I have a Sony Android TV from the 2015 generation. It always had a row to advertise random app I don't use (Netflix, Playstation Video, Disney something etc...) It also always advertise content from those platform, you have to disable "recommendations" from apps one after one as you can only disable recommendations for an app that pushed its crap at least once.

The last update also broke hardware video decoding for a whole range of h264 videos as well as pushing some kind of weird 3rd party that seems to be something that basically monitor everything you do with your TV. It was advertised as a feature to access the TV guide.

My next TV will not be a so-called "smart" TV and not certainly not a Sony.

What TV’s fall into the “dumb” category these days? I can’t go back from OLED and I don’t think anything at that price point will lack the “smart” features, unless it’s a commercial offering.

TCL Roku is pretty "dumbish".

You can install it without an account, plug in an antenna and go to town. You can even connect it to wifi then use Youtube or Netflix. Haven't seen any funky ads.

My only peeve is that the controller doesn't have a full number pad which makes it a little derpy for the older generation.

I found this list of TVs that have ads or not[0], and the first item in the list with ads was a TCL Roku, accompanied with a screenshot of a Home Screen background ad[1]

[0] https://www.rtings.com/tv/tests/ads-in-smart-tv

[1] https://i.rtings.com/images/reviews/tv/tcl/s405/s405-ads-lar...

This is weird, my 2018 version of it uses a different home screen so it doesn't have that layout.

I retract my statement.

Edit: I purchased a 2019 TCL 50S425 and also don't see any ads...

My only annoyance with TCL is that once you connect it to the internet, and then disconnect it, the activity light (a quite bright, white light on mine) will flash constantly. Forever.

Solvable by tape, but doing that blocks the IR sensor.

I also went the tape route for that reason; haven't really noticed an issue with the IR sensor. Ended up configuring a firewall rule via OpenWRT that keeps it working on the LAN but not the WAN, so I can still use my phone as a remote with RoMote or the official app, and it's offline (still will blink though, hence the tape).

Nice thing about OpenWRT is being able to block homescreen ads when the TV is online with the adblock package since DNS filtering will do the trick fortunately.

You can take off the back plastic with a screw driver and disconnect the light if you want. Modern TVs are actually pretty modular. You can unhook the roku board, the t-con board, the speakers and multiple other things pretty easily. They are just wires with plastic clip connectors, a lot like a PC.

This is not a rationalization for garbage design, but at least it isn't as much of a black box as people might think.

Sceptre TVs are dumb and have 4K.

Worth noting that Sony also produces Android TVs AFAIK which I guess have the same prob. My older Bravia doesn't, but then isn't all that smart ;) and the lcd technology is outdated.

Mine is an Android OLED model from 2019 — I guess it’s more correct to say I haven’t _noticed_ an ad. I use my Apple TV exclusively for “smart” functions, and the TV wakes up and goes to the correct input whenever a connected device wakes. I never see the Android TV home. It’s still a far cry from the Samsung.

> I use my Apple TV exclusively for “smart” functions

That's the difference then. I have a Bravia and use the Android TV functionality. It started showing ads on the home screen earlier this year and I can't figure out a way to disable them and still be able to use the apps I actually want to use. If the ads had been there on day one, I would have been tempted to return the TV.