I’m pretty sure you can buy “industrial” TVs from standard vendors which might fit the bill for you. They’re much pricier though, if I’m remembering correctly.

I once priced a generic panel from B&H and it wasn't very much more than paying for a smart TV with nearly the same specs.

That's why I don't buy the "but ads make it cheaper" lie.

The ads _do_ make it cheaper though. Just not for the consumer.

No need to go digital signage: LG 48GQ900 is a 48" 120Hz 4K OLED monitor.

Sheesh that’s a bit nutty!

We bought a projector. Would definitely recommend this if you have a wall that works for it. No unsettling frame smoothing, a minute or two warm up that adds just enough friction and no smart functions or ads.

I second this. Great for movie parties and sporting events. I got a reasonable quality one as surplus from a high-school IT department on fb marketplace.

I have too much light but otherwise, great suggestion. Short throw laser projectors are the brightest I have seen but even they get washed out in this Florida sun.

Why not buy a smart TV and don't connect it to wifi?

Some smart TV don't enable all features until you've connected them once and done a firmware update. And I don't even mean smart features, sometimes it's things like HDMI input formats.

Of course you could just do the one update and then unplug it.

As noted in another reply, some smart TVs require an initial internet connection. I suspect we'll see more and more of them also refuse to work without a persistent connection. After all, if you're already just using streaming apps on the TV, then you're probably also connected to the internet, so the whole 'no TV without internet' thing won't bother most consumers.

And even if you don't connect it to your wifi, do you trust that everyone who uses your TV will remember to not do that?

There's also speculation that some manufacturers were looking into ways to piggyback ads and tracking onto public Wifi. For example, if you're in the US and you're near anyone who has Xfinity/Comcast service and haven't disabled the open hotspot, if that is even possible nowadays, there's a possibility that the TV might try to connect to the open hotspot. I don't know what the state of this is, but it's not that far-fetched that smart TVs could do that.

For the latter problem, you could potentially open up the TV, disconnect the wifi module if it's discrete, but then you're hoping that it is discrete, and that the TV will still function without that module.

After a house guest decided to accept the EULA and connect my smart tv to the internet it took me years to figure out how to get it to function without being connected to the internet.

You still reward the company and there's a chance you'll resell it to someone in the future, who will not understand the dark patterns. If you really disagree with the approach, just don't touch them at all.

Smart TVs are slower to do things like turn on

That depends on the TV. I have 3 smart TVs from different manufacturers that have never been online. They all turn on as fast as my dumb computer monitors.

That's because they are already on with just the display turned off. Unplug it for 10 seconds then plug it in and try turning it on.

I wonder if smart TVs are even profitable if you buy them but then prevent them from ever placing a single ad...

It's technically still "smart" in the sense that it can be connected to the internet, but the samsung digital signage TVs don't have weird shit or ads.