Comment by junon
14 hours ago
You can't hardly use the TVs then. I've seen TVs that don't let you use the HDMI port without it being connected if you have a streaming dongle connected. Hopefully that practice has mostly died off now (Samsung used to do this on some models, iirc), but it's still a risk and only kicks the can down the road a bit.
Yeah those devices also need to be “opened up” as it were. Some of them already have been. Just think about it like fermented whiskey. Leave them alone for a month or two until they run an opensource firmware you control.
I have a terrible LG smart TV (that seems to connect to WiFi that is not mine), but I would instantly return a TV that did this.