To address your question, I think they’re all “smart” now. I ended up getting a low-end Samsung 4K a few months ago and it’s been good so far. It starts up very quickly, maybe 1-2 seconds. We use it exclusively with an AppleTV because of privacy / advertising concerns that have been raised. I’m just waiting for the day when all TVs require a working internet connection and we have to start hacking their hardware and software to protect our data.

Personally I'm trying to get my hands on the SDK for the software that runs in the driver chip (does the OSD and the scaling and everything else), because I think there's a lot of potential there. But boy it's like pulling teeth.

Similarly, the Exploiteers (née GTVHacker) have done quite a bit of reverse-engineering of the stock boards, so you can just fix the broken-ass firmware they ship with.

Ultimately I'm picturing something like the WRT54G, a single modem that the community coalesces around, to the point that a decade later, third-party firmwares have become such a force that manufacturers build hardware specifically to run it.

Is this something that is practical and commonly done, or only theoretically possible?

I have an older model Sony 4K TV (pre-Android) that is so slow now after its recent firmware updates that it responds to button presses only after 2-3 seconds. It's unbearable!

I'd love to be able to just pop in a new driver board and refresh the TV, but I've never heard of anyone doing this kind of thing before.

Right now I'm working on a project with some M315DJJ-K30 and MV238QUM-N20 panels, but parts are still in shipping so I don't have anything to show for it yet.

Do these boards support HDCP?

I've stumbled into a pile of panels and I have several orders of different driver boards on their way to me from Shenzhen, but nothing in-hand to say if they work yet.

Also, watch out for clueless^helpful friends and relatives who try to “fix” your TV’s WiFi.

1. Normal Traffic

2. Guest

3. Security Devices (Camera's, and other Home Automation)

4. Media Devices (Roku, FireTV, Smart TV's, etc)

media devices only have access to my home Plex server and the internet nothing else

Couldn't you just change the wifi password?

I'd probably say ~helpful~clueless instead though

What about factory reset?

These days won't come. What will happen instead is TVs will start coming with embedded SIM cards for cellular data connection (prepaid or otherwise negotiated between TV vendors and telcos), and then we won't have any choice in the matter as consumers, short of opening the box up and snipping the antenna (and losing warranty in the process).

These days are already here. My TCL bootloops if it doesn't have an internet connection to download ads from, and if you call support, they'll happily walk you through getting it connected to the network.

We're not there yet, but we're on our way. My Philips Ambilight TV pops up a warning every few weeks to remind me that I should connect the TV to the network to benefit from all the smart apps it has bundled. Immensely frustrating.

I have -up2now- not seen 1 device, where the combination of HW/SW was capable of offering ethernet to the Device OS.

AFAIK, no (mainstream) PC/Embedded/Mobile graphics chip/firmware/driver combination supports this. Please do indicate a counter-example, if you know of one.

I consider that unlikely to change too, since Ethernet is limited to 100Mbit over HDMI. Gigabit (Wifi) ate that lunch.

Outside of "Device-Collections" from e.g. B&O, that might use that comm-channel to have a "guaranteed communication backend" available, I see no real (commercially) interesting reason for implement it.

Having said that, I'd be very happy, if GFX-card/TV vendors started implementing the optional parts of the HDMI spec, like CEC,ARC, and Ethernet. I'd find use for it.

Despite the common trope, "selling data" doesn't lower the price of consumer devices. You only see price-less-than-cost plays when companies are trying to buy market share (think Alexa, Google Home, early Kindle, etc).

"The greater strategy is I really don't need to make money off of the TV. I need to cover my cost."

and

"It's not just about data collection. It's about post-purchase monetization of the TV."

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/7/18172397/airplay-2-homekit...

[2]https://www.businessinsider.com/smart-tv-data-collection-adv...

You know, I've wanted something like this as well for a while. I know next to nothing about startups or companies, but I wonder how hard it would be to create a hardware startup around this. On one hand, you arent really designing anything new, you're more or less creating a version of an existing product, with existing technologies, except removing undesirable parts. On the other hand, I have mo idea how someone could get started without previous experience in TV design / manufacturing.

I do not understand why so many other markets have a number of luxury/craftsman brands and in computers we only have Apple. Cars have tons. Even woodworking has 2 built-to-last brands and 2 others that like to flirt with that moniker.

You will have to pay though, if you want the company to stick around. If you buy something that lasts 3x as long then they get less revenue from you, and the smaller volume means every sale includes paying off the initial R & D.

I recall when Lian Li first came onto the scene and the notch-up in ergonomics of computer cases that followed. Maybe we need something like that for consumer electronics.

The problem is that people like small and clean, which is where Apple excels (to the exclusion of accessibility), so I wonder what bomb-proof consumer electronics built for modification would look like.

Starfleet technology. Sleek and sturdy, but opens up when pressed the right way, and generally can be completely disassembled with ease, have pieces of it replaced, and then put back together.

It's fictional, but it shows the way.

If the hardware is a commodity and the market is for a bare-bones, self-serviceable “just a TV”, then the startup should have significantly lower engineering costs and benefit from the low component costs. Given that people on this thread are stating that they would pay a premium for such a product makes it seem even more viable.

Maybe other people have different “serviceability” definitions, but I once replaced the main board of a broken Vizio smart TV —- there were only two components —- a power board and the main electronics board. The hardest part was tracking down a replacement board, but $35 and a few screws later and I had a working TV again. That met my definition of self-service.

* You can't compete on price because the TV guys are selling access to the data they collect for ad targeting / attribution.

But don't let anyone stop you from doing it. None of us thinks this is worthwhile, so you might be on to a Thiel Truth.

Suppose end consumers think fixing this is worth $50 but not worth $100. If the outfit selling a "SmartTV" gets $80 lifetime value from the "SmartTV" features like forced advertising and margins are slim you probably find you can't offer this "dumb TV" for $50 extra without losing money, and you have no customers and go out of business.

On the other hand, it could go pretty well. We know advertisers see people who buy premium products (which such a "dumb TV" would be since it costs extra) as more valuable in a lot of categories, so maybe you charge $50 extra for the dumb TV and - as it takes off - that undercuts the advertising income of the existing products, so they have to raise prices to remain profitable and that actually improves your affordability compared to the market. Or else they make advertising even more intrusive and pervasive to keep the revenue up, and it makes your $50 premium appear a bargain by comparison for those sick of advertising.

In practice I suspect many of these systems barely function, each is a special snowflake, and that any bad input from controller could result in fire or water damage to your house.

So maybe TVs and fridges are a good place to start and we should give washing machines a while to figure it out.

But the average person wouldn't, and "fickle hacker news user" is not a wide open market.

To all the folks reading at home... I would remind everyone that a TV is not a monitor.

I got a relatively inexpensive LG 43in TV to use as a desktop monitor. I've had issues. Beyond the usual "make sure your graphics card actually supports 4K" and such, you also need to take some time to dig through the TV settings when you are using it on a PC.

In particular, you definitely want to turn on "game mode" or whatever it will be called. This turns off the internal image processing that can add hundreds of milliseconds of lag to the display output. You'll also need to find the settings to turn off the overscan. Many TVs will, by default, zoom into the center of the image, cutting off the edges a little.

I've mostly gotten over the other issues with using a TV as a monitor (color settings and such), but if you want to save yourself some hassle, just get an actual monitor.

The technology is still new enough that getting the cheapest 4K screen you can find is still a really bad deal.

For my computer, I use a 32" LG 4K monitor, and it's great. No 'smart' features found there.

But I can't find a 4K monitor in the 42-50" range that has multiple HDMI inputs that is not incredibly pricey (e.g. broadcast/commercial realm) I could use in my living room.

It has 4 HDMI inputs and a USB-C with display port. It even has a remote.

It's an IPS panel though. From what I hear not everyone loves those.

Amazon has it in France for around €600.

[0]https://www.lg.com/us/monitors/lg-43UD79-B-4k-uhd-led-monito...

My receiver is older and doesn’t have HDMI in, but this solution works well with the TV I have. When a device is turned on, the TV wakes up and switches to that input. If the PS4 is on and I turn on the Apple TV, it will auto-switch. I never need to touch the TV remote at all since the devices go to sleep automatically, which is nice. Apple TV remote handles the receiver volume, and the audio input never changes on the receiver, so I don’t need the TV or receiver remotes at all.

I'm wary of using HDMI AVRs today because they add input lag.

You might want something like a Philips BDM4350UC then [1] - brought from the 'large monitor' section of your favourite IT retailer. No smart features whatsoever (and no tuner and no remote).

Unfortunately, they only go up to 43-inch - large for a monitor, but not exactly Frank's 2000-inch TV.

[1] https://www.philips.co.uk/c-p/BDM4350UC_00/brilliance-4k-ult...

For example, I am using an LG LG43UD79 currently. This is a 42.5" IPS 60hz 4k "monitor" at a decent price (I think I paid $399 at costco.) it has HDMI and USB-C inputs, but no smart functionality at all, no tv tuner, etc. The color and picture are pretty good after calibration. I normally use the monitor for programming, web browsing, chatting, etc but also do some very light gaming and it is fine for that.

I recommend this monitor and am hopeful that there are some more modern equivalents of it when I inevitably upgrade in a few years as I love the large monitors for getting work done.

Also: the new smart TV bootloops if it can't connect to the internet for more than a couple weeks at a time (it wants to refresh its screensaver ads).

You can run, but you can't hide.

That said, when companies price the ad-free premium at 1000x the expected ad revenue, it gets aggravating again.

There's also the funny issue where people who can afford to pay extra for the no-ads option are exactly the people that advertisers want to show ads to. If the no-ads option is $5, then you're left selling ads with a target market of people who can't afford or don't want to spend $5, and that ends up driving down your ad revenue. A large gap between the expected ad revenue and the price of the no-ad option helps mitigate this effect.

What kind of support does it need? Isn't it just an HDMI cable?

I wasn't alone in having this problem -- the support forums were overflowing with outraged threads about this. Support would give non-answers, wait for someone to say something objectionable, and then use it as an excuse to lock and delete the thread. Rinse, repeat. They had it down to a science.

At the time they were dumb panels, not sure if that is still true today. You had to understand what you were buying, as some of these displays are designed to show static content.

I really think he's massively exaggerating. His statements might be more rationalisation because people hate it, but they just want to squeeze more money out of people. But I can't believe that showing some ads and fingerprinting content would net them more than $100 over the life of an average TV. I'm sure there are plenty of people who would pay more than that for a no-ads, no network connection required version.

On the plus side, it was possible to disable many of the smart features once I discovered the telnet capability. :D

On the plus side, my 10 year-old laptop still finds a use as an access point/firewall for all those things. :D

As long as you're using binaries that were compiled by Google I wouldn't trust them one bit.

If you use LineageOS on your TV you might be a little better off.

Needless to say, I’ve been incredibly frustrated with my search.

They also support CEC so if the devices you're plugging into them support CEC you can just put the TV remove into a drawer and not worry about ever accidentally triggering the SMART features.

You may want to be careful with this. On Amazon Kindles when you connect to WiFi it downloads ads and will keep showing those same ones forever if you never reconnect and let it fetch newer ads. Seems the TV doesn't do it yet, but it could be added in a firmware update.

Unrelated, what do you even need firmware updates for on what is effectively a dumb TV?

I have a Samsung smart TV for work tasks that has the most annoying behaviors built into it. It always insists on "identifying" an HDMI source which it can't do because I've never put it onto my network. Roku doesn't appear to do this kind of data exfiltration.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21657930

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21614851

https://geizhals.eu/?cat=monplas

Buy a tv, then in 5 years when I need more functionality I simply upgrade the "smart module" for $50 instead of having to replace the entire TV

Of course they would then probably try to make a "as a service" subscription bullshit and it would be worse than we have now so never-mind I retract this comment

At most they come with a QAM tuner. Some are a display only. None have smart TV spyware from my browsing their offerings.

Fixed a typo

I’m guessing they have a decently powerful processor to power WebOS in there.