Honestly, a PC monitor and a separate device connected to it is probably much less bullshit.

Pihole is nice to have regardless of TVs.

Commercial displays are usually very overpriced, although if you can get a good deal that could be nice.

Not sure I'd "trust" any such menu.

TV left offline. Small computer(I use linux) attached. Wireless keyboard with a trackpad.

I've been doing this for years.

I've said this before on Lemmy, but you may want to consider getting a projector instead. They (usually) don't have any smart-capabilities or Internet connectivity, and with the right setup, the screen size can be bigger than even the biggest consumer TV on the market.

The cons are that you need to be in a dark room, and if you want a really good projector (which you will), it'll be just as expensive, or even more expensive than buying a TV. Also projectors don't have OLED.

You can use a shotgun to hard jailbreak it.

For the moment, I've settled with our TV staying disconnected. All the 'smart' features are managed by an Nvidia shield Pro with LineageOS.

Don't ever trust a "smart" TV until you've installed Linux on it. All of the ones I've bought so far (the cheapest available at Wal-Mart, usually) are willing to display things without ever having been allowed a network connection. If you manage to buy one that isn't, return it and complain vigorously.

It’s still just as bad. We leave ours disconnected from the internet, but a quick note here: I’ve heard of some tv’s auto-connecting to open WiFi networks if available (though ours does not and nobody near us has an open WiFi network). We just have a very generic Hisense tv from 2019 I think

A german magazine just made a video on that topic. You can activate english subtitles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBSEHpU-pyI
They tested a bunch of smart tvs and tv-sticks and their network activites.
They say that roku devices were the most privacy friendly tv-sticks.

And if you dont care about warranty voiding, open the tv and tape the things you dont want. Mic, cam, etc. Its probably the cheapest option

The world of TV's is pretty tricky for privacy right now, there's a lot to say on it, so here's my recommendations.

I recommend just getting any TV and disconnecting it from the internet, the brand shouldn't matter. You can connect it to the internet every now and then to check for software updates (i.e. any bug fixes or new features being added), but for the most part I'd leave it fully offline, and would also recommend uninstalling any apps possible that are installed, to just speed up things, especially since we won't be using them. All of the TV brands out there are pretty much equally bad for privacy, and will spy on you and collect and sell any data they can, and also built-in Smart TV's just generally have very poor and slow performance, plus lack support for various codecs and formats, etc. So even besides privacy, built-in Smart TV's are just a horrible experience and I really never recommend them and don't see them worth using.

Now, you'll need to obtain a streaming box to connect to your TV... so that you can actually consume content and use it. You have a few options as far as privacy goes.

• Building/using your own PC, or using something like a Raspberry Pi, with Linux - This gives you the most control possible, but at the cost of being less convenient and requiring much more work to set-up and configure. You will be losing a lot of nice features like Dolby Vision with this approach as well, and will have to do some tinkering and configuring for sure, but overall it could be preferable to some people.

• Apple TV 4K - Out of all the streaming boxes and sticks out there that you can buy, this is undeniably the most private out of the box. Its not a bad device in terms of specs and features (though there are better options for this as I will get to) ... but it isn't ideal though, as it is Apple after all. Despite being better than companies like Facebook and Google, Apple has definitely had some issues with things like privacy. Plus with an Apple device, you lose all freedom and control over it, you can't even sideload apps on the Apple TV or install something like a VPN on it, plus OS and everything being closed source, etc. This is a hard recommendation for me for most people, but it could be ideal for people who want 0 tinkering or work, and just want something private out of the box that's simple and easy. Though, I would certainly avoid it for the better options if possible.

• NVIDIA Shield TV - This is what I personally use and would be my recommendation for most people. The specs and features of the device are essentially unparalleled to any other box out there, it even beats the Apple TV in terms of support for codecs and formats. For privacy... out of the box, the Shield is pretty horrible to say the least. Full of Google tracking and spying, and even requires a Google account on first set-up. The good thing is we can fix it. You have 2 options: Either install LineageOS (the Shield is officially supported) for the most privacy possible, or you can just keep the stock OS and use ADB to remove all Google apps and services, as well as any other bloatware and unwanted crap. The downside to Lineage is you lose Dolby Vision, AI Upscaling, and the App Switcher (so you can't switch apps by double pressing the home button anymore), so for most people, if you go this route I would recommend just keeping stock and removing all of the BS through ADB (You can just use a random burner Google account for set-up). Isn't 1000% ideal, but overall its really nice and seems to work well, while keeping privacy intact. You can also even use ADB to set a Private DNS, as well as disable connectivity checks (or change the server away from Google), so overall you can get a pretty nice set-up with this, its the best approach imo.

• Dynalink TV Box - While I do recommend the Shield for most people, if its out of your price range and you aren't willing to or can't get it (though I can't stress enough that it's well worth it for what you get), then the Dynalink TV Box is the next best option imo. It officially supports LineageOS which can be installed, which is what I'd recommend doing if you go for this approach, since the lost features like AI Upscaling and Dolby Vision from the Shield are irrelevant since they aren't present on the Dynalink box in the first place. This would give you great privacy if that's the sole thing you're after.

I'd avoid any other TV box out there besides the ones I just listed, as they all pretty much just spy on you and collect and sell your data, and there's little to no gain or benefit that I see in using them over your built-in smart TV or any of the other options that exist.

I think overall these are the best recommendations and ways to be able to privately use a TV without it spying on you and phoning home any and everything you do on it. I do hope it gets easier and simpler in the future, but this is what we got for now.

I recently bought a not-smart TV, and it was cheaper than the smart ones. The brand is Sceptre, 65" 4K UHD and - I just checked - it is still selling for $378 at a popular American box retailer's website who will remain unnamed. 75" is selling for $498.

I absolutely hate the software-ification of everything. It's worse than worthless. Last TV I bought has held up for almost a decade now. It is 55" and it cost me almost $800, which was a steal at the time. I was kinda floored by the price of the new one, and the picture's pretty sweet too.

Ive used pihole and also just removed the network’s settings.

If you want to stream, i don’t know how useful any of these mitigations are. You’re giving them some data to subscribe and use. Even if you share accounts, who knows what the apps collect.

Hisense TVs come with a physical microphone switch that disables the mic. Idk if this is on the budget end of TVs but I paid about 1500 for mine and it has it.

Bout 7 years ago I bought a Vizio tv because it was dumb; all the smart features were via a table it came with that chrome cast to the tv. I was reasonably happy with it.

Then in 2018 they pushed a firmware update that made it smart, and literally made the remote that came with the tv useless; you needed to buy a new one from them to use the tv. And naturally it was always out of stock.

Needless to say I won’t be buying a Vizio ever again. I just do LG tvs now, and don’t let them on the network; all streaming is via Apple TV.

I always wondered if I could install a private OS on a smart TV but never found one.

I like Android TVs because I can install f-droid apps on them. Like Cloudstream. I tried to debloat my TV by connecting my laptop to it and running the adb command to remove any bad apps I noticed, but even that's not perfect.

I wanna become an android developer someday and I might look into developing privacy apps focused on Android TVs.

Edit: I removed google play and it's services, so spyware shouldn't be getting updates on my TV and I got it a few years ago now, I think it's ok for privacy right now.

I have one of those cheap TCL Roku TVs, I think it was something like $130 for a 55 inch a few years ago on sale.

I put it on a VLAN then added a rule just for it to only ever allow communication to my Jellyfin server. No internet, no other devices, Wireless AP isolation, just able to access that port on that address.

It works ok but it does nag me that it's not connected when opening Jellyfin, cheaper than adding a dedicated TV box to it though! I tried a similar setup with an old Fire TV and it really doesn't like being "offline" like that and makes you navigate through the settings to open any of the apps.

If I were buying new I'd try to go for a monitor for sure, it's just not worth all the potential issues.

get something like mi tv box and flash it with aosp

Try Kofi with a dumb tv