this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2023
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I have, over the years, watched as our TV has become more intrusive and abusive. Every software update takes it up a notch.

As I say in a Reddit post [0], I didn't go to the store to buy a remotely controlled ever-changing remotely-controlled digital advertising platform to hang in our family room.

I didn't go to the store to buy a data gathering device to plant into my home.

I didn't go to the store to provide a TV manufacturer with, as they say in their newest terms of service:

"grant and agree to grant to VIZIO and its affiliates and licensees, a non-exclusive, transferable, revocable, royalty-free right and license (with right to sublicense) to use, reproduce, publicly display, publicly perform, adapt, collect, modify, delete from, distribute, transmit, promote and make derivative works of the VIZIOgram Content, in any form"

This device, which cost well over $2,000 is the source of stress and consternation.

When family and friends come over for a visit, it is impossible to control what they click on. The "home page" is full of ads.

They have a service through which you upload your family photos into their cloud service. The above license is just one aspect of what they grab from consumers without consent.

I say "without consent" because of several realities.

  • They do not make you read and sign anything when you buy the product. Go to the store to buy a TV. You walk away with a big box and no disclosures of any kind. The plastic bag they ship it in has more visible disclosures than the device itself.

  • How about the terms of use/service? Nobody reads 34 pages of nonsense (assuming they can find it).

  • If you have the TV installed by the shop where you bought it, they set it up and walk away. You never agreed to anything.

  • They constantly change and update firmware and TOU/S. You never agree to anything.

In short, they take advantage of consumers and tend to become abusive about just how far they push it. This multi-thousand-dollar TV is now a fully remote-controlled digital ad serving system in my family room. That is not what I signed-up for and not what I bought at all.

I just want a TV.

What about watching network TV with ads? Isn't that an advertising platform in your home?

Sure, except that I can choose to tune in or not. And the TV station doesn't modify the software in my TV to deliver more and more ads into my screen.

Interestingly enough, in a prior job I designed image processing boards to drive LCD and other display modules. Part of me has been thinking it is time to engineer a "TV Lobotomizer" board that can be used to modify these TV's and completely remove all such capabilities while (via open source) giving the consumer full control of what happens with their TV.

Sorry if that came off as a huge rant. With the last software update this thing has just gone over a threshold that is simply intolerable. Actively looking for solutions.

I think this kind of consumer protection has to be undertaken by government. I am not one to automatically reach for that kind of a solution. However, it has become beyond clear that TV manufacturers are perfectly happy abusing consumers as far as they can go. The only expedient way to fix this might be some kind of a law that forces full user control of every single feature on a TV and an absolute iron-clad privacy requirement. If a customer chooses to pierce that protection, they should be free to do so after informed consent and have every right to take it all back.

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/VIZIO_Official/comments/162xuop/p75qxh1_ready_to_hire_an_attorney/


There is a discussion on Hacker News, but feel free to comment here as well.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Part of me has been thinking it is time to engineer a "TV Lobotomizer" board that can be used to modify these TV's and completely remove all such capabilities while (via open source) giving the consumer full control of what happens with their TV.

I'd buy it.

[–] calypsopub 5 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I have an LG c2 that I don’t have connected to the internet and I didn’t accept any of their TOS options for anything beyond “use the tv”…every few days I get a pop up that doesn’t time out , and won’t go away without me, digging out my remote and selecting cancel, begging me to except the terms of service, so it can listen to me and to connect it to the Internet. My wife and I hate this tv. Never again fuck you LG

[–] MajorasMaskForever 1 points 1 year ago

I have the B2 which as far as I can tell has the same backing OS.

Out of morbid curiosity I connected mine to the Internet at first and watched all of the traffic it was trying to send. It's definitely a lot but using a pi-hole to sink it's DNS requests is surprisingly effective.

I've also done experiments where I told it to turn off wifi and watched to see if it ever tried to reconnect which it wouldn't over the span of two weeks.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

Bring back dumb TVs!

I don't need my TV to have apps ffs

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's less convenient, but you can just not connect the TV to the Internet at all. You can connect a computer (pi or something similar) to that in order to play videos or stream from. Or an Xbox / PlayStation for ease of use (yes I know those have privacy problems as well but they are much less intrusive).

Another thing you can do is set up a pi-hole on your network and blacklist all the domains your tv uses for ads and tracking.

[–] Cypher 1 points 1 year ago

Xbox is as ad riddled as any TV I’ve seen, while Playstation only seems to advertise stuff from their own store.

I second the pi-hole.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

All I want is a big screen, no "smart" features, no apps, no post-processing that messes up the picture.

[–] Kittenstix 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I remember reading that you can buy commercial display screens for a fraction of the cost with none of the 'smart' features.

Im still using a 15 year old samsung so I haven't looked into it much.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

No smart features, no apps, no internet connectivity. I'm ok with pre/post picture processing features as long as you can disable them.

[–] bladerunnerspider 7 points 1 year ago

I have an LG CX which I do not connect to the internet. I use it as a monitor for my Home Theater PC. You still get access to streaming services through Mozilla and, bonus, you can play video games, use CAD software, browse the web... It's far more useful.

Dell also sells large format monitors if you want to avoid TVs all together.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

I still have my old 2008 Sony Bravia. It's a 720p and 40 something inches. Still in perfect condition.

The best part about it? It has a coaxial cable input which means I can hook up my retro consoles to it without an adapter. But it's modern enough to have HDMI inputs and outputs and also had an audio output for a sound bar.

It's fucking perfect and I'm going to cry the day it dies on me because I'll never find another tv like it ever again.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

I have a smart tv that's not connected to the internet. I use a Nvidia Shield for anything that needs internet connection

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

While I have a smart TV, it’s not connected to the internet and I don’t use any apps on it. Instead I use a Roku to load my streaming services and so far I can’t really complain. No way I’d use any native tv apps.

[–] Kittenstix 1 points 1 year ago

I dont understand why more people aren't just using their TV as a pc monitor like me, I get all the benefits of a standard TV thanks to vlc and terminal PLUS all the features of a console for gaming AND a functional pc, granted my kid's been monopolizing it with bluey for the last 8 months but that's a me problem not a you problem.

[–] pianoplant 3 points 1 year ago

I have an Epson projector and have been quite happy with it. No Internet access or nonsense but still can connect to my lan for automation via home assistant.

[–] Rooty 1 points 1 year ago

And that's why I'm never buying a TV. You're basically installing a billboard that spies on you into your living room.

[–] dipshit -1 points 1 year ago

Turn it off.