Some TVs with ads actually have ads pre-loaded on them, so not connecting them isn't sufficient to defeat the ads.

I'm going to rankly speculate that every smart tv does surveillance on the user on part of either the manufacturer or some third party that pays the manufacturer for the data. Otherwise why bother putting a damned wifi chip and browser in the thing at all? I'll take my tinfoil hat off if anyone can link me to an extant business model that includes all that smart business yet somehow doesn't leverage it to make money in our modern economy. But even then it had better be no data leakage by design (which, if it's connecting to the internet for whatever purpose I can't possibly see how that would work in practice)-- otherwise one update and you're back to square one.

Additionally, your link doesn't include the few tvs that happen to be good ole' non-smart tvs. Check out feature #9 on my Walmart special:

> USB – USB connects to USB flash drives for playing music and picture. The USB port is also used for updating the display’s firmware.

So good luck with your Smart TV Behavioral Modification Systems that may or may not shoot ads at your head, HN. Meanwhile, I'll be sitting in the privacy of my own home, sipping tea wile deciding which jpeg I'm going to play next.

You 'own' the device but you can't control it. It's 'smart' and you're dumb, because you controlling it isn't the goal.

I imagine the same way google improved their location services by driving around and literally collecting wifi network information, vizio can see where any TV not connected to the internet physically is if they send someone to drive around and look for their own TVs wifi networks.

I have always used “Smart TV” this way and have been at peace thinking I don’t have a problem. Am I missing something here? A Vizio TV can create its own WiFi Network all it wants, but it ain’t connecting to my home Internet. Why Do I have to worry?

Mesh with neighbour’s TV network which has access to their internet is more plausible to me and concerning. Wouldn’t this be illegal and a waiting class action law suit? (Using Neighbor’s internet surreptitiously?) and an easy one to spot at that?

And in terms of legality - you likely give them permission to do whatever they want in the terms and services you agree to on first boot, or install an app on your phone, etc. And you have no control of the TV's wifi - unless you hack the encryption or get direct access to the firmware you might never be able to tell whats going on. That's definitely beyond my capabilities.

Also, isn't wifi sharing how many products work these days, such as various find my phone features and Amazon devices?

You took actions that initiated the auto update mechanism (plugging in ethernet, typing in with password) that were the root cause of the issue you experienced.

For the same movie, netflix is not showing the same poster for me or my kid. For "the dead don't die", it's Adam Driver for me, Selena Gomez for my kid.

Here you go, this is a link to more ad-free TV's

> Some TVs with ads actually have ads pre-loaded on them, so not connecting them isn't sufficient to defeat the ads.

It’s pretty much a TV + a set top box these days if you want to avoid ads in day to day use with most brands now.

I think out of the major brands only Sony hasn’t been pushing ads so far at least as far as their premium models go.

I'm curious as an owner of a Vizio TV that I think is a dumb TV...

Interestingly, the TV came with no remote, because it included a simple Android tablet, instead, which was supposed to be used as a streaming source and to run the remote control app. So in a sense, it was kind of like a smart TV, but with the brains externalized to the tablet. But when they decided to upgrade it to a proper smart TV, they also mailed me a regular remote.

But yeah, I was kind of irritated, given that I specifically bought it to be more of a dumb TV. I also took care to disable the screen scraping data collection.