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Comment by hollander | Hacker News Reader

Why would you ever use your TV to be connected to the internet? Just a matter of time before your TV gets hacked. I use either a chromecast or apple tv, and see the tv as a monitor with speakers, nothing more.

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It's all but impossible to buy a high quality dumb TV these days. I bought a 4k TV this past year with the intention of never connecting it to the internet but I guess I didn't do enough research because I can't even access all the functions of the TV without pairing it with an Android "remote" over a wireless network. Even better it's from a manufacturer that sells users' viewing habits.

https://www.engadget.com/2017/02/06/vizio-smart-tv-viewing-h...

Even now they make it opt out. To disable it I had to go into some obscure submenu and disable an option called "smart interactivity," something I never would have found on my own. I had to look up a guide on how to stop my TV from selling data about everything I view on the TV to advertisers!

The way "smart" TVs are going makes me wary of what other "smart" appliances will do in the future.

You have to buy the hotel or commercial versions.

https://www.samsung.com/us/business/solutions/industries/hos...

http://www.lg.com/us/business/commercial-display/vertical-ma...

These still have crappier panels and features(HDR, etc) than the smart models though. You literally cannot buy a top-spec "display", like you used to be able to in the mid/late 2000s with plasma and earlier LCDs

Unless it is a computer monitor. Then it will work perfectly fine.

That sucks. I've always found the hotel/commercial high end ones to be sufficient for my needs.

I made tbe smart TV mistake. Not only are they bad for the reasons you state they are also utter junk. All I really want is a good panel with plenty of ports and good speakers.

Why would TV need speakers? It's almost the same argument as with the smart TVs. I have a nice set of standalone speakers, why would I want to pay for the crappy speakers in a TV?

A lot of people don't care about using fancy speakers, are perfectly fine using the TV's crappy speakers, and would be much more pissed that the TV they bought is useless out of the box unless they buy speakers for it.

A lot of people don't care about using fancy streaming boxes, are perfectly fine using the TV's crappy smart features, and would be much more pissed that the TV they bought is useless out of the box unless they buy a streaming device for it.

Both of these things are true, and an argument for options.

Sorry, I meant good external speakers.

I've dreamed for years to have a single cloud OS, and then multiple "dumb" monitors and speakers controlled by that OS, Chrome seemed to be aiming for that, but privacy concerns could kill that dream.

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