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Comment by para_parolu

7 days ago

Why not just disconnect it from internet?

Works til they put a 5g modem in the damn things.

My Samsung asked for internet access and I just laughed and said nope.

It exists to displays pixels from a Linux box, utterly sick of living in a world where "is my TV manufacturer bugging our house?" Is a thing anyone has to ask.

  • > Works til they put a 5g modem in the damn things.

    Okay, but it does work until then. "Things could change in the future" is definitionally true.

    Never connect the TV in the first place, and you don't need to physically alter the hardware, firmware, or TOS agreements.

    • Have you heard of Amazon Sidewalk (https://sidewalk.amazon/)? All those Rings and Alexas in your neighborhood are able to serve as network proxies for random IoT devices.

      LG very likely has your neighbor's WiFi password, so even if you don't connect it to your own network, they could theoretically just try and connect to any known network nearby. No 5g modem needed.

      Idk if they do that, but it doesn't seem complicated to implement, and it doesn't seem to fall outside of the company's ethical boundaries.

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  • > It exists to displays pixels from a Linux box,

    If you're not using the defining feature of a TV (the OTA tuner), why not buy a monitor instead of a TV?

    (Next time I have to replace our house's TV, I'm seriously considering buying a separate SBTVD tuner and a monitor instead of a TV, if ignoring the "smart" features of these TVs by not connecting them to a network starts getting too difficult.)

    • Modern TVs are designed to work with PCs and consoles, they just also happen to have tuners. "Smart" features are mostly a distraction from actual panel capabilities.

      Monitor choices also tend charge a premium for equivalent size and quality while lacking some of the features, or introducing other issues. See LG gaming monitors silently installing adware on connection:

      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48956688

      My LG OLED C2 also has a great utility to manage deep service-level configurations. Makes it easy to professionally customize without having to fuss with the menus.

    • You're a bit late on that, monitors without all the same features are going the way of the dodo. Smart features are even starting to crop up in the commercial display market. Your last vestige will be buying a panel without a controller board and turning it into a display yourself.

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    • If you don't care much for display quality (or are willing to pay significantly more than what you'd be paying for a TV) that's doable.

      I've tried finding a monitor big enough and with a decent panel for anywhere near the price of a TV... it's nearly impossible.

      Then I tried finding 'dumb TVs' with at least somewhat decent panels... also almost impossible.

      In the end I just bought a decent Philips TV with a good panel and 'Android TV' and chose to never connect it to WiFi and activate that (run it in dumb mode.)

      It had enough HDMI ports to hook up everything I want and was the best option available. Would I have preferred a 'dumb screen' with a bunch of HDMI ports and no TV tuner at all? Yes.

It's not connected to the internet. The AppleTV is.

  • My question was about why to go and unplug wifi internally

    • Probably worried about things like spectrum wifi. I don't know if others do it, but spectrum will sell access to a private WiFi network using their customers Internet as a backend.

      LG could be using that sort of network.

    • Well even if they don't do it now, these are just a forced update away from using WiFi to connect to an open AP to do whatever they want. I also really hated the fact that there was really no way to turn BT off. Anytime the TV was on it showed up as a BT device ready to connect, and I would get random neighbors trying to and having to say no to random pop ups approving connections. Now these things are sans any type of wireless, and when it comes time to sell them, it will take me 5 mins to reconnect the internal ribbon cable.

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