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Comment by untog | Hacker News Reader

IMO, smart TVs shouldn't exist. You should buy a dumb TV then plug in whatever Chromecast, Roku, Amazon, Apple you want into it. Coupling the two together just means the software gets outdated long before the hardware does.

Up until now I haven't really cared, since I ignore all the smart TV junk and use my device anyway. But if it's going to start getting ransomwared no matter what I do... just let me buy a dumb TV.

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LG procedure from YouTube video to revert to factory defaults: Plug in. Press Settings + CH Dwn together, release. Select "Wipe data," then "Yes." Wait for "complete." Power cycle.

It's not that it's hard, it's that it wasn't in the manual.

We bought a Sharp Roku TV because of price and regret it. I don't care for a TV that has to boot up or have software updates. A dumb monitor even without a tv tuner would be better.

What stops you not connecting the device to network in the first place? Serious question, I haven't bought one yet but probably soon have, because there's no other choice.

Well, just like for many modern phone OSes (e.g. iOS for example in some cases), you're not able to finish the setup wizard and start using it without connecting it to the internet for inital activation.

What manufacturers require internet activation? That's a non-starter for any product I purchase.

I've seen a single Samsung TV up until now, but it was a rather non-common model. Luckly (FOR NOW!) vast majority of TVs still work offline.

In the future this may change - at this point some Samsungs already overlay their ads on volume change UI (and some other parts) to get additional revenue. With such incentives, I'm worried just how long you'll be able to buy a TV that can function offline.

It seems like an awful neat solution to me to plug the TV into the ethernet and there you go...

If you look at low end TVs you'll find the "useful life" limited more by the hardware than by the software. If the hardware can't do it, for instance, no H.265 decoding for you.

Then again, pretty much all 5 year TVs or so will easily handle H.264 in their supported panel resolution. Which doesn't help you if your Netflix / YouTube app was never updated and can't connect to the service anymore.

H.265 is generally only used for 4K content and 4K TVs carry decoders with them mostly.

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