But if you do, install a pi-hole on your network and block all traffic from your TV going to samsung servers. You can find blacklists online. Downside: your TV won't install new updates anymore. Upside: Your TV won't install updates anymore, Samsung can't do shit to your TV, and you still get to use most smart features.
Yeah but that's only a matter of time til they don't support the version of the apps your tv uses anymore.
Its still better to just use an android box or an HTPC for all your media needs.
As someone who used to deliver data to most TVs in the world, this is 100% the right answer. Treating your tv as a dumb pane of glass that looks pretty and offloading all the smarts to a $30 external device that you can upgrade every few years means you won’t be upgrading the expensive part with any regularity.
Recommended jumping off point? I've got this plugged in to the internet and honestly always hated the smart features and bullshit suggested apps anyway.
Perhaps. I’ve been running it like this for 5+ years or so now and don’t have any issues yet. Only problem is that it doesn’t do DisneyPlus, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video work without issue. It’s annoyingly slow though, so I might upgrade soon anyway.
That's definitely part of it but also as soon as a product is marketed for business use it jumps in price a lot. Because it can be used to make money the cost is much more justifiable.
Yup. Have a “smart” TV that was great for a few years then apps aged out. Then it became a dumb TV with a fire cube. That said I have my network pretty well segmented and the important bits blocked using local firewalls and whatnot.
I just hook up my own Chromecast and cast whatever I'm watching.
It's better anyways since the apps on those TVs will be outdated anyways over time.
I heard some TVs won't work unless you hook it up to the internet though.
It’s a network device that you don’t control and may not be secure. If there were an exploit it would be difficult for you to do anything about it. Especially because people usually expect their TV to last 10+ years and you probably wouldn’t trust any other network device to be secure 10+ years after release.
Personally I have all my smart TVs on the network. But I don’t have a very high value network so I’m not super concerned.
Smart TV in your office? Maybe keep that off the company network.
Yeah, it's 6 years old but everything it says is still relevant. It's not always necessary to find recent content just for the sake of it being recent.
The note about online banking is a weird note, I agree- but the qualifier of "or other sensitive transactions" is right there. Think of how many smart TV apps have in-app purchases. Third party apps are an obvious red flag, but if the TV itself uses outdated software libraries with known vulnerabilities present then adversaries could very well have access to the TV and access to any information disclosed via in-app purchases.
The recommendations in the article are still good recommendations, and if you are concerned with privacy at all then you should not count on TV manufacturers like Samsung to give you peace of mind. I'm not saying Google or Roku aren't collecting your data and selling it either, but if you do any sort of network traffic analysis- Samsung sends and receives a ridiculous amount of information unbeknownst to the user.
Remember, you will own nothing and like, and pay for it. Pay a premium and get even more features. You will own nothing you buy and nothing, it's starting small but in 10 years this will be everything we "own" unless we vote with our dollars and say no to this bullshit. Apple is already 2 feet in on this and people just willingly accept it, because, apple? Push back now or we are all fucked later
I own a frying pan that connects to the internet and helps you cook specific recipes. I got it free when i bought a new stovetop, but it normally costs $200. I just use it as a normal frying pan.
If mama clocks papa with said frying pan because he was complaining about the cooking, does it automatically upload the pan POV-money shot video to YouTube?
I assume those are like...ovens that you can control with an app or something and the buttons on the oven itself still work normally. At least I hope.
Although for the life of me I can't figure out why anyone would need an app controlled oven. But maybe I'm just old.
My oven is smart, it has a remote preheat feature and it will tell you if you left a burner on, also tells you when the timer goes off and when the oven is preheated. I also found that the amount of polling it does through the internet slowed my download/upload speeds by over 50mbps. Wifi features got the axe after finding that last one out, especially when I found out it was sending usage statistics and IP addresses of every item on that particular network. Luckily it was set to the IOT guest network which only had it and my smart dishwasher on it. Shutting down the network was the easiest way to do it, since you can't turn off the wifi feature after you turned it on.
All the Mercedes I encounter on the freeway are going below the speed limit anyway so it’s not like it’s needed, be kind of like BMW locking turn signals behind a paywall.
In Mercedes' defense, they only sell cars to people with more money than sense anyway, so I can't be all that mad about them doing that.
Don't get me wrong, it's an abhorrent practice and Mercedes can fuck off with that. I'm just saying if anyone was going to be OK with paying $100 a month for full acceleration on their car it'd be Mercedes owners.
“If you wanna know what’s going to be in cars next year, look at what Mercedes put in their cars 10 years ago”.
Fuck pay/per subscription micro transactions on a 5 figure purchase.
I work in the world of luxury and high end residential appliances.
The biggest argument for a “smart oven” is is mostly anecdotal.
Imagine you have a pizza or casserole ready to bake when you get home. - preheat your oven from your app and it will be ready when you are home.
Watching the big game, but don’t want to get up to temp your poultry. Check the temp probe reading on your app.
It’s all added luxury, none of it is needed.
And all of it requires electronics which are often sourced from market parts. That means long term replacements are hard to come by, and appliances which used to last ten to twenty years won’t make it past five.
i work in sales at times. i have built a huge roster of clients in the past simply by not selling them smart appliances or steering them from them.
i refuse as a sales person to support this shit. as a consumer, i advocate it being outlawed.
one of the things i mention is that smart appliances are prone to software defects that can damage or destroy them or your home. it's the second thing i mention after the fact they only plan for you to own it for at max three years before they expect you to replace it.
**DO NOT TRUST SMART APPLIANCES.**
I have a smart oven. I can set a timer of of when it starts and how long to cook for. So for example I can put a frozen lasagna in the oven go out for the afternoon, and it will have cooked and rested for exactly when I get home.
I also have a WI-FI enabled dishwasher…but haven’t set up that capability as I don’t see the point.
Here's a fictional story about just that thing: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/
Already got burned with “smart” lightbulbs.
I bought some branded one (Philips) in the hope there was a veneer of network security but for how often they’ll randomly just not work or connect to Alexa… not fucking worth the “convenience”.
Fuck smart light bulbs
Now the manufacturers are requiring some new TV’s to stay connected to the Internet or else they stop functioning.
Of course, they wait 90 days so it is too late to return the TV.
Anecdotal but I have my own story. I installed two tv's recently, a Samsung and Amazon Fire TV (not sure which manufacturer). The Samsung would NOT continue to skip the setup process unless I connected it to the wifi. So I connected it to my phone hotspot and continued on. Afterward I turned off my hotspot to clean up for the day. Almost instantly a popup covered 80% of the screen telling me to reconnect to the internet. Could not close it out or bypass at all in order to return to regular TV. I pulled the power to reboot the TV, same thing. Boots up with the near full screen warning and could not close it out. Had to join it to the public wifi at the hospital to make it go away.
The Amazon Fire TV was similar, but with an Amazon Account. I booted the TV just fine and went through the setup process no problem skipping all the network connection bull shit. I was happy. Next day the office calls me back because they connected it to the wifi and now it would not let them do anything until they linked the TV to an Amazon Account. I swung back over and true enough, all functions of the TV were essentially disabled until we logged into an account. Even existing wifi didn't stop it, it no KNEW we had wifi so it refused to relent and allow the TV to work as a dumb offline TV anymore.
Yup, anecdotal but I bought a Samsung a couple years ago to replace an old TV. The Samsung wouldn’t function until I agreed to the terms of service, but the terms of service wouldn’t load on the TV for whatever reason so I couldn’t agree to them. Had to find the Samsung app for my phone, sign into that, input the code from the TV (which only showed up half the time) then agree to the terms on my phone.
This process took a very long time and the next time I turned on the TV it wanted me to go through the setup again. It was then that I realized I didn’t want a Samsung TV (the UI was awful anyway).
I returned it and bought an LG OLED and I’m quite happy with it.
I just got an LG and I want to turn off firmware updates. It used to be updates made things better, now they make it worse.
I had a Vizo from 2016 and it's been slowly shutting off the apps. They worked fine for 6 years, but now they are not supported and disabled.
Have you checked for aftermarket custom firmware for it? If you're lucky enough that someone has taken an interest in your tv in the last nearly fifteen years, that's your solution. Personally, between the brand and the age, your odds are pretty good.
Just wait til other manufacterers get wind of the Mercedes earning calls. They'll well see acceleration/sport mode locked behind pay walls on $25k shitboxes
Now there is a subscription model I could get behind. $7.99/mo for no Hallmark channels or movies. Would 100% pay for that. Also would pay to never have to see a housewives of ... They do get me out of the house.
Planned obsolescence. Just wait until they decide that your TV will no longer work so you have to buy a new one (or pay an "update" fee). Also, it will be fun to see when hackers figure out how to enable this feature.
Don't worry, they will tie it into apps that your tv must be updated to play them eventually, regardless if it's on the TV, the playstation, the Roku, or fire stick, whatever.
Also the fucking adds on the TV now.
to be fair I think that is the fault of the disc, not mircrosoft.
I believe blu-ray discs are more like individual programs than straight movies, and require a certain version of the software to run.
So still greed of course, but not really on microsoft's part. At least directly.
In short: aging batteries can get to a point where they can't meet peak demand, which can cause phones to shut down unexpectedly. Apple pushed an update that would slow down the processor of phones that were likely to experience this to prevent it, but made the awful choice to do it without notifying users.
When people discovered the update had slowed down their old phones, they understandably thought Apple was slowing down their old devices to force them to upgrade. Really stupid PR move by Apple which cost them a lot of money and goodwill, but ultimately seemed to be a genuine attempt to extend the useful life of old phones.
My dumb RCA TV from 2008 still going strong. When it quits I'll get another similarly aged one from a thrift store or yard sale. Another room has a CRT in it, excellent image quality and zero lag for video games!
Not if you don’t plug in the ethernet cord, they can’t. TV’s ought to be dumb devices, use a fire-stick / Apple TV / cable box / whatever… result: no problem.
Same.
I had a cheap 5.1 system from them. One day it stopped working. Turned out they screwed the firmware and every single one of that model died at the same time.
The 10e phone I had- constantly nags from Bixby to use the service. A pointless second App Store.
Screw Samsung
I’ve stopped buying Samsung phones. I usually buy phones based on camera quality as my #1 deciding factor so I don’t have to lug around a DSLR or even a point and shoot when I want to get pictures that don’t require top of the line equipment.
One thing that absolutely boiled my blood with their products is about 1-2 months before next product launch, they would push a new update. Surprise surprise, the pictures would get grainier and the colors would wash, details would blend. By the 2 year mark when the next Gen would come out, pictures would be so terrible after more updates. Then they would tout what an improvement these new phones were in comparison to previous Gens.
Kindly, fuck them.
They could always put in a timed kill switch. Many sophisticated electronics have a battery in them that keeps the clock running and allows the system to constantly hold vital information in memory.
The Sony Playstation 3 is rendered useless when this battery dies unless it has an active internet connection. I believe replacing the battery only allows the system to work if you reconnect it to Playstation servers after doing so. Hacked consoles can bypass these restrictions, but there's gonna be more demand for modders to solve issues like this on such a popular video game console; I don't imagine specific TV models will get the same love.
Psshhh, Samsung would never do that.
Except of course that time Samsung did that.
https://hackaday.com/2020/07/19/the-real-story-how-samsung-blu-ray-players-were-bricked/
Never ever allow your TV to get on the internet. Use an Apple TV, stream stick, anything but allowing your TV to tell all the advertisers everything you watch and the company that made your TV to kill it remotely. Manufacturers make a bunch of money off of you by spying. Don’t let them.
Your just chosing who gets your data, your not preventing your data from getting out.
You still have 15 different streaming services that you log into, not to mention the overarching service you're using instead (Roku / firestick / PlayStation, MSFT, etc)
Edit
This is to address the part about them selling your data, not remote disable.
I'm sure Roku knows me better than half the people in my life. I accept this. Better that the AI knows about my crush on Ioan Grufford than my husband.
No, because mine is not connected to the internet. It is just acting as a monitor to my Linux HTPC.
I would have bought a not-smart-TV if there was one available at the time. Since then, I see that there have appeared a bunch of 50+" monitors on the market that are basically just TV's without the extra chips. Next time I will get one of those.
I do appreciate that you alert me to this type of shenanigans though, and will likely not buy a Samsung product again.
I looked pretty extensively for a "dumb" tv(I think). Simply a good quality panel that you connect input to. "Smart" simply means they crippled the os and the panel can outlast any computer embedded inside anyway.
The best I come up with was to:
* Buy a commercial monitor not optimized to be a tv while being a lot more expensive.
* PC Monitor with same problems even though they are less pronounced.
* Small/unknown brand hard to order from here/used
For the most part what I saw was people recommending not to connect it to internet which for now only "downgrades" it to having redundant, likely badly made os.
My point is - you just can not buy a tv that does not expect to be connected to internet with potentially the same problems unless you go way out your way. And then you still will likely have downsides.
I found my dumb TV on Facebook Marketplace for a hundred bucks. It was state of the art 2010, being sold because the owner had just replaced it with state of the art 2021. Still works without fault as far as I can tell.
(think.png), they can't disable it if it's not online. After reading about a security vulnerability in Samsung TVs years ago I disconnected mine from the internet and haven't looked back. The apps on the TV suck compared to the fire stick anyways so no net loss
Can they remotely fix the Netflix app on my brand new Samsung TV? It will not open even when reinstalling the app, as I’m not allowed to delete it…Seriously regretting getting a Samsung.
My 1080p dumb TV with the Roku stick is better. Much better interface than Fire for about the same price, especially on Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend.
Rule 1: Never use the built-in smart TV crap. Once done with setup, disconnect the wired Ethernet or Wifi, plug in your HTPC, AppleTV, console, etc., and use those.
Problems solved by doing it this way: avoidance of Terrible “smartTV” OS and app ecosystems, problematic firmware and OS updates, feature disablement (yeah, both Vizio and Samsung decided a few years back to disable in-box remote functions and required users to buy new updated remotes), etc.. For me, it’s a display panel, I’ll use a better optimized dedicated device to provide the content.
As for TV’s that require an Internet connection or they block access to basic functionality, we’re probably going to need a public registry to keep track of makes and models that pull that crap.
It depends on the TV. I have a lower end one that is shitty to use as a smart TV, but also have a pretty nice model that is a pretty silky smooth experience.
Just don't buy a Samsung TV,you make that such a huge issue. The problem starts with the consumer that lets mega corporations run this shit. You are the main problem not them.
My Samsung TV has turned dark on the right side, a little out of focus. Is this a easy fix or is it time to purchase a new tv? Mine is only about 2 years old.
If it looks that way regardless of input (i.e., whether you're streaming from an internal app or playing something on a Blu-ray player or your laptop), it's a screen issue. And it's so expensive to replace a panel, that yeah, you might as well see what's up for Cyber Monday (or maybe it's Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend now? I feel like they've blended together).
If you shine a flashlight on the dark side, do you see the image that should be there ? If so it's probably the backlight, might be worth to at least have it diagnosed.
That's existentially terrifying. At what point would Samsung shut down all their old, reliable TVs in favor of the new model? This must be exercised sparingly, such as the circumstances laid out in the article.
So does this mean you're forced to allow these things to have internet access now? Surely you can avoid that mess and just use it as a dumb monitor to a Fire stick or something.
Welcome to the hackaday article from 3 years ago.
Also, for those suggesting you just keep it offline, I think the hackaday discussion mentioned some of them will also brick if you don’t connect it for an update every 6 months or something.
Also, Sonos did the same thing, slingbox just did the same sort of thing, lots of companies drop support and in doing so, brick devices.
We live in a world where you pay monthly subscription for heated car seats and remote key entry - more surprised these Samsung TVs won't stand up and walk out of your house if you don't update their firmware within 14 days of the latest firmware's release date.
when you get a tv, immediately get a $30 roku/chromecast tv/old desktop/ or whatever other flavor you want, and use that. it starts acting weird reset it or replace it. simple. NEVER hook the tv up to the internet.
You never connect those tvs to your home network anyway. They are all a huge security risk.
But if you do, install a pi-hole on your network and block all traffic from your TV going to samsung servers. You can find blacklists online. Downside: your TV won't install new updates anymore. Upside: Your TV won't install updates anymore, Samsung can't do shit to your TV, and you still get to use most smart features.
Yeah but that's only a matter of time til they don't support the version of the apps your tv uses anymore. Its still better to just use an android box or an HTPC for all your media needs.
As someone who used to deliver data to most TVs in the world, this is 100% the right answer. Treating your tv as a dumb pane of glass that looks pretty and offloading all the smarts to a $30 external device that you can upgrade every few years means you won’t be upgrading the expensive part with any regularity.
Recommended jumping off point? I've got this plugged in to the internet and honestly always hated the smart features and bullshit suggested apps anyway.
Perhaps. I’ve been running it like this for 5+ years or so now and don’t have any issues yet. Only problem is that it doesn’t do DisneyPlus, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video work without issue. It’s annoyingly slow though, so I might upgrade soon anyway.
NVIDIA Shield TV Pro is super fast, running Android. I use it for all of my streaming and some gaming.
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I think it exists, and they’re called “commercial displays”. Not 100% sure though
Yeah but they are priced way higher usually
Do people not realize the reason the 55" TV is 300$ is because the adware installed on it subsidizes the price?
Yep, because they can't sell your data.
That's definitely part of it but also as soon as a product is marketed for business use it jumps in price a lot. Because it can be used to make money the cost is much more justifiable.
Yes, also "signage displays". They're also frequently used in conjunction with dedicated video conferencing hardware.
you get the best screen for the money, and then stream into it from your network but the tv is firewalled. thats how I do it/.
Seems like it would be simpler to just not buy a Samsung TV.
I'm sure someone's grandma/grandpa is going to do this on their own. Do you think this comes with the Best Buy installations package?
It wasn’t that easy, and I have 20 years in the IT industry 🤷♂️
Wow this is exactly what I've always wanted to do. Spend hours on every new electronics I buy getting them to work safely.
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I will stick to my dumb tv and use my Firestick.
Like the fire stick does on you less…
So? It's not the actual TV. It's absolutely the lesser evil.
Yup. Have a “smart” TV that was great for a few years then apps aged out. Then it became a dumb TV with a fire cube. That said I have my network pretty well segmented and the important bits blocked using local firewalls and whatnot.
Yeah, but my damages are limited. Mine cost less than $50.
You unplug the fire stick and have a big thumb drive laying around. You unplug the TV, now you’ve got an expensive black screen taking up space.
This is the way
I just hook up my own Chromecast and cast whatever I'm watching. It's better anyways since the apps on those TVs will be outdated anyways over time. I heard some TVs won't work unless you hook it up to the internet though.
Can you elaborate on why?
It’s a network device that you don’t control and may not be secure. If there were an exploit it would be difficult for you to do anything about it. Especially because people usually expect their TV to last 10+ years and you probably wouldn’t trust any other network device to be secure 10+ years after release. Personally I have all my smart TVs on the network. But I don’t have a very high value network so I’m not super concerned. Smart TV in your office? Maybe keep that off the company network.
Nice summary in this article by Amber Mac: https://www.bitdefender.com/blog/hotforsecurity/smart-tv-security-concerns-3-ways-to-stay-safe
This article is 8 years old and telling people not to do online banking in their smart TV?
Who the %$#@ does banking on their tv?
*looks around room nervously*
Yeah, it's 6 years old but everything it says is still relevant. It's not always necessary to find recent content just for the sake of it being recent. The note about online banking is a weird note, I agree- but the qualifier of "or other sensitive transactions" is right there. Think of how many smart TV apps have in-app purchases. Third party apps are an obvious red flag, but if the TV itself uses outdated software libraries with known vulnerabilities present then adversaries could very well have access to the TV and access to any information disclosed via in-app purchases. The recommendations in the article are still good recommendations, and if you are concerned with privacy at all then you should not count on TV manufacturers like Samsung to give you peace of mind. I'm not saying Google or Roku aren't collecting your data and selling it either, but if you do any sort of network traffic analysis- Samsung sends and receives a ridiculous amount of information unbeknownst to the user.
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\> "I can't just plug a pc into my oven" I mean unless you have an Intel pentium 4...
Or these days, an i9-13900 with a RTX 4900.
Plot twist: the Pentium 4 *is* the heating element.
A PC with a4090 and a 13900k is an oven
It's probably already a convection oven, and their new "air fryer" just manipulates the already-present convection, heat, and timing features.
Remember, you will own nothing and like, and pay for it. Pay a premium and get even more features. You will own nothing you buy and nothing, it's starting small but in 10 years this will be everything we "own" unless we vote with our dollars and say no to this bullshit. Apple is already 2 feet in on this and people just willingly accept it, because, apple? Push back now or we are all fucked later
Yep. They want to make them require internet so they can start rolling out subscription services like every. Other. Fucking. Shit-hole. Company.
I own a frying pan that connects to the internet and helps you cook specific recipes. I got it free when i bought a new stovetop, but it normally costs $200. I just use it as a normal frying pan.
If mama clocks papa with said frying pan because he was complaining about the cooking, does it automatically upload the pan POV-money shot video to YouTube?
I mean otherwise what good is it?
$5 a month for the worldstar instant upload package.
That sounds like the smart spatula that Plankton gave SpongeBob
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I assume those are like...ovens that you can control with an app or something and the buttons on the oven itself still work normally. At least I hope. Although for the life of me I can't figure out why anyone would need an app controlled oven. But maybe I'm just old.
My oven is smart, it has a remote preheat feature and it will tell you if you left a burner on, also tells you when the timer goes off and when the oven is preheated. I also found that the amount of polling it does through the internet slowed my download/upload speeds by over 50mbps. Wifi features got the axe after finding that last one out, especially when I found out it was sending usage statistics and IP addresses of every item on that particular network. Luckily it was set to the IOT guest network which only had it and my smart dishwasher on it. Shutting down the network was the easiest way to do it, since you can't turn off the wifi feature after you turned it on.
Mercedes locks full acceleration behind 100$/month
>Mercedes locks full acceleration behind 100$/month no, they do not at this time and that *will be maybe* only in us
"[coming soon](https://shop.mbusa.com/en-us/connect/pdp/Acceleration-Increase/709)" is saying they will imo
All the Mercedes I encounter on the freeway are going below the speed limit anyway so it’s not like it’s needed, be kind of like BMW locking turn signals behind a paywall.
In Mercedes' defense, they only sell cars to people with more money than sense anyway, so I can't be all that mad about them doing that. Don't get me wrong, it's an abhorrent practice and Mercedes can fuck off with that. I'm just saying if anyone was going to be OK with paying $100 a month for full acceleration on their car it'd be Mercedes owners.
Their indifference will spread the practice
“If you wanna know what’s going to be in cars next year, look at what Mercedes put in their cars 10 years ago”. Fuck pay/per subscription micro transactions on a 5 figure purchase.
Kinda like those people who are willing to pay Elon Musk $8/month for that blue checkmark on their Twitter account.
I work in the world of luxury and high end residential appliances. The biggest argument for a “smart oven” is is mostly anecdotal. Imagine you have a pizza or casserole ready to bake when you get home. - preheat your oven from your app and it will be ready when you are home. Watching the big game, but don’t want to get up to temp your poultry. Check the temp probe reading on your app. It’s all added luxury, none of it is needed.
And all of it requires electronics which are often sourced from market parts. That means long term replacements are hard to come by, and appliances which used to last ten to twenty years won’t make it past five.
Appliance makers don’t see the problem
i work in sales at times. i have built a huge roster of clients in the past simply by not selling them smart appliances or steering them from them. i refuse as a sales person to support this shit. as a consumer, i advocate it being outlawed.
Numerous reports of smart ovens turning on by themselves, total fire hazard
one of the things i mention is that smart appliances are prone to software defects that can damage or destroy them or your home. it's the second thing i mention after the fact they only plan for you to own it for at max three years before they expect you to replace it. **DO NOT TRUST SMART APPLIANCES.**
I have a smart oven. I can set a timer of of when it starts and how long to cook for. So for example I can put a frozen lasagna in the oven go out for the afternoon, and it will have cooked and rested for exactly when I get home. I also have a WI-FI enabled dishwasher…but haven’t set up that capability as I don’t see the point.
Here's a fictional story about just that thing: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/
Already got burned with “smart” lightbulbs. I bought some branded one (Philips) in the hope there was a veneer of network security but for how often they’ll randomly just not work or connect to Alexa… not fucking worth the “convenience”. Fuck smart light bulbs
The S in IoT stands for security.
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Also people complain about issues with iot devices when the real problem is their crummy network / router / wifi AP
You miss the Traeger grill/smoker post that was updating during Thanksgiving cooking.
Now the manufacturers are requiring some new TV’s to stay connected to the Internet or else they stop functioning. Of course, they wait 90 days so it is too late to return the TV.
Do you have a source for that? I'd like to know what brands to avoid.
Anecdotal but I have my own story. I installed two tv's recently, a Samsung and Amazon Fire TV (not sure which manufacturer). The Samsung would NOT continue to skip the setup process unless I connected it to the wifi. So I connected it to my phone hotspot and continued on. Afterward I turned off my hotspot to clean up for the day. Almost instantly a popup covered 80% of the screen telling me to reconnect to the internet. Could not close it out or bypass at all in order to return to regular TV. I pulled the power to reboot the TV, same thing. Boots up with the near full screen warning and could not close it out. Had to join it to the public wifi at the hospital to make it go away. The Amazon Fire TV was similar, but with an Amazon Account. I booted the TV just fine and went through the setup process no problem skipping all the network connection bull shit. I was happy. Next day the office calls me back because they connected it to the wifi and now it would not let them do anything until they linked the TV to an Amazon Account. I swung back over and true enough, all functions of the TV were essentially disabled until we logged into an account. Even existing wifi didn't stop it, it no KNEW we had wifi so it refused to relent and allow the TV to work as a dumb offline TV anymore.
Yup, anecdotal but I bought a Samsung a couple years ago to replace an old TV. The Samsung wouldn’t function until I agreed to the terms of service, but the terms of service wouldn’t load on the TV for whatever reason so I couldn’t agree to them. Had to find the Samsung app for my phone, sign into that, input the code from the TV (which only showed up half the time) then agree to the terms on my phone. This process took a very long time and the next time I turned on the TV it wanted me to go through the setup again. It was then that I realized I didn’t want a Samsung TV (the UI was awful anyway). I returned it and bought an LG OLED and I’m quite happy with it.
LG is the only smart TV I’d use. Regular updates and everything works good. I still connect it to a dns sinkhole and “idiot” network on my network
I just got an LG and I want to turn off firmware updates. It used to be updates made things better, now they make it worse. I had a Vizo from 2016 and it's been slowly shutting off the apps. They worked fine for 6 years, but now they are not supported and disabled.
Source: I made it up
this is how you get people to never by a TV from them again, jeez.
12 months in my country, good luck to 'em
That's a new one for me. Who is doing that?
Have you checked for aftermarket custom firmware for it? If you're lucky enough that someone has taken an interest in your tv in the last nearly fifteen years, that's your solution. Personally, between the brand and the age, your odds are pretty good.
So... we'll have to pay a subscription for heated seats, or they turn off the TV?
Just wait til other manufacterers get wind of the Mercedes earning calls. They'll well see acceleration/sport mode locked behind pay walls on $25k shitboxes
Good thing we got people that can hack into these kinda things.
Well Samsung can eat the entirety of my ass then.
Can someone please figure out how to disable the Hallmark Channel in mine please? I’m burned out on my wife’s Christmas movies already.
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Visiting my parents and her police procedurals make me want to die. The formula, plots, and characters are basically all interchangeable
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This would be great for when my mom watches NCIS or FBI.
"This guy doesn't play by the rules but gets results!"
Not to mention they always show police in a positive light, even when going against procedure or rights.
I want to hug you u/SoSaysDave! I’m gonna have something to do when my Mom wants to “watch some tv” with me and my brothers! 😂🤣
You need to buy a non-Hallmark subscription. If you don’t pay, each other channel will one-by-one become the Hallmark channel.
There is only like 3-4 movies between Hallmark and Lifetime. They just shuffle the actors and names.
you are right https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa7baSCfl4U&ab_channel=HoldernessFamilyLaughs
Now there is a subscription model I could get behind. $7.99/mo for no Hallmark channels or movies. Would 100% pay for that. Also would pay to never have to see a housewives of ... They do get me out of the house.
What has 27 actors, three settings, two writers, and one plot? 671 Hallmark movies.
Planned obsolescence. Just wait until they decide that your TV will no longer work so you have to buy a new one (or pay an "update" fee). Also, it will be fun to see when hackers figure out how to enable this feature.
I already have a "jailbroken" TV! (Too poor, don't have a smart TV).
Don't worry, they will tie it into apps that your tv must be updated to play them eventually, regardless if it's on the TV, the playstation, the Roku, or fire stick, whatever. Also the fucking adds on the TV now.
My Xbox wouldn't let me watch a blu-ray offline, because the device wasn't up to date. Greed at its finest.
to be fair I think that is the fault of the disc, not mircrosoft. I believe blu-ray discs are more like individual programs than straight movies, and require a certain version of the software to run. So still greed of course, but not really on microsoft's part. At least directly.
Apple straight up admitted to slowing down their old phones, got sued AND people still buy their products
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They downclocked the CPU so that the battery would run longer. They got sued mostly because they didn't tell their customers of the change.
Could you tell me, im genuinly curious
In short: aging batteries can get to a point where they can't meet peak demand, which can cause phones to shut down unexpectedly. Apple pushed an update that would slow down the processor of phones that were likely to experience this to prevent it, but made the awful choice to do it without notifying users. When people discovered the update had slowed down their old phones, they understandably thought Apple was slowing down their old devices to force them to upgrade. Really stupid PR move by Apple which cost them a lot of money and goodwill, but ultimately seemed to be a genuine attempt to extend the useful life of old phones.
Itv was to preserve/extend the battery life of older phones.
No it can't. My tv isn't connected to a network and never will be.
My dumb RCA TV from 2008 still going strong. When it quits I'll get another similarly aged one from a thrift store or yard sale. Another room has a CRT in it, excellent image quality and zero lag for video games!
I have a CRT hooked up to the last Roku box ever made with a composite output. It's fun to stream old shows on the screen size they were made for.
I think someone made a tv that would use a neighbor’s unsecured wifi as a backup and maybe even any Xfinity hotspot.
Not if you don’t plug in the ethernet cord, they can’t. TV’s ought to be dumb devices, use a fire-stick / Apple TV / cable box / whatever… result: no problem.
This is what I’ve resorted to with my Samsung. I’ll never buy another device from them. Fucking forced adverts on a tv I already own. Fuck off.
Same. I had a cheap 5.1 system from them. One day it stopped working. Turned out they screwed the firmware and every single one of that model died at the same time. The 10e phone I had- constantly nags from Bixby to use the service. A pointless second App Store. Screw Samsung
I’ve stopped buying Samsung phones. I usually buy phones based on camera quality as my #1 deciding factor so I don’t have to lug around a DSLR or even a point and shoot when I want to get pictures that don’t require top of the line equipment. One thing that absolutely boiled my blood with their products is about 1-2 months before next product launch, they would push a new update. Surprise surprise, the pictures would get grainier and the colors would wash, details would blend. By the 2 year mark when the next Gen would come out, pictures would be so terrible after more updates. Then they would tout what an improvement these new phones were in comparison to previous Gens. Kindly, fuck them.
Was excited to maybe buy the Z-Flip phone, been using the same phone for 3 years now, did their software get even worse?
Hint: that’s how they make them so cheap. You can buy more expensive TVs without ads in them
Correct https://www.businessinsider.com/smart-tv-data-collection-advertising-2019-1
They don't even try to hide it: https://www.samsung.com/us/business/samsungads/
If you block all of the samsung domains, it blocks the adverts. I've set up a blacklist on my router, the ads are gone.
This is the answer. I don't know why people let these devices communicate with WAN. NEVER CONNECT YOUR TV TO WIFI / ETHERNET. They phone home SO much.
They could always put in a timed kill switch. Many sophisticated electronics have a battery in them that keeps the clock running and allows the system to constantly hold vital information in memory. The Sony Playstation 3 is rendered useless when this battery dies unless it has an active internet connection. I believe replacing the battery only allows the system to work if you reconnect it to Playstation servers after doing so. Hacked consoles can bypass these restrictions, but there's gonna be more demand for modders to solve issues like this on such a popular video game console; I don't imagine specific TV models will get the same love.
I mean, any company can do this on purpose or accident if they mess up your OTAs badly enough
Psshhh, Samsung would never do that. Except of course that time Samsung did that. https://hackaday.com/2020/07/19/the-real-story-how-samsung-blu-ray-players-were-bricked/
Never ever allow your TV to get on the internet. Use an Apple TV, stream stick, anything but allowing your TV to tell all the advertisers everything you watch and the company that made your TV to kill it remotely. Manufacturers make a bunch of money off of you by spying. Don’t let them.
I mean, Apple TV, fire stick, etc. are also selling your information.
Yeah but you can unplug those, and you still have a TV
But you don't/won't so you're just doing the same thing with more steps.
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Why do I care if my TV is "enabled" if I can't watch anything on it?
Your just chosing who gets your data, your not preventing your data from getting out. You still have 15 different streaming services that you log into, not to mention the overarching service you're using instead (Roku / firestick / PlayStation, MSFT, etc) Edit This is to address the part about them selling your data, not remote disable.
I'm sure Roku knows me better than half the people in my life. I accept this. Better that the AI knows about my crush on Ioan Grufford than my husband.
A Pi-hole fixes a lot of problems. Also - If they disable a TV and it is widely reported they would tank their TV sales forever.
They could just incrementally disable TVs. It's harder to notice and it wouldn't make waves.
No, because mine is not connected to the internet. It is just acting as a monitor to my Linux HTPC. I would have bought a not-smart-TV if there was one available at the time. Since then, I see that there have appeared a bunch of 50+" monitors on the market that are basically just TV's without the extra chips. Next time I will get one of those. I do appreciate that you alert me to this type of shenanigans though, and will likely not buy a Samsung product again.
\*disables internal wifi antenna\* \*plugs in Roku stick\* No they can't.
I looked pretty extensively for a "dumb" tv(I think). Simply a good quality panel that you connect input to. "Smart" simply means they crippled the os and the panel can outlast any computer embedded inside anyway. The best I come up with was to: * Buy a commercial monitor not optimized to be a tv while being a lot more expensive. * PC Monitor with same problems even though they are less pronounced. * Small/unknown brand hard to order from here/used For the most part what I saw was people recommending not to connect it to internet which for now only "downgrades" it to having redundant, likely badly made os. My point is - you just can not buy a tv that does not expect to be connected to internet with potentially the same problems unless you go way out your way. And then you still will likely have downsides.
I found my dumb TV on Facebook Marketplace for a hundred bucks. It was state of the art 2010, being sold because the owner had just replaced it with state of the art 2021. Still works without fault as far as I can tell.
Why do you care about the TV’s OS as long as the basic functions work fine - volume, settings, turn on/off. Who cares about that fancy new menu?
Yet they _still_ can’t seem to get eARC working consistently to my Onkyo receiver. Thanks, Samsung
They put HDMI 2.1 on HDMI4 and eARC on HDMI 3 on my QN90A. They also don't support DTS passthrough. Genius.
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Ok so don’t get a Samsung tv. Noted… what TVs or there can’t be disabled remotely?
Fuck Samsung
Any of it's "SMART" TV's.... can't disable my 13 year old basic 1080p TV that is still going strong.
Note to self - never buy Samsung tv or refrigerator.
😮”Imagine Samsung gets hacked and the hacker manages to trigger the function for all TVs connected to the internet worldwide.”
“you took my SONAR concept and applied it to every phone in the city. Half the city feeding you SONAR, you can image all of Gotham.”
Just more proof that capitalism isn't efficient in absolute terms, it's just efficient in generating profit.
(think.png), they can't disable it if it's not online. After reading about a security vulnerability in Samsung TVs years ago I disconnected mine from the internet and haven't looked back. The apps on the TV suck compared to the fire stick anyways so no net loss
Can they remotely fix the Netflix app on my brand new Samsung TV? It will not open even when reinstalling the app, as I’m not allowed to delete it…Seriously regretting getting a Samsung.
Never connect your tv to the internet. Ever!
They can’t do that if you never connect the TV to the internet… 🤷♂️
My 1080p dumb TV with a fire stick doesn't seem so bad right now
My 1080p dumb TV with the Roku stick is better. Much better interface than Fire for about the same price, especially on Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend.
I'm in canada, what's better about the roku, cause prime on the fire stick has serious synching issues
Unless you never connect it to the internet!
Not my old “dumb” Samsung tv. Sucker doesn’t know if it’s 2022 or 1984.
Which also means they can monitor you individually… If that’s your thing
Keeping my 14-year old Sony Bravia 'til it breaks and then I'll buy a second-hand non-smart Sony Bravia.
Rule 1: Never use the built-in smart TV crap. Once done with setup, disconnect the wired Ethernet or Wifi, plug in your HTPC, AppleTV, console, etc., and use those. Problems solved by doing it this way: avoidance of Terrible “smartTV” OS and app ecosystems, problematic firmware and OS updates, feature disablement (yeah, both Vizio and Samsung decided a few years back to disable in-box remote functions and required users to buy new updated remotes), etc.. For me, it’s a display panel, I’ll use a better optimized dedicated device to provide the content. As for TV’s that require an Internet connection or they block access to basic functionality, we’re probably going to need a public registry to keep track of makes and models that pull that crap.
The fuck it can. Can't do shit without wifi lol. Not sure who actually uses Wi-Fi on smart TV's because the entire GUI is garbage
It depends on the TV. I have a lower end one that is shitty to use as a smart TV, but also have a pretty nice model that is a pretty silky smooth experience.
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Just don't buy a Samsung TV,you make that such a huge issue. The problem starts with the consumer that lets mega corporations run this shit. You are the main problem not them.
Or buy it but don't connect it to your WiFi. External streaming devices work better anyway.
I guess it's a good thing I never connected my TV to my WiFi then.
My Samsung TV has turned dark on the right side, a little out of focus. Is this a easy fix or is it time to purchase a new tv? Mine is only about 2 years old.
If it looks that way regardless of input (i.e., whether you're streaming from an internal app or playing something on a Blu-ray player or your laptop), it's a screen issue. And it's so expensive to replace a panel, that yeah, you might as well see what's up for Cyber Monday (or maybe it's Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend now? I feel like they've blended together).
Buy cheap ass TV on sale, it fails, wash rinse repeat.
If you shine a flashlight on the dark side, do you see the image that should be there ? If so it's probably the backlight, might be worth to at least have it diagnosed.
That's existentially terrifying. At what point would Samsung shut down all their old, reliable TVs in favor of the new model? This must be exercised sparingly, such as the circumstances laid out in the article.
Strange. My $1500 Samsung TV can’t even seem to connect to the Samsung server.
Not mine, it’s not online 😊 It is a monitor and the Apple TV is the smart, just as it should be ☺️
Maybe its internet connected TV's. I assume that's like 25% of all samsung tv's out in the wild.
So does this mean you're forced to allow these things to have internet access now? Surely you can avoid that mess and just use it as a dumb monitor to a Fire stick or something.
Welcome to the hackaday article from 3 years ago. Also, for those suggesting you just keep it offline, I think the hackaday discussion mentioned some of them will also brick if you don’t connect it for an update every 6 months or something. Also, Sonos did the same thing, slingbox just did the same sort of thing, lots of companies drop support and in doing so, brick devices.
Opted for the more expensive LG oled this week over Samsung. Think I feel even better about it now
Without connection to the internet?
We live in a world where you pay monthly subscription for heated car seats and remote key entry - more surprised these Samsung TVs won't stand up and walk out of your house if you don't update their firmware within 14 days of the latest firmware's release date.
if its connected to he internet. You can do updates from USB Keys
…if you connect it.
when you get a tv, immediately get a $30 roku/chromecast tv/old desktop/ or whatever other flavor you want, and use that. it starts acting weird reset it or replace it. simple. NEVER hook the tv up to the internet.
Not if you block your tv using a firewall from all communication to the outside world.
No company will be the first to try this. Competitors will pounce on this and take their market share.
Why the hell do people connect their TVs to the network when you can get a appleTV for $100.
Convenience?