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Comment by radus | Hacker News Reader

I think the only truly dumb screens that you might be able to buy are designed for commercial use. But yeah, consumer oriented TVs all have their own smart features.

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Is there a way to hack a smart TV into a dumb one?

Yup. Don’t connect it to the internet.

I can't back this up, but I've read stories on Reddit of smart TVs actively scanning for open access points and connecting anyway.

There seem to be a lot of dark patterns in this product space.

I think that connecting it and locking it down with Pihole or router rules might get better behaviour.

If that even works today (open wifi? Xfinity, AT&T, etc. hotspots?), it surely won't work in a few more years when cellular radios get cheap enough to just stick them in every TV.

What happens if you simply don't connect it to the internet? Can't you just use it as a dumb TV? I don't have experience with a smart TV so I cannot say.

I have heard that some TVs will simply look for open WiFi. Barring that, how long will it be before they just throw a cell modem in there, a la Kindle?

So TVs technically work today without wifi? That should be doable for most privacy-conscious people. Sick some literal tinfoil on the back of the TV where the antenna is to weaken the range, or block the TV requests on the network level for the more technically inclined using pi-hole. (Even as I type this, I am realising how insane it is that buying a TV is so hostile to the end customer!!) Hopefully my old dumb TV and dumb projector lasts for many more years...

I have an older Kindle, you can simply turn on airplane mode permanently and sync only using Calibre on your PC. So it's not as user-hostile as newer TVs.

I have a Samsung smart TV for work that has never been connected to a network. It insists on an identification check whenever a new device is connected to an input. It doesn't have access to the Samsung database so it just spins its wheels until you clear the overlay.

It does that even with network access (I didn't see any additional traffic when it happens in a packet capture). I have to use a programmable HDMI splitter that presents an EDID when the real input is off just to get rid of that behavior. My computer resuming from sleep triggers it.

Our hardware has valid EDIDs. Just nothing that Samsung would know about.

Part of the problem is that they'll have a lot of the smart features still enabled and have horribly slow interfaces for everything to switch inputs or bug you for a wifi password every time they're turned on. It's not a fun experience sometimes.

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