I've bought a Sony Bravia TV set around this time a year ago, too, but mine doesn't seem to have Android TV. Or does it? The firmware only has basic TV, EPG, and recording capabilities, plus Netflix but no "apps". It's an absolute joke compared to PlayTV on PS3 of ten years ago. I was about to reset/update it because the recording software is stuck in a state where it can't delete a scheduled recording in the past and won't take programming for new recordings.

So I'm selfishly asking if you could look up the version number of yours, so that I can identify mine and avoid updating it?

Why Android over Linux or MacOS? It feels like at this point, Android and Windows are surveillance systems. If you don't want a surveillance system, you need to go with Linux or MacOS (or iOS.)

Netflix, Amazon Prime, Mubi, BBC iPlayer... in Hi-Res, UHD or 4k mode.

The apps with rich capabilities are restricted to the platform.

Android is the one with them all.

(caveat on Amazon vs Google stupidity)

Is there any concern with a smart TV that isn't connected to the Internet (using a chromecast to connect to netflix)?

Depends how disconnected it really is.

If it's doing some kind of "always scan WiFi in the background" shenanigans then it's still a computer slowly going out of date without security updates and occasionally exposing itself to the local area.

I wish I could take a "smart" TV and flip a switch and have it gracefully fall back to "dumb" TV where the Android device is physically disabled.

My Philips start TV can connect wired or wireless. Using Netflix native on it, goes quicker than via Chromecast. The EPG data contains an ad (!!!). I cannot even pay to remove it. So I just use my settopbox to watch & record. Advantage to that is that I am allowed to skip ads on local recordings (if I use remote recordings though, only on public broadcast TV, and they only last for a week).

Chromecast is basically a smart TV on a stick, controlled with a remote from smartphone (and partly, even the remote control of the TV). You can run a Chromecast wired as well. Same with Steam Link. It can run over wireless or wired.

I find on all of these wired far more reliable, and I keep more bandwidth for my wireless applications. Even my printer is wired. Then again, I got a 8 port gbit switch for connectivity and barely any wires visible.

The caveat is that my smart devices, although wired, are currently NOT on a VLAN, and that Chromecast is a data resource for Google, and as I mentioned the EPG data on the TV contains commercials. Instead of the Steam Link I could even just run a HDMI cable straight from computer. I can also plug in a Bluetooth USB adapter on my USB hub to listen via Bluetooth on the couch to the TV.

Other than that, its a great TV for its price. Make sure your TV has enough HDMI ports. You might also wanna have a look at Chromecast alternatives such as Miracast devices or Amazon Fire Stick (the ethernet adapter came free with Chromecast Ultra but for the other Chromecasts it costs 20 EUR extra).

I know its pushing the problem onto another device, but I dont use the "smart apps" on our bravia anymore. It's just an HDMI dumping ground. Right now a blue ray player has all the smarts

Edit: mainly cause they'd stopped working years ago...

Don’t give it the Wifi password?

Not giving it your WiFi password doesn’t make it immune from a nearby open/Mifi/phone access point that may allow the TV to exfiltrate data or become exposed.

Maybe give it a password to a honeypot network of yours?

I realize it's a bad solution, but that might work…unless it's "smart" enough to realize it has no connection and try other networks regardless…

Android tracks you less than iOS. You don't even need to create an account to use an Android TV or an Android phone.

Google Android tracks you the most.

How do I even turn off location services without breaking Android Device Manager?

I have location history off but I still get notifications from maps that say things like "X place you're at is popular, click here to see reviews or something"

You've intentionally confused several things.

1. You don't need to use Android Device Manager. Unlike iOS, Android gives you a choice of device finders.

2. Location services is different from location history. Location services is an AGPS service that does not track anything tied to your account. iOS does the same thing, and worse, used to send your location to a third party AGPS provider (Skyhook).

3. Google Maps is separate from location history. Google Maps on iOS will tell you to see reviews as well, and it is a setting in both. Unlike on iOS, on Android, you have a choice not to use the default maps application at all and instead use an entirely offline map.

The above three points when support my initial claim that Android is a better privacy-focused system than iOS.

If it's Maps then I presume it is aware of Google's knowledge / collecting of hotspots and is then able to guess where you are. Probably some other voodoo as well. Point being, even with location off you're still trackable.

If you turned off wifi so you think that would help?

ha Android does not track you less than iOS and google can infer who you are using your ip address

And you have to 'activate' an iOS device with a SIM card. No such need for any android device.

Clearly not the case for Apple TV, which is the product being discussed here. See:

https://www.apple.com/shop/question/answers/readonly/tag/app...

The only device that requires a SIM is an iPhone for obvious reasons.

And Apple is in the forefront of pushing for a integrated "SIM", effectively going back to the CDMA days...

Would this be similar to the eSIM in my Pixel 2 XL?

Yes

Is also worth remembering that all phones track you and that people who have access to the mast data can do stuff like this - https://ubicomplab.cs.washington.edu/pdfs/wibreathe.pdf

I've had the Nvidia Shield for a couple years now, and highly recommend it. It's a bit expensive if you're not using it for gaming or Plex server (I'm not) but I find it worth it because it's reliable, still gets updated, and generally "just works". It's literally the only content used for my TV now: Netflix, Plex, YouTube, weather, Tinycam (baby monitor), Google Music, and I can also cast from a phone/computer/etc without changing inputs.

Weren't Sony caught spying with the TV camera a few years back? I keep well away from Smart TVs.

Don’t know about Sony, but Samsung was definitely vulnerable to an NSA backdoor (ffs, probably front door put in for them).

I've paid for streaming for a number of years, while more than half worrying I was just making myself a sucker.

And, sure enough, the libraries have gone downhill while the prices have gone up, and my money seems to just be going to lawyers and technology to ever-more lock things down, while content is balkanized to maximize what I've come to consider rent-seeking.

I'm not interested in a "smart TV". I want good hardware with a lot of hardware connectivity -- preferably open connectivity, but that ship has already sailed in good part. Nonetheless, connectivity I set up and control.

If I'm going to stream, it's going to be out of a separate box, that I can segregate and replace when it's warranted.

If I can get off my duff and do it, it's time for me to stop paying for streaming content and put the money instead towards purchases where I end up with a physical copy, more or less in perpetuity. If, because the media degrade or the playback devices abandon functionality or get more locked down, the lifespan of what I've purchased is limited, I no longer have any qualms -- other than "lead pipe" law enforcement -- about breaking protections and making a sustainable copy.

I feel like a sucker for having put my money into a system that perpetuates these schemes, for too long.

Time to hit eBay for those boxes of DVD's I've heard about, before everyone else catches on and they dry up.

My parents have a somewhat older "smart TV" -- Samsung. Recently, it received an OS update. The UI responsiveness did pick up -- it was halfway abysmal, before. But the picture quality took a major hit. (I'll let Dad fuss with that, as is his wont, if he gets around to it. He doesn't use that TV much.)

This just reinforced for me, that you can't trust these updates nor the software on these things. If it works well as a display device, keep it unconnected and so "dumb" and just pipe stuff in over HDMI.

By the way, it was on a separate "friends" subnet that their wireless router provides. But performance seemed marginal, at times, so it ended up on an Ethernet cable. The router only has physical ports on the main subnet; there went that protection. Ironically, after the OS update, it defaulted to the wireless connection and seemed to perform significantly better with it. It got switched back to the Ethernet connection, but maybe they should undo that, now.

Really with all this stuff, it's coming down to the very basic... "truism", it's proving to be: If they can, they will.

It's up to us, individual users and consumers, to stop them. No one else is.

Considering this:

> Ideally you run a TV on a different VLAN.

Why don't you go with a pi instead of a shield ?

Android app support most likely

Also 4K and H.265/HEVC video support

An RPi can handle 720p at best, and no Netflix/Prime. Certainly not at 4k with HDR.

Um... running 1080p on Pi for years over here.

On which RPi? With hardware rendering? Which codec? Cause whenever I try it, I get stutters. I first suspected it'd be the wireless of the Chromecast, but that wasn't it.

OpenElec/Kodi, RPi2, never once a stutter

I don't use Kodi, I find it terrible. I use Emby. More important though, is the ffmpeg version and compile options.

Ok, but you're telling me you have studder and performance issues. So... Kodi then.

We don't know why. I use Raspbian; not Openelec.