TBH, Im more confused by the parent comment. (Although this is a very typical type of HN comment, passive-aggressive denigration of anything "not popular".) These type of comments make me wonder why would anyone, other than the companies benefitting, care if some HN commenters do not love so-called smart TVs. This is not a mainstream audience. Moreover, I see no comments indicating "confusion" why surveillance TVs are popular. I see comments that indicate either (a) distaste for them, (b) desire for alternatives or (c) passive-aggressive denigration, like the parent; for example, something like "the market has spoken". WTF. Why would anyone read HN if all they want to read is a restatement of "popular" culture.
Only speaking for myself but I want to read about alternatives to popular choices that feed surveillance marketing as "business strategy".
In his Appendix, Orwell explains the syntactical arrangement and the etymology of the Newspeak. A living language, such as English, one that has the capability of diverse expression, has the tendency to gain words and therefore broaden the awareness and knowledge of its speakers. Newspeak, on the other hand, loses words, by removing words that represent opposing concepts. Therefore, for example, because the word "good" presumes the opposite of "bad," the word "bad" is unnecessary. Similarly, all degrees of "goodness" can be expressed simply by adding standard prefixes and suffixes to this one root word: ungood (bad) and plusgood (very good) and doubleplusgood (wonderful). In so doing, Newspeak not only eliminates "unnecessary" words, but it also promotes a narrowing of thought and, therefore, awareness. The idea behind Newspeak is that, as language must become less expressive, the mind is more easily controlled. Through his creation and explanation of Newspeak, Orwell warns the reader that a government that creates the language and mandates how it is used can control the minds of its citizens.
https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/n/1984/critical-essay...
We just haven't figured out a good antonym yet. Unfortunately, with the Latin root scientia meaning knowledge, the natural choice might be ignorantia. But ignorance is already in widespread use. Just try accusing someone unscientific of being ignorantific & see how that goes!
https://www.nytimes.com/1972/06/26/archives/smart-bombs-and-...
There were "smart cards" in 1974, "smart casual" dress codes in 1924, and "Smart Set" magazine in 1900.
A more careful look will surely find older and more relevant examples.
Amusingly "smart money" and "smart tickets" existed in the 18th century, referring to the results of injuries ("ow, that smarts!"). See: https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/smart
Smart bombs weren't called smart for being fashionably well dressed. The term was applied to guided bombs with fire-and-forget capabilities, which were first used during the Vietnam War.
I don't mean to be nitpicky. There are a lot of ways the word smart has been paired with other words. But "smart [object]", where object is some bit of technology that is suggested to have intelligence in it is really what I'm looking for. If somebody in the 1950s had marketed "smart headlights" that automatically turn on at night, that would be an example of what I'm looking for. But I haven't found anything like that prior to "smart bombs."
I don't doubt that if I read more I'd find the thing you're looking for from before the first mention of "smart bombs" (first I found was US government documents from 1970) but I'm not going to spend any longer at it, so I wrote my findings and sources in the hope it would be helpful.
By the way, Google {Books, NGrams, Patent} were also useful. There have been various things called "smart cards" for a long time. Also the dates on Google Books (and hence NGrams?) are frequently wrong and you really have to look at the front matter to check.
Also the real reason that they're popular: there are no non-smart TVs available.
the "Smart" TVs of today are riddled with spyware and telemetry that provides a second revenue stream to the manufacture since 95% of the population is too lazy or uninformed or doesn't have the time to turn it off.
Yes, there benefits to the consumer in the form of convenience but it's not a paradigm shift like the switch from color to b & w. Also you could buy black and white televisions for _decades_ after the introduction of the color TV.
In the course of about 5 years "dumb" TVs have almost completely disappeared from he market. Maybe I'm just cynical but I have a hard time believing that it was because everyone just _had_ to have a TV with a buggy UI (in many cases) and/or loaded with spyware.
It really makes more sense for smart functionality to be a different box so you can pick it independently
(I trust Apple more than Samsung. Except when it comes to remote control design.)
https://i.imgur.com/FlbKQEu.jpg
It was super trivial to remove. There is actually a removable panel on the back of the TV that lets you access it. Once I saw the antenna connector I knew what it was.
The average customer doesn't know what telemetry is. They usually know what spyware is, and, if they don't, they will find out very quickly. Of course there are exceptions like your favourite Smart TVs or Google (MS, Apple) products.
I think smart TVs are great, the chips that they put in the €1000 models are good enough for 4k streaming now. No more cheap mediatek crap. The only remaining problem that needs to be solved is long term support.
As you indicated, dumb TVs did compete against smart TVs for many years. The options were more like:
1. Buy a smart TV that might contain spyware and bugs.
2. Buy a dumb TV, and also buy another device to play content which can just as easily contain spyware and bugs. Oh, and the dumb TV already costs the same as the smart TV, because the "smart" hardware is extremely cheap at scale even without any secondary revenue streams.
How long will tv manufacturers be supporting and providing updates to smart tv software? If the smart components in the tv bug out or get bricked, you need a whole new tv.
It didn’t seem enough at the time to warrant sending the TVs back but perhaps I should have.
They’re segregated from the rest of my network at least. I may try to MITM them and strip out the ads.
- When I got the TV 4K was only just becoming mainstream and most dongles didn't support it. My TV natively supports 4K, HDR and Atmos on Netflix and Plex. (Does YouTube support HDR and Atmos?)
- My TV is 5 years old. The manufacturer (LG) hasn't introduced any new features that shove more ads down your throat [0], and all of the original features still work [1].
- Everything is controlled by 1 remote, so no need to explain to my wife you need to turn this on then this on (yes with HDMI CEC this should be possible, but the key word is "should").
- Using a dongle would have exactly the same privacy concerns - unless you run Netflix on a Linux laptop, but then you are stuck with 720p.
[0] https://www.consumerreports.org/streaming-media-devices/what...
[1] https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/roku-youtube...
And on the flip side your TV probably isn't receiving security updates anymore either.
Hope you have it segregated from the rest of your devices.
Not having to procure or mess around with external devices and cables is a huge plus for most people. People who buy new TVs want great image quality, and are mostly concerned with where it will fit and whether they want 8k or are happy with 4k.
B&W TV w/ built-in roku-like/streaming capabilities.
I wonder how expensive it would be to manufacture a B&W TV these days
I've found some Chinese factory which claims they can do it, but they seem to be using new-old-stock tubes.
I believe EU regulations regarding lead in consumer products prevent this too.
Another example could be, why driving a car is “too popular” on country side to move between places. It might be popular, because there is no public transportation. Is the situation same with public transportation? Can we call it popular, because it is forced?
Consumers buying TVs are driven by prices. Prices of smart TVs are artificially low...to the tune of either slim margins (<5%), no margins, or negative margins. The only reason 90% of the TV manufacturers can make money is by making them "smart", because they make up for margin on collecting/selling data. In other cases, big box retailers use them as loss leaders (see -> monster cable margins).
In other words - it's not that simple - the demand for smartTVs is driven partially by an artificially set price point.
source - my dad was a sales rep that sold TVs for 15 years late 90's-early 2000's.
Manufacturers therefore have zero incentives to manufacture non smart TV’s.
My parents had one where the TV part stopped working, but the VCR still worked. It had video/audio out jacks so dad plugged it into their other TV, so they had a dead TV sitting next to their working TV for use as a VCR.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
But I can replace an old Roku for $39.
Though the good thing is that I can't see the carcass of the old SmartTV laying around, the TV stays connected to the Roku so unless I accidentally hit the Channel up/down button and switch it to TV mode, I never see the LG SmartTV features.
But there was also the tradition in higher end A/V equipment of selling components instead of complete systems so it was limited to the low end.
I think the issue with Smart TVs is that people became aware of the extent of the downsides only years after they became aware of the convenience.
The reason that companies were so hellbent on getting "smart tvs" into our households is because of the ad revenue that come with them.
They aren't simply TVs, they're paid marketing platforms with captive audiences.
Television manufacturers are always looking for a new thing that will prematurely render existing sets obsolete, triggering a new television purchase. Smarts embedded into the TV are one of those things that is very inexpensive to add at scale, but convinces many consumers that their existing devices are no longer "good", which starts that itching that can only be scratched by purchasing a larger TV with the hot new feature du jour.
it was only after Smart TVs gained wide adoption that the abuse of network connectivity was capitalized upon by manufacturers, and dumb TVs were virtually made extinct.
Enter "Smart TVs". Consumers can theoretically choose one based on built-in applications, versions of Android (in theory). At the very least there is differentiation. The frustrating part is that at least here, it seems like these TVs are starting to lose features like optical outputs and multiple inputs.
I literally just want a dumb slate with >2 HDMI inputs and an optical output. That's no longer an option in Israel. In calls to 16 different stores based on what's available in the country (zap.co.il) your order is always "out of stock" and the call devolves to upgrade to a newer TV that yay has Android XXX on it. Inter-connectivity is becoming difficult to purchase.
And now with embedded ads.
I think they are LG's... like this one:
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1526262-REG/lg_55ut64...
(Although the key here really is the commercial - different standards of what customers are expected to tolerate there)
https://www.samsung.com/ie/monitors/flat/smart-m7-43-inch-sm...
It wasn't used much until putting a "good smart" device behind it...in this case a Roku.
Orwellian prophecy in real life, the Roku sends data back to the company about anything you watch using that device.
The only difference between this setup and a "plus good smart" TV is that anything else displayed on the TV(pc, pirated movies, photos, playstation/xbox/nintendo consoles, etc) will be fingerprinted and sent back to the company analytical department.
My opinion is it is none of their business.
This is all acceptable because manipulation via marketing/advertising is considered a necessary evil, and, the device is easy to use.
Please, tell me which model was that! I hate it when shiny LEDs ruin my movie experience.
The real problem is that governments have allowed the free-to-air (dumb) TV service to be bastardized, there's no regulation to protect it.
A very simple solution that would end the practice immediately would be for governments to put say 20% tax/duty on all smart TVs made by manufacturers who don't ALSO market dumb TVs.
Blame your governments for the lack of dumb TVs!
Example: https://www.sceptre.com/TV/4K-UHD-TV/U750CV-UMRD-75-4K-UHD-T...
Sadly unobtanium in the EU.
https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Telefunken-XH32G101N-ready-triple...
Philips got the BDL line, NEC also a big supplier.
https://www.businessinsider.com/smart-tv-data-collection-adv...
But of course now that the TVs have an always-on internet connection, the manufacturers have realized they can extract more revenue (recurring revenue, at that) by spying on their customers and selling the data. So of course, they do it, and most people don't even know they're doing it, so there's little outrage from the mainstream.
> there is a definite profit motive to push smart TVs and only smart TVs
I would imagine that most customers would prefer a TV with Netflix (or whatever) than a TV without Netflix. At that point it becomes a decision of whether it's worth it to incur the cost of having a separate SKU without the "smart" bits, and it may not be.
Yes, the "smartness" benefits the manufacturer (to the detriment of customer privacy), but I would bet that even if all the sketchy bits were banned tomorrow, manufacturers would still make and sell about the same number of smart TVs.
Market forces don’t correct small issues in short timeframes — and smart TV’s are not problematic enough to meet their immediate demise (but sufficiently awful that they eventually will — alongside car infotainment systems)
I don't know if market has corrected those or Apple did.
I couldn't care less about my car's infotainment system as long as the screen is 7+ inches and capable of Apple CarPlay.
E.g. you care plenty.
The screen is hard to get it to register a tap, the corners are dead, and the UI is very 2013 (It's a 2013 toyota, so I guess more like 2009 UI).
The data mining definitely plays a huge part.
I would however love a smart tv with an open stack where I can control the software.
And, well, saw no reason for leaving around untrusted unreliable crud I couldn't remove. It was worth a modest markup to get rid of it.
https://www.sony.com/electronics/support/articles/00225587
https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2021/3/10/22323790/lg-oled-tv-...
https://digiday.com/future-of-tv/samsung-pitches-advertisers...
Not quite. In a world where consumers don't care at all, smart TVs will take over because they're more profitable.
It would take a notable consumer preference against smart TVs just for manufacturers to be neutral.
This would be fixed if it was possible to modify the chip's software and easy to install alternate OS bulbs.
But it's totally doable -- it worked for e.g. OpenWRT on SOHO routers, sat receivers, etc.
(what is an OS bulb?)
Unless the manafacturers have locked down the device to only boot software signed with their keys, which they likely have.
webOS, also known as LG webOS and previously known as Open webOS, HP webOS and Palm webOS, is a Linux kernel-based multitasking operating system for smart devices such as smart TVs that has also been used as a mobile operating system. Initially developed by Palm, Inc. (which was acquired by Hewlett-Packard), HP made the platform open source, at which point it became Open webOS. The operating system was later sold to LG Electronics, and was made primarily a smart TV operating system for LG televisions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebOS#2013–present:_Acquired_b...
My go-to example on LG OLED is Spotify. It's so not OLED friendly, it's essentially OLED-hostile. The UI during playback is completely static and nearly seems designed to cause burn-in.
I don't honestly think the experience is good, and I've done a lot to minimize what it has access to. I didn't pay a couple thousand dollars to have a digital billboard in my house. I'd pay a small premium if I could buy a unit that was stripped down and only ran apps and didn't have any other placeholders for content. But... Manufacturers are getting out of control with what they deem OK to do with a device that they claim I've purchased. If nothing else it feels like a prepaid rental at this point - they don't last all that long and they can't seem to help themselves from thinking it's a platform I'm going to shop directly from? Even if it is content - I can't imagine many people want yet another vendor to pay for media content. Especially not LG/Sony/Samsung/etc.
I've never hooked mine into the network.
Maybe it's a matter about setting the cursor "sensitivity" (or something similar)? In the "[TV options] -> Accessibility -> Pointer Options -> Tracking speed" mine is currently set to "slow". I did set it to "high" but in my case it did not make any difference (once I pushed twice the down/up arrow keys it did not reappear unless I actively shaked the remote)... :(
I did install all SW-updates that were available so far for that TV, but I had the same behaviour already in its original "unboxed" state... .
I would assume it costs negative dollars to include that chip in the TV, because the cost is likely more than offset by whatever the app vendors pay to have their app included, and whatever marketers pay for ad placement and telemetry.
I do also prefer the incremental upgradeability you get by keeping display tech and software separate. I can avoid spending 4/5 digit $s on my big dumb screen for way longer when I can just upgrade a $50 dongle periodically (although it turns out google is way better at supporting old chromecasts than most smart TV manufacturers are at supporting software on old TVs).
From memory, Netflix pays around $10 to have a dedicated button on the remote, so even if the manufacturer didn't play any ads they'd still be in the black.
Because almost all of them use internet connectivity to show you ads on home screens.
It also would be a lot harder to profit from ads when you have to pay for lte bandwidth especially with the prices in the US.
> Well that's illegal in almost all (western) countries. A device need to have an declaration of all radio equipment inside in some form (depending on locale).
I agree, but I'm pretty sure that it will be buried on the declarations page.
> It also would be a lot harder to profit from ads when you have to pay for lte bandwidth especially with the prices in the US.
You vastly overestimated the costs of wholesale network access, which is surprisingly cheap, that's why Kindles (for the most part) do have Amazon-provided SIM cards. Bad news is that you can't get it: basically you need commit to a minimum bandwidth (in hundreds of terabytes range) with a minimum subscription count (in hundreds of thousands range) to get these cheap prices, which would be more expensive than individual plans.
I imagine that in case someone has implemented this, it would be locked in a similar way to ensure that it can only access those ad servers and nothing else.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27701977
TL;DR- TVs are using their own cellular connections and/or neighboring open wireless networks.
The link doesn't say that.
And it opens with,
> Though its 5G products are not entirely welcome in the United States, Huawei is reportedly pushing forward with a unique new product: the world’s first 5G television. As Nikkei reports this morning, the Chinese company plans to use the cellular-enabled TV and new PCs to challenge Samsung’s and Apple’s dominant positions in the global consumer electronics market.
It doesn't seem that Huawei is being at all secretive about this; they are advertising it as a feature.
The other comment is also correct.
The only surefire way to block it would be to put some metal or foil around the wifi antenna (or disconnect it entirely, if possible). Otherwise the TV could connect to any random open wifi network it might find (assuming there is one in range). Even if you connect it to your own network and block all its traffic, it might just decide your network is broken and find another one.
(I have a smart tv but honestly I don't want it anymore. I'm creeped out by the whole idea of it, and I don't like how it's always updating, or complains with blinking lights when it's not on the internet. No ads though. For now. It's kinda hard to find a dumb TV but I may just go with either a large-ish computer monitor or a projector.)
I'm pretty sure manufacturers make money through analytics and ads on smart TVs. What consumers like is the at-or-below-cost price of the hardware.
- If you want a certain display tech (qled, oled, ...), you don't need this guide.
- otherwise: there is no difference. pick whatever screen has the size and ports you care about.
I expected something like distance (several m for tv, .5m for monitor), but that goes unmentioned. I guess size+resolution already cover this.
We're frustrated because our screens went from dumb panels that displayed signals to proprietary computing platforms with DRM, ads and a full surveillance capitalism suite complete with microphones and maybe even cameras, all of which do nothing but serve the business interests of corporate giants.
All that nice stuff that the average person wants? We want it as well. But we want it on our terms. I want to do things that will no doubt cost the manufacturer thousands of dollars: kill their ads, deny them any and all data, etc. The TV should obey.
Edit.
They also connect to unprotected wifi networks to send data without your permission.
Just stick it in a VLAN to isolate and control.
However, my wife and kid love it. The main reason, as pointed above, is extreme convenience and user experience.
Sit on the sofa, grab the remote, shout out a programme name and it starts up.
Smart TVs is one of those recurring HN topics where it’s clear that people made up their minds years ago, likely from a single bad experience. Now they can’t imagine that any progress has been made since then. There’s not much reason to buy a new TV these days if your old one still works (with an external TV box)
You can still find terrible smart TVs out there, of course, but the newer models from top tier vendors like LG are actually quite good.
I think it’s going to take many years before the angry HN smart TV comments catch up to modern reality.
For me personally, I have basic privacy concerns with how smart tv companies are selling my viewing habits without any transparency. This issue has nothing to do with the "quality" of the tv and its features, and much more to do with the policies of the companies behind the products.
Don't plug an ethernet cable into it, don't give it your wifi network passcode.
There's (justifiably) privacy and other concerns on HN, but no one else is aware of those concerns or cares too much. The market has spoken.
Markets only speak when meaningful competition exists. Are you really suggesting that people actively prefer to buy TVs that, for example, suddenly start showing them ads months or years after purchase?
Take two competitors selling exact same stuff for the same price. If one adds ads to their product, they can lower the price. If they can ad data collection, the price drops further.
You just can't ethically compete on such market.
I'm not sure that is necessarily true but the buyer making a decision needs to understand the differences between products. IMHO one of the problems right now is that manufacturers using these user-hostile practices don't have to prominently disclose them. Many people probably buy these products completely unaware of aspects they might not like if they knew about them.
If packaging and promotions had to carry prominent warnings about user-hostile practices, that would level the playing field a bit. Better would be if the products themselves had to indicate whenever any sort of monitoring or phone-home system was operating, because that way everyone else using or near them also gets a warning that they might be spied on.
It means the market spoke from ignorance, there isn't much value in that speech, the market was deceived.
As an aside, there is no need for us to talk like heads of the marketing department in casual conversation.
The former 2 are already collecting your viewing habits, and the latter is uncollectable since it's just streaming from your own server.
Except smart TVs take screenshots of what you are watching and send it back for content analysis and correlation. So even if all you're doing is using it as a dumb monitor they are still collecting data about you.
Edit: Before someone calls me a tinfoil hat, it's called automatic content recognition, look it up.
https://www.consumerreports.org/privacy/how-to-turn-off-smar...
It’s true, I made up my mind in 1984.
Doubleplusgood.
Why is everyone so confused that smart TVs are popular?
Being able to just turn on your TV and open Netflix without messing around with inputs/other devices is a huge benefit for non-technological people.
And it probably costs <$50 for the manufacturer to include whatever chip is running linux in the TV, its a no-brainer.