Someone a while back on a thread not dissimilar from this one suggested looking into commercial display screens. A kind of BYO solution to the smart TV problems.
The nice thing about Samsungs is that basically all their remotes work with all their TVs, so I just found one without the smart button so I can’t tell that mine is smart, and I obviously never connected it to internet. I think it’s a lot cheaper than trying to get a commercial dumb TV too.
Wouldn’t that only work if your neighbors tv was plugged into Ethernet so that the wifi chip can be free to start a hotspot? I can’t find any info about that so I’m not sure.
I still have a smart TV so I don’t need to have a non smart tv. But I refuse to use smart features for several reasons:
The built in software is often laggy, ugly, and hard to navigate (mine is from like 2016 so all 3 of these are huge issues for my specific TV but my parents just bought a 2024 model oled and I find their gyro / touchpad / pointer remote to be excruciating to use)
I hate the idea of getting used to the Samsung apps / os and then feeling like I need to stick with Samsung
They never seem to support the software very long - my TV pre-dates Samsung’s current tv OS and no longer receives updates, so the Plex app available for it doesn’t even connect - so I couldn’t use it even if I wanted to
I mostly watch stuff downloaded to my Plex, so a PC running Plex htpc / desktop or any android box (Nvidia shield is pretty good) with the Plex or jellyfin app is all I need. I also like that I can easily watch YouTube through a browser with ad block and sponsorblock (I think smarttube does that for Android boxes like the shield)
I also game on the PC so I guess you could consider it a game console for the purposes of categorizing the use case.
Smart TVs are literally designed to spy on you, so that’s pretty shit. The software is shit, there are ads in thousand dollar TVs. It doesn’t need its own Netflix app that lags to fuck, or a YouTube app that is far worse than just using a computer.
A media center for watching TV (currently an Nvidia Shield with Kodi) and various games consoles are literally all I’ve used a TV for in the past 20 years.
I can’t believe people are out here raw dogging their TV’s operating system. To me it’s as strange as buying just a monitor for your desktop PC and wondering why your $80 computer injects ads everywhere and sells every scrap of data you give it. I haven’t owned a full sized TV in over a decade, and before that my dad always used an Apple TV and before that a dish network DVR so I always assumed it was the norm to buy some external input device, because I literally have not lived any other way.
Not who you asked but I hook up mine to a PC meant for streaming, there’s no need for it to be smart with either browser or applications that stream the content. Unless I’m missing something.
It’s not a need as much as a preference to not want every device need a connection if you have other means to handle the tasks. Also less bandwidth used since they don’t send back random data to headquarters, not that I imagine it’s a lot.
Someone a while back on a thread not dissimilar from this one suggested looking into commercial display screens. A kind of BYO solution to the smart TV problems.
The nice thing about Samsungs is that basically all their remotes work with all their TVs, so I just found one without the smart button so I can’t tell that mine is smart, and I obviously never connected it to internet. I think it’s a lot cheaper than trying to get a commercial dumb TV too.
Weren’t Samsung TVs the one that would connect to neighbors TVs and stuff and find other ways to connect to the Internet?
Wouldn’t that only work if your neighbors tv was plugged into Ethernet so that the wifi chip can be free to start a hotspot? I can’t find any info about that so I’m not sure.
Thought that was Hisense… Could be both actually.
Interesting – didn’t know that
I’m curious about the need for non-smart TVs… Are you using it exclusively with a game console or is there some sort of other device you use with it?
I still have a smart TV so I don’t need to have a non smart tv. But I refuse to use smart features for several reasons:
I mostly watch stuff downloaded to my Plex, so a PC running Plex htpc / desktop or any android box (Nvidia shield is pretty good) with the Plex or jellyfin app is all I need. I also like that I can easily watch YouTube through a browser with ad block and sponsorblock (I think smarttube does that for Android boxes like the shield)
I also game on the PC so I guess you could consider it a game console for the purposes of categorizing the use case.
Smart TVs are literally designed to spy on you, so that’s pretty shit. The software is shit, there are ads in thousand dollar TVs. It doesn’t need its own Netflix app that lags to fuck, or a YouTube app that is far worse than just using a computer.
A media center for watching TV (currently an Nvidia Shield with Kodi) and various games consoles are literally all I’ve used a TV for in the past 20 years.
I can’t believe people are out here raw dogging their TV’s operating system. To me it’s as strange as buying just a monitor for your desktop PC and wondering why your $80 computer injects ads everywhere and sells every scrap of data you give it. I haven’t owned a full sized TV in over a decade, and before that my dad always used an Apple TV and before that a dish network DVR so I always assumed it was the norm to buy some external input device, because I literally have not lived any other way.
Not who you asked but I hook up mine to a PC meant for streaming, there’s no need for it to be smart with either browser or applications that stream the content. Unless I’m missing something.
It’s not a need as much as a preference to not want every device need a connection if you have other means to handle the tasks. Also less bandwidth used since they don’t send back random data to headquarters, not that I imagine it’s a lot.
On top of what everyone else said: they’ll inevitably stop being supported before long and it’s always easier to plug something new in the HDMI.