My LG tv started having an annoying popup message every few seconds, "Unknown device is disconnected", which was caused by a faulty WiFi module, documented here: https://www.theraffon.net/spookcentral/tcp/2019/07/10/lg-sma...

Since I use a Roku stick for streaming, I have no need for the WiFi module in the TV. I was able to follow the instructions in that post, which involve removing the back of the TV and physically disconnecting the Wifi Module, and correct the issue.

I suppose that's one way to make sure the TV is not silently connecting to WiFi, although I'm not sure how difficult that operation would be on other manufacturers.

Be aware that Roku is one of the worst offenders in selling your watching habits.

What are some better alternatives?

Plex, if you have a spare machine to run it on. Free if the household share a username/password.

Plex also phones home, I thought. I could never understand why anyone uses it. What is wrong with mplayer running purely on a local client?

Local playback is fine, but greatly restricts your options for media boxes. The top end Apple TV 4K for example only has 64GB of storage, and the Nvidia Shield TV caps out at a paltry 16GB. The Apple TV would fit a few shows if you were willing to rotate them out, but wouldn’t be able to provide a “library” experience. The Shield supports external storage, but who wants an external HD or NAS taking up space on their TV stand?

So local playback implies something more like a mini-ITX PC or SBC running some flavor of Linux. That’s fine, but it’s not going to be terribly couch-friendly since it’s going to have a bog standard desktop UI.

So the most popular option is to put all your media on a server in the closet (usually an old laptop or raspi or something), with a client on your streaming box like Plex, Kodi, Infuse, etc connecting to your server.

> with a client on your streaming box like Plex, Kodi, Infuse, etc connecting to your server.

Never heard of Infuse but don't Plex and Kodi both contact the vendor's server? That is enough to make me not want to go anywhere near them. I do know there are home media center distros for the RPI and PC and they are supposedly nice. I'd be ok with using one in principle, but I haven't cared that much about media UI to bother. I just use command line mplayer on my laptop if I want to watch a video, and that's good enough for me. I can understand other people wanting a more TV-like experience, which is also fine.

Plex definitely connects to third party servers, primarily for verifying subscription status (some features are tied to a subscription) and to make connecting to your Plex box from outside of your local network easier (no IP addresses or something like dyndns).

Kodi I’m not sure about. It was originally XBMC (XBox Media Center) and is open source so even if there’s so phone home element, it can be built without that. Another open source option is Jellyfin, which is a fork of Emby from before that project was closed off.

Why does plex have subscriptions at all? I understand (at least theoretically) that not all software is free, but charging for it the normal way (you pay money and buy a copy that you then use without it phoning home) works perfectly well too. Anyway I had had the impression that Plex also sends at least the metadata of your video library to its home server.

I didn't realize Kodi was XBMC or that you could build it yourself. Thanks for that info.

Plex pulls the metadata for your library from public sources like thetvdb.com.

The server and clients use plex.com to authenticate users.

There are alternatives like Jelly Fin that should better alleviate your concerns.

Kodi doesn't phone home.

* Plex has clients for "smart" devices (Apple TV, Roku, smartphones, tablets), so you don't have to use a computer just to watch TV

* Plex tracks what you've watched so you don't have to remember what episode you left off on

* Plex serves up rich metadata when browsing your library

I use Jellyfin. It's great FOSS!

Plex isn't an alternative, its an app that plays content you host yourself, plus whatever sponsored crap Plex wants to shove into the UI. For people wanting to watch Netflix or Amazon Prime, this isn't a meaningful suggestion.

The Apple TV is a drop-in replacement for a Roku or Fire TV that lacks built-in advertising

I use an AppleTV 4K on every TV. Media is on a NAS (TrueNAS Mini). I use a Kodi port called MrMC (~7USD in App store) to mount the NAS shares and play all the media (supports NFS and SMB). Run a container (on the NAS) with MySQL that MrMC talks to that syncs status between all instances. Works great. Watch in one room, pause and pick up where I left off in the next room.

https://mrmc.tv/

Apple TV with Infuse. https://firecore.com/infuse

It can connect to Plex, Jellyfin, SMB, NFS and more. Bought a lifetime licence a while back before the price was increased and no regrets so far.

XBMC/Kodi, or AppleTV if you want a managed ecosystem.

AppleTV is not analogous to a Roku stick however, unless I'm misunderstanding. It is an app that already requires a connection to Wifi from the TV; Roku stick is what provides this connection. Additionally, AppleTV does not support Netflix or Disney+ among others. [1]

[1] https://9to5mac.com/2021/06/29/apple-tv-channels-services/

Pedantic Post Alert, but there's a few different products called "Apple TV". There's the hardware box called Apple TV that comes with a remote and plugs into the HDMI on your TV. That IS an alternative to Roku.

Then there's the Apple TV app, which runs on the Apple TV box. This can integrate with some other streaming services and show you their content in the app. Not Netflix or HBO (or some others) though.

And finally (that's all?) there's the Apple TV+ service that's 4.99 a month and lets you watch shows that Apple produces in the Apple TV app on the Apple TV box (or your iPhone, iPad, etc.)

It's all named very well and clear.

> It's all named very well and clear.

I really enjoyed this.

Apple’s handling of the Apple TV product names are baffling to me, given their once brilliant marketing department.

Ok, I've been set straight. I wasn't able to get the full picture searching online.

Confusingly Apple actually has a few ‘Apple TV’ product. There’s the app that you’re describing then there’s the physical device, as well as the subscription service.

The physical device is the Roku competitor, and supports Netflix/Disney+ etc.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_TV_(disambiguation)

The app is different. You can certainly use Netflix on a recent Apple TV [1].

[1] https://help.netflix.com/en/node/23887

AppleTV is a device like a Roku box or stick. AppleTV is also an app on iOS devices, roku boxes, etc. AppleTV the device has Netflix and Disney+ available, among many other apps.

I'm wondering if there is a wiki somewhere detailing the different ways to easily disable wireless connections inside consumer TVs...

From the link: > I taped the loose ribbon cable to the inside of the TV with a note saying, "Wifi Module disconnected, so as to disable 'Unknown Device is Disconnected' message." That way if anyone ever looks in there in the future, it will be known what was done :-)

excellent :)

Also, HDMI cables support ethernet connections.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI#HEC

Sadly - there's basically no hardware support for this. Dead in the water.

That's what large TV manufacturers want you to believe ;)

The same TV manufacturers that are still shipping 10/100 Ethernet ports on TVs in 2021?

You got any evidence to back this up? Hardware that supports this feature is basically nonexistent.

For anyone with LG TVs, iirc there’s a project called OpenLGTV which is working to reverse engineer LG software. Maybe it could help disable some of these “smart” features?

I imagine they'll happily let your neighbor accept the terms and conditions you have yet to accept too =P That's a failure mode I hadn't thought about, I didn't realize people tried to control a TV with bluetooth.

Why would you do this? Initial configuration but then never again? I can't think of a technical reason it meaningfully helps when you can already type in a wifi password with the remote, so I'm inclined to assume that the feature isn't for the customer but rather because they want you to use their app on your phone because the data on your phone is more valuable than the data on your TV.

I used to quite like BT control of the TV back when my kids were babies. Advance warning though, these are going to be pretty niche use cases…

I would feed them and they’d fall asleep in my arms but sometimes I would be terrified to move them in case they woke (and sometimes I’d just enjoy cuddling them as they slept). However the TV remote might have been too far to reach, whereas my phone was always in my pocket.

BT became useful again when they became older and started playing with the TV remote. It was always getting lost. Whereas my phone wasn’t.

So that does make sense, for sure, though my thinking was about how once it's connected to your home WiFi surely your phone is too and is less range limited.

But in terms of involving installing an app on your phone to emulate a remote, both are the same so it's no different. At least it's for more than just to configure it, mandating a connection to a phone you may or may not have seems like a stretch. At least by making it possible to use your BT for a remote you're expanding the features rather than breaking them.

I was given a nice TV with no remote. Used Bluetooth remote app to control TV.

Well, that was mostly a neighbor who accidentally clicked on your TV's bluetooth broadcast signal. But still if you leave it at that and not let your TV connect via bluetooth, it still remains a dumb TV

We have a pretty bad relationship with one of my neighbors. Not gonna get into specifics, but they're quite immature and petty and vindictive, and just generally not pleasant people.

Anyhow, late one night we saw something popup in the list when I was pairing my headphones. "$crappyneighbor's TV". And we saw an opportunity to be a little petty back for once. We connected my phone, and apparently their TV model features no confirmation because it went right through, and started blasting Rick Astleys "Never Gonna Give You Up" until my phone disconnected a couple minutes later. Bit of good harmless fun at their expense.

> and there is no way to turn bluetooth off

Challenge accepted! <grabs pliers and soldering iron>

Warranty voided?

A warranty is never voided if nobody knows what you did.

The profit margins are quite thin on consumer equipment; they can't afford to investigate into the chassis, having someone look at every chip that might have been tampered with.

Return it to Amazon, you could fill the box with rocks and they will happily ship it on to the next customer.

Most electronics warranties on stuff I've bought have been a year, max. Out of that period? Antenna snipping time!

...if there is one to snip, of course.

You can disable bluetooth with some effort - find the BT antenna (inside) and replace it with a load terminator - the radio thinks there's an antenna still but there is nothing that can be broadcast or received.

Which model have you got? I have a few LG TVs and there’s various options across the different firmwares that might disable that.

Eg LG Connect Apps

I’ve also often wondered if “store mode” disabled all of the radios because that’s the kind of thing you wouldn’t want enabled in a store.

It's an LG OLED55C9PUA. FWIW I went though all the menus, as well as searching the internet, and couldn't find any way to turn it off, nor as far as I could tell could anyone else who discovered this "feature".

Bluetooth on a phone can be disabled.

I only turn on bluetooth when it is needed.

Wired headsets and wired keyboards will work with some of today's phones.

That doesn't sound like a great user experience. "I have this TV that I want to use as a monitor, but I have to turn of a feature on my unrelated device which I want to use with a headset, keyboard, etc". I would rather buy a dumb TV that didn't require me to lose phone features.

It wasn't my phone trying to connect to the TV.

If this is an argument that all TVs are smart TVs, then all TVs with an IR control input device are smart TVs (because universal remotes).

No of course not. The moment you - possibly accidentally - grant the fucker an internet connection over BT, it starts to rat on you. However briefly.

Aything with an IR remote does not betrays it's users like that (through the remote)

> grant the fucker an internet connection over BT, it starts to rat on you

Or it does that by itself, with a mesh network that your neighbours have setup by accident with their Alexa or Ring - Amazon Sidewalk is an amazing end-run around your own firewall rules.

Thanks for giving me another invention to be angry about, haha.

Makes you wonder about the opportunities for poisoning of Sidewalk networks, just to get some petty revenge.

that's not petty, that's downright patriotic. we have an inalienable right to privacy, security, and liberty, and absolutely no obligation to let companies (or governments) invade or curtail those rights.

> we have an inalienable right to privacy, security, and liberty

I assume you’re referring to the US constitution. The rights you’re referring to constrain the government, not companies. You do not have a legal right to privacy w.r.t. your TV spying on you.

no, not just the constitution, it's inalienable because it's intrinsic to being civilized people, not because some piece of paper says so. on the contrary, companies have no right to spy on us.

Yet they seem to be able to keep on doing it just fine.

so people still kicking dogs makes it ok?

note that a right isn't a passive trait, but an active assertion. every time we give in to what's easy, we lose a little bit of our rights. you maintain rights by speaking out and living by them. we wouldn't need a second amendment were that not the case (n.b., i don't personally own nor desire a gun).

I wonder when home security setups will start including a Faraday cage, at least for certain rooms or areas.

If you build it into all of the exterior facing walls, you can use a cell range extender to tunnel a data connection inside your house, and also similarly with a Wi-Fi AP connected via Ethernet, in the event that you want Wi-Fi signal outside your home as well.

Actually, when I build my next house in 5-10 years I think I might do exactly this

Not gunna lie, i'm looking at building/remodelling a home in the next few years, and i'm seriously considering foiling the walls of some rooms just to build a faraday cage.

It seems way simpler to short the wifi antenna or something than to redo the walls? Bluetooth is probably harder to fix though, if the TV has that.

IR is line-of-sight, and the receiver can be blocked with a small piece of electrical tape.

Same for bluetooth, just build a faraday cage around your TV and you're good!

/s

Only if it's grounded, so that's a step up from the tape.

Bluetooth can be turned off in the settings.

It can't. Which is sort of the point of my comment. If it could I'd have no problem with this feature.

I mean sure, it's (probably) not an internet connection, but Bluetooth and an IR remote aren't really comparable. Bluetooth exchanges information in both directions, IR does not. Bluetooth works from hundreds of feet away (or more) with no line of site, an IR remote does not. Bluetooth allows for broadcasting arbitrary content to my TV, an IR remote can only change the channel. Given the relative complexities I'm also far more concerned about a security vulnerability existing in the never updated random Bluetooth module/drivers in the TV than an IR receiver that emulates button presses.