I actually had the reverse problem: some stupid neighbor kept trying to pair something with my smart TV, to the point where I couldn't watch TV at times, due to this moron's insistence. I looked in the settings and also found I couldn't disable Bluetooth, or blacklist devices, so I thought of a simple solution: changing the TV name to "virus". From that day on, no one tried to pair anything with my TV.
this post was submitted on 25 Dec 2023
154 points (92.8% liked)
Mildly Infuriating
35595 readers
1224 users here now
Home to all things "Mildly Infuriating" Not infuriating, not enraging. Mildly Infuriating. All posts should reflect that.
I want my day mildly ruined, not completely ruined. Please remember to refrain from reposting old content. If you post a post from reddit it is good practice to include a link and credit the OP. I'm not about stealing content!
It's just good to get something in this website for casual viewing whilst refreshing original content is added overtime.
Rules:
1. Be Respectful
Refrain from using harmful language pertaining to a protected characteristic: e.g. race, gender, sexuality, disability or religion.
Refrain from being argumentative when responding or commenting to posts/replies. Personal attacks are not welcome here.
...
2. No Illegal Content
Content that violates the law. Any post/comment found to be in breach of common law will be removed and given to the authorities if required.
That means: -No promoting violence/threats against any individuals
-No CSA content or Revenge Porn
-No sharing private/personal information (Doxxing)
...
3. No Spam
Posting the same post, no matter the intent is against the rules.
-If you have posted content, please refrain from re-posting said content within this community.
-Do not spam posts with intent to harass, annoy, bully, advertise, scam or harm this community.
-No posting Scams/Advertisements/Phishing Links/IP Grabbers
-No Bots, Bots will be banned from the community.
...
4. No Porn/Explicit
Content
-Do not post explicit content. Lemmy.World is not the instance for NSFW content.
-Do not post Gore or Shock Content.
...
5. No Enciting Harassment,
Brigading, Doxxing or Witch Hunts
-Do not Brigade other Communities
-No calls to action against other communities/users within Lemmy or outside of Lemmy.
-No Witch Hunts against users/communities.
-No content that harasses members within or outside of the community.
...
6. NSFW should be behind NSFW tags.
-Content that is NSFW should be behind NSFW tags.
-Content that might be distressing should be kept behind NSFW tags.
...
7. Content should match the theme of this community.
-Content should be Mildly infuriating.
-At this time we permit content that is infuriating until an infuriating community is made available.
...
8. Reposting of Reddit content is permitted, try to credit the OC.
-Please consider crediting the OC when reposting content. A name of the user or a link to the original post is sufficient.
...
...
Also check out:
Partnered Communities:
Reach out to LillianVS for inclusion on the sidebar.
All communities included on the sidebar are to be made in compliance with the instance rules.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
I actually had a similar situation. I found out I had a neighbor stealing my wifi a few years ago because of BT shenanigans.
I gave the guest wifi pw to the previous neighbor, who must've written it down somewhere. The new neighbor was a douche who kept piggybacking off of it to watch stuff with his shitty little kid, so I'd occasionally get notifications on my network. When I confronted him about it, he got belligerent and threatened violence.
So I paired to his device and blasted porn at full volume.
Well then, just hope that your neighbor doesn't turn around to pair into your device and blast porn at full volume on your TV, get you pissed off as to WTF you can't turn it off, end up throwing the whole thing into the Recycle Bin, and look into some kind of CRT TV that can't be f***ed with like you are also pissed off with the current company that produces the current flat screen stuff.
It's all good, my dude. I run old school cabling for my devices so I never have to deal with these shenanigans. Plus it's been over a decade since this happened and I haven't seen that family since. They left me alone after the incident and were quite civil afterwards.
Also, you okay? You seem quite upset about an anecdote on the Internet that has nothing whatsoever to do with you.
Not sure what anecdote is, but I'm actually quite upset about these shenanigans the companies that produce the current flat screen stuff they allow to happen in the first place.
I feel stupid for never having looked into changing Bluetooth device names but it's clearly not easy or I'd be naming all the Bluetooth shit I own crazy stuff.
I've not yet met a device whose Bluetooth name i couldn't change. Just Google, "How do I change the Bluetooth name on "x device"?", and substitute, "x device", with the manufacturer, make, and model of the device whose Bluetooth name you want to change. I believe in you.
Tv companies use those features to collect advertising metrics. While the BT can't connect with anything on it's own, it can see things like what other bluetooth devices are near by and how often.
Some TV remotes are now using bluetooth instead of IR, so yeah you can't turn that off without locking yourself out..
It should be legally required that on any system that has settings you should be able to disable wireless stuff.
I've refused to hook my TV up to the internet. Massive bloatware and spyware machine. I bought high end. Samsung 70" top of the line last year. But everything I watch is though a jailbroken 4k firestick or straight up on disc.
It's a pain in the ass to switch inputs. THERES NO INPUT BUTTON. It wants to choose FOR ME what input I'm using based off the most recent input. Lick my balls. I'll switch from the first stick to the Xbox but if the fire stick is still streaming I'll choose the Xbox and it'll switch back to the firestick. Fuck you. I can't even imagine if I let that thing connect to the internet. It'd probably want a huge update, send everything I watch back to hq, and then try to show me ads. Fuck you Koreans.
It's a great tv. Top of the line picture quality. But it's about as good as it gets in this age. If I was more tech savvy I could probably make it better but I'm not.
Samsung's auto input stuff is so frustrating. When I had one I would just plug and unplug into the last input used but even then it would try to detect input for settings I guess and delay me over a minute.
I won't let my TV access the internet. No good reason for it. If I want spyware I'll be one of the Amazon or Apple spyware modules. At least then I know its spyware that runs well.
That’s cool and all, but that has literally nothing to do with Bluetooth…
It means that the Bluetooth data the TV collects does not get transmitted anywhere. It's better than disabling Bluetooth.
Other than the whole issue of it still trying to connect to devices, or allowing other devices to try to connect to it. Which is what the post is about.
Wait why are complaining about the stupid devices of others instead of your one that doesn't allow you to manage its connections?
I would be furious at my stuff doing stupid shit not that of others.
Yeah at first I thought it was his TV. Why are they even paired to begin with? It's his device doing it, the TVs are just complying.
It seems the neighbours device is constantly in pairing mode. If your device has no display, you have to rely on only your devices wanting to pair at the time you need to.
Oh that would make sense!
Damn this unlocked a lot of infuriating memories of working night shift and being woken up by the kids from one of the other apartments connecting to my TV's sound bar and playing loud obnoxious games for toddlers and cranking it way up presumably because they couldn't hear it, all while I was trying to sleep because night was my day.
That sounds like an issue with your transmitter, not the TVs. It shouldn't be initiating the pairing process with untrusted devices.
My wife's car disconnects my bt audio like every 5 mins. There are certain intersections where it always connects. I've long suspected its because of other bt devices using the same frequencies. This is on a 2023 ev car using android auto.
My shitty aftermarket bt radio I installed on my 2003 PoS is 100% stable. No problems.
New cars are such fucking garbage.
It might be because right now remotes are Bluetooth due to the microphone
It also just works way better than infrared lights. No need for line of sight or to point it ever so precisely at the receiver
Well, my Samsung “smart” tv starts playing other people’s streams. Tried dumbing down the piece of shit to absolute bottom (I have media connected via hdmi/usb/etc and am not using that ad-ridden OS), but it still lets others randomly connect. A decent manyport monitor will work just as fine, so that replacement will happen!
Welcome to late-stage capitalism, where companies sell what you do not want to buy. e.g., no wired connection has ever once had this problem, but they had to sell more thingies, so now everything is bluetooth, whether it should be or not, plus it seems like nobody ever bothered to finish implementing bluetooth - e.g., this exact issue you are having, which surely could be fixed except... why bother, when you (& your neighbors) have already bought all the thingies?
Lol and I can't even get my TVs to output over Bluetooth! Smart TVs are dumb, why build a radio into a thing if I can't connect both ways with it.
Or why build a radio into a TV to listen to music when the stereo system is already during that job?
I mean like the Bluetooth radio, not like a radio tuner. Sorry should've clarified
Just start transmitting some music, it'll get squared away real quick
Most crappy TV's I've had were cheap. YMMV.