Harmony Link will no longer work after March 2018

Re:Harmony Link will no longer work after March 2018 by cletus on Wednesday November 08, 2017 @09:57AM (#15652980)

I'll add to this: absolutely no good can come from plugging your TV specifically into the Internet. None. Zero. Nada. Zilch.

As soon as you do you'll get nagged for software updates, you'll get told the privacy policy or the terms of service have changed (which you have to acknowledge) and apps for things like Youtube and Netflix tend to be inferior to those in boxes (eg Roku, AppleTV).

I buy my TV to be a dumb screen. Then I plug a Roku into it. If at some point I decide the Roku isn't working I throw it away and get something else. Worst case I'm out $120.

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Re:Harmony Link will no longer work after March 2018 by dreamcompiler on Wednesday November 08, 2017 @11:01AM (#15653697)

Exactly. My TV and DVD player would very much like to know my router's wifi password so they can connect to the internet. Ain't gonna happen.

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Re:Harmony Link will no longer work after March 2018 by scrooched_moose on Wednesday November 08, 2017 @01:36PM (#15655461)

Is that even possible anymore? About 2-3 years ago it seems like "smart" TVs completely took over.

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Re:Harmony Link will no longer work after March 2018 by cletus on Wednesday November 08, 2017 @03:14PM (#15656502)

I bought a Samsung 65" 1080p "Smart" TV 2.5 years ago where that seems possible.

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Re:Harmony Link will no longer work after March 2018 by scrooched_moose on Wednesday November 08, 2017 @03:38PM (#15656739)

Oh, gotcha, I misread your original post. I thought you were talking about truly "dumb" TVs.

Non-smart TVs basically don't exist anymore (Sceptre is the only brand I can find). You can usually get a smart TV and keep it off the internet, but I've seen horror stories of some TVs not working at all until being "updated" after unboxing.

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Re:Harmony Link will no longer work after March 2018 by sitkack on Wednesday November 08, 2017 @10:08PM (#15659502)

We need a law that requires things work out of the box and can work while not connected to the net. Bonus points for requiring off switches for the "smart" features.

A similar pet peeve of mine is that the huge infotainment screens on modern cars cannot be turned off the majority of the time. Only in the VW Golf I rented did it actually have a way to shut the whole thing down.

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