This. I have a TCL TV which has great picture and nice-enough audio but the "smart" part isn't great at all. Slow, random ads, etc.

It was my first smart tv so I was curious to try it.

Then I went and factory-reset the thing, unplugged the ethernet cable, and now it works like a dumb TV. I'm very happy with it.

It still shows a popup when turned on that I don't have internet, but that's about it. It'll automatically switch to the latest used input when starting up.

The two things that bother me is that it takes ages to boot up if the "quick start-up" is disabled (basically it needs to boot the whole google tv os), and the LED is quite bright at night (but it can be disabled, just not dimmed). It also seems to have no battery for the RTC, so if I unplug it, it will forget the time when I turn it on again (since it doesn't have an internet connection, it never gets to sync).

Does that time the TV believes it is matter? I don't have a great use case in mind.

I wonder when (or if) an alternative OS project will start that dumbs down TVs like yours. Primarily to fix the boot time issues.

The TCLs already run AndroidTV, which you can customize, sideload, root, etc. and isn't really the issue. There's also a "fast on" option that will put the TV in standby, so turning it on is almost instant. A full boot only takes 10-20 seconds. But you still, kinda need the firmware updates, because sometimes issues with HDR are only fixed years later.

According to the man, it pumps a lot of power in the fast-boot mode, and since I don't use the TV that often, I prefer to wait.

However, the time between pressing the power on button and the TV being ready is closer to one minute than 20 secondes.

> Does that time the TV believes it is matter? I don't have a great use case in mind.

It does if I want to see what the time is and I don't have my watch on.

If you are using everything coming through HDMI from a (presumably smart) device, why would you care to get that info from the TV?

Because the smart device doesn't give me that info, at least not in a way that I've found.

I don't consider this a huge issue, for years I'd been using my PC's monitor instead of this TV; it never had any idea about what time it was.

I recently had to have some warranty work done on a TCL TV due to a failed board and the process was absolutely horrendous. Just a heads up.

I think that may be a universal experience with TV repairs, based on a friends experience with a name brand. He had to bring it to a local repair shop where they then held it for over 6 months. Maybe he was just unlucky.

> How does a TV get ads if it's not online?

Multiple ways that can be made possible:

- first of all, some satellite and DVB-C/T boxes and also TVs such as my ages old Samsung can update their firmware over the air (e.g. [1], page 54). It's possible to use a similar channel to distribute advertising as well.

- embedded WiFi that auto-connects to open networks such as many ISP routers provision in exchange for allowing the line owner access to the provider's hotspot network

- embed a LTE modem

The first way costs money, as renting aerial transmission time is not cheap, LTE modems + data plans are cheaper but still have a hardware cost attached even if manufacturers cut deals with providers, and almost every TV these days has a wifi stack built in.

[1] https://cdn-reichelt.de/documents/datenblatt/F100/BDA_EXTREM...