything having to with the manufacturer's app OS?

  • MisterTea  3 days ago

    Most TV's today are actually giant Android computers. I opened a friends TV a few years back to try and examine a back light issue and to my surprise there were just 3 small PCB's in the TV: Power supply, LCD driver/interface, and the video input board that contains an Arm SoC. The PSU had a small harness that ran to the other two boards and the SoC board had a ribbon cable to the LCD panel.

    The Arm SoC is the real interesting part here as it also has WiFi and Blue Tooth interface, Ethernet, and USB port(s). They're like a giant black box Raspberry Pi. If we could get our hands on the SoC datasheet then its possible we could flash that SoC to run whatever OS we want and actually have a Smart TV instead of a spyware and malware vector. Though I am sure no TV maker would ever let the plebs disable their money making spying and data exfiltration schemes.

    • futhey  3 days ago

      I'm being pedantic but I liked your comment. Most TVs today are giant ARM computers, ~95% of TVs ship with ARM Cortex but only about 35% have some variant of Android.

      Most LED backlights are wired in such a way that when one LED fails it bricks a significant portion of the panel backlight. You'll knock out entire rows or huge portions of neighbor backlight LEDs when one fails. Basically it's a cheap way to ensure a whole row of LEDs are the same brightness but the tradeoff is one LED fails and it looks like 5% of your screen went dark.

      It seems like a good beginner-intermediate thing that'd be approachable to learn with a basic multimeter and beginner level soldering skills.

    • gruez  3 days ago

      >If we could get our hands on the SoC datasheet then its possible we could flash that SoC to run whatever OS we want and actually have a Smart TV instead of a spyware and malware vector

      Surely it's more straightforward to buy a SBC yourself and plug that into your TV? Even if you could flash it, dealing with random SoC/hardware seems not worth the hassle compared to shelling out $50-200 for a SBC that you picked and can be carried between TVs? Flashing third party ROMs like lineageos makes sense because there's no real alternative for smartphone hardware, but the same isn't true for smart TVs.

      1 reply →

colangelod  3 days ago

If you just want it for the HDMI input to use as an aux screen for what ever computer your running than anything with an HDMI input in the size range you want should work. I run all the TV's in my house like this; connected to mac mini's instead of futzing with the onboard software mostly because I despise typing one letter at a time with a tv remote.

Honestly all the onboard TV OS stuff I have interacted with in the last decade has been more or less terrible and I wouldn't even consider it when buying a TV especially one that is just going to be a screen. All of the recent installs Ive dealt with (family and friend support) has revealed a ton of pay-to-play features (Samsung frame tv's cough cough). I applaud you for wanting something neat but I cant say Ive come across anything Ive ever actually wanted to use beyond "select input -> HDMI1"...

  • patrickk  3 days ago

    This, this, this.

    Just never, ever connect the TV to the internet. Connect up an Nvidia shield, or a mini-PC/raspberry pi configured with whatever apps you desire, hidden behind a pi-hole. Connect a steam deck if gaming/linux desktop usage is your thing. I only touch the TV remote to switch on the TV, and even that could be automatable with home assistant+CEC if that's of interest.

    • dn3500  3 days ago

      I had a TV once, can't remember the brand, that refused to stream from my dlna server unless it could contact its own corporate servers over the internet first.

    • FloatArtifact  2 days ago

      In theory, this seems great, but you won't be able to use the majority of streaming applications nor get the same quality out of those applications. Like Netflix, they purposely downgrade the streaming quality on desktop.

      1 reply →

  • horsawlarway  3 days ago

    Yup.

    You generally don't want a smart tv you can hack. You want a decent computer you own sending signal through the external inputs.

    The SBC in the TV is, hands down across basically every "smart" TV I've interacted with, a cheap piece of crap (even well into the "expensive" brands and models).

    Manufacturers stick the absolute cheapest garbage in there that can output the advertised resolution during playback without stuttering.

    So you can spend hours/days/week wrestling this cheap, underpowered board back from the manufacturer... or you can just side-step it entirely and spend much less time and effort sticking a decent computer you own behind the tv.

  • joshstrange  3 days ago

    This!

    All my TVs have an Apple TV on them and that's all that is used (aside from a game console here and there). I pretty much never need to interact with the TV OS. Is there a Netflix app on my TV? Probably, I'll never know, I've never even launched the app store.

  • foobarian  3 days ago

    Unfortunately the family likes live TV, and that is very hard to get without compromising the UX.

    • horsawlarway  3 days ago

      OTA TV Tuners fill this niche.

      It's been a bit since I've done this (I'm not watching live TV anymore), but something like HDHomeRun worked fine.

      It basically pairs an antenna with a small computer to convert to network traffic, then gives you an app on your streaming device to play it back.

      You do need to be able to run the vendor's app, and you'll get stuck with that UI for live tv (So yeah - totally agree that you're compromising the UX). But still no reliance on the "smarts" built into the tv.

      1 reply →

alprado50  3 days ago

Im using a 43 inch samsung tv as a monitor. It works fine as long as you never conect it to internet.

Rucadi  3 days ago

I compiled/ported the mario64 port to the LG TV quite easily, so I would say that LGTV is the best for that.

th0rine  3 days ago

Older LG sets (tested on C9 OLED) had security vulnerabilities you could use to root your TV and then do "??????" you wanted with them. WebOS as a platform causes a lot of unproductive discussion surrounding it's ecosystem and such but if you want to "hack" or actually have a shell on your TV it's great for that to do anything else you want. Personal favorites include changing the default screensaver behavior to the bouncing DVD logo, running Chocolate Doom, and a port of Space Cadet pinball natively. More info here - https://rootmy.tv/

gosub100  3 days ago

I think Tizen lets you write your own apps. I know I installed Emby on one of the very cheap smart tvs recently and had to install it via developer mode and pull in the package by typing the IP of my laptop into the TV (maybe vice versa).

I didn't write the code but it seemed like you can get a development account from Tizen and write your own apps.

To be clear, Tizen is not a brand of TV, it's the name of the OS. It's fairly common on various no-name hardware brand, check it out.

WorldPeas  3 days ago

I use a NEC OPS module tv I got on facebook marketplace as a digital signage monitor. Best purchase I've made yet, though I will admit the feet for it being 200 dollars was quite a shock (they're made out of steel and about 2 feet long each so it makes sense) completely dumb tv, takes all inputs from HDMI to component and has features like auto-sleep without any real smarts inside. I love it.

phantomathkg  2 days ago

As ex-Smart TV app developer, I would stay with Sony's Android TV. Reason being

- Samsung Tizen is sluggish. - LG webOS is fiddly and don't feel it gets enough attention and care from LG. - Other brand is just slow. - On hackability, Android is far easier to handle than any other brand.

Mind you Sony has a few line and some run Android, some run something else.

tamimio  3 days ago

I ditched the whole smart TV years ago. I was never a fan of the slow, ad-ridden software, and later found that enormous packets were being sent when I monitored the DNS at the network level despite the TV being 'turned off'. Instead, I got a non-smart TV (you can find old Sony TVs) and attached a TV box or direct hdmi to an old laptop instead, far smoother and better at all levels.

Xelbair  3 days ago

Any that you can put in store mode, and run all smart features off separate device.

Otherwise it will run out of updates fast, services will stop working and only way to fix that is to buy.. a separate device.

This also let's you make search easier as you can just look at the panel itself when comparing.

yetanother-1  3 days ago

Side question: what TV is best for integration into home assistant from experienced HA users...

  • joshstrange  3 days ago

    I think Samsung TVs can be interacted with through HA's SmartThings integration but I don't use that at all. Instead I have my Harmony Hubs (yes, a dying breed, literally) connected and that's the only way I interact with my TVs via HA.

    "Alexa, turn on Living Room TV" -> HA -> Harmony -> IR Blaster

    I think through the Apple TV integration I can control them even further but I greatly prefer just using the Harmony remote. I'm not looking forward to the day when those stop working completely and I have to evaluate other options. Every year or so I look around but nothing beats my old Harmony remote (with a coin battery that lasts so long I've lost track, easily over a year) and the Harmony Hub (which actually sends out the signals).

boydYVR  3 days ago

I have a 10yr old Insignia 1080p TV. One of the 3 HDMI inputs is a Roku stick and I have Home Assistant watch for it and load the Jellyfin app whenever the TV gets turned on. Works most of the time and it's nice to avoid the Roku ads.

Gualdrapo  3 days ago

I long for a Framework-like TV.

  • cheeze  3 days ago

    Can you expand here? What are you looking for in specific?

    I think I have a framework-like TV. It's a high end TV set to store mode which has no smartOS annoyances. From there, I have expansion modules (they connect via HDMI) like a HDFury Vertex with CFW, Nvidia Shield, PS5, etc.

    Decoupling the TV from the OS has helped a ton with longetivity

    What more are you looking for?

palata  3 days ago

I actually would like to have a hackable AOSP device with some kind of open source chromecast (because chromecast comes with the Google Services, I guess?).

Then I can plug that into any dumb TV/beamer I find.

psyclobe  3 days ago

Stay away from lg, anything with android is a good choice; custom launchers to remove the gif damn Home Screen. I stick to Sonys my one of tv is so terrible will never buy one again.

firefax  2 days ago

Is there a reason folks don't just use a TV tuner attached to a rather large desktop monitor? (On the desktop? Linux.)

j45  3 days ago

I've generally heard LG is the place to start looking, only because they are the inheritors of the hidden jewel that was/is webOS.

finnlab  3 days ago

I can recommend The LG B2, great panel, great price. The software sucks however but you won't find OLED much cheaper.

bitwize  3 days ago

A dumb TV with an x86 HTPC attached to the back via VESA bracket. Sceptre dumb TVs from the Wal-Mart web site are your cheat code.

  • AstroJetson  3 days ago

    Winner!! I have a pair of these that have multiple HDMI ports. So my "hacking" is hanging a raspberry pi or a x86 computer.

palata  3 days ago

I always wonder if there is a kind of AOSP-based alternative to Android for TV?

MisterTea  3 days ago

I mentioned in another post here that I opened a friends TV and found just 3 PCB's: Power, LCD interface, and Video SoC. The video SoC is an Arm SoC for TVs that runs Android complete with video input switching matrix and processing. The SoC board had Wifi, bluetooth, Ethernet and USB. It's all there.

My dream is to hack that SoC to boot whatever OS. Though good luck getting the datasheets...

puskavi  3 days ago

You could score some insane screens from recycling centers, but at least in Finland, its fucking illegal to repurpose (steal) "electronic waste" However, depending where you're located, all that stuff might go to somewhere else than smasher and smelter, so please check such places around you! Good example is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbqOvBHVpbw ,he found old tobacco ad display (ips!) for cheap!

serf  3 days ago

I kind of hate smart TVs -- my family got a Samsung one that got feature obsoleted in months , but I needed a cctv kiosk -- I bought a fire stick and the cheapest +speakers monitor on amazon with an HDMI port and USB power, was pleasantly surprised; 4k, tiny, performant, adb access isn't fucked up, and you can change the home screen.

By the end of the day it's just an android device with an HDMI out, and that's exactly what I wanted.

trenchpilgrim  3 days ago

You probably want a computer monitor rather than a TV; monitors will prioritize latency which is important for music production.

  • nomel  3 days ago

    Related, many modern TVs have "game mode" which prioritizes video latency, with the loss of some of the algs being available.

    RTINGS actually tracks this, with most being comparable to monitors at the same refresh rate, while in game mode (around 10x faster than non-game mode). [1]

    4k@120Hz with VRR is even available in < $1k TVs these days!

    And, for audio latency, unless you're using the built in speakers, it's fairly trivial to make the video and audio paths independent.

    [1] https://www.rtings.com/tv/tests/inputs/input-lag