Vizio TVs are now showing banner ads over live TV
flatpanelshd.com
flatpanelshd.com
Customers should have the right to return a device any time if they don't like a particular update to the product. I know it's drastic, but if companies can turn what should be a basic device into an amorphous system that starts serving ads without the end-users consent after purchase, that should constitute a material change to the end product that was not appropriately advertised.
This is the exact kind of thing that consumer protection laws should be able to cover.
Those of us who would rather not waste the kind of time and money needed to sue an electronics manufacturer would prefer a return option instead.
You don't see the manufacturer's ability to reach out and destroy the item you've already purchased as a defect in the item?
So you want to file a lawsuit for damages that would be limited to the value of your TV (possibly reduced by the value of the substitute), instead of getting a refund of the purchase price of your TV?
Other than enriching a lawyer, what benefit would that provide you?
This is classic industrial organization economics. These companies know that they are all in tacit collusion agreements with each other. It's not hard to set up "repeated prisoner's dilemma"-type games where collusion is the dominant strategy.
Basically, as long as companies know that it's in their long-term best interest to all do the same thing, then they will all do the same thing, even if it might yield some extra profit in the short term to deviate.
The only way to stop this garbage is to make it so bad for companies to engage in this behavior that the costs outweigh the benefits. Given the above situation, where the supply of alternative goods is likely to dry up, the only other forms of recourse are punitive court damages or prohibitive policy/law from a suitably powerful government.
But maybe it's just my cynicism of the modern court system that makes the suing solution sound like a waste of an individual's time and money, only to end up with nil in terms of industry impact. If that user is a very outspoken millionaire ready to fight, I welcome it. But I'm unsure if that sort of user is around these parts making comments dreaming of such opportunities.
There should be some sort of penalty for inflicting the damage after the sale besides merely nulling the sale.
Now I have to find another tv, and until I finish the return and shop and install process, I have either a defective tv or no tv, which screwed up any plans I made involving it.
Meanwhile, I did not get to mess with the money I paid for the tv after I paid it. It went into the manufacturers posession and I never got to touch it again, take some back, change the interest rate it's earning, change what stocks or equipment it was spent on...
Being able to return for refund is great, but it doesn't actually make you whole, and the damage done to your property and your use of your property was deliberate and unnecessary. (not an accident or honest failure or act of god, but a knowing choice to damage property owned by someone else.)
Getting the money back and no more is like getting punched in the face, and all you get for that is you get to make them stop punching you in the face.
And the damage may or may not be a mere trivial annoyance.
This is a contrived example, but ALL examples are contrived and yet countless real examples exist and happen all the time, so the contrived nature is irrelevant:
What if for example the tv were used as part of a recording process monitoring a long-running experiment that was either very expensive to set up, or whose results are important, not just money important but Important, and can't be replicated except by starting over which may require time no one has like years, and the banner ad obscured a critical part of the image and blew the whole process?
You can't just say "you shouldn't construct something so important with consumer parts". It's true but it doesn't get the property damager off the hook, since it's still a fact that the damage didn't happen by itself as a natural proprerty of the fact that a device was sourced from BestBuy, the damage happened because the manufacturer chose to actively cause the damage.
So, in a much bigger way, is having to file a lawsuit.
> and they know that statistically most of I will probably not bother.
That's even more true with filing a lawsuit.
You're going to be out thousands of dollars and get nothing.
You're free to sue them, but I suspect the lawsuit is going to get tossed almost immediately. Do you really think a multi-billion dollar company is going to expose themselves to a theft lawsuit?
I’ve done this in the past with a few different pieces of tech already, such as Bose speakers and a Samsung TV.
However, you are not forced to apply the update. So that's a bit different.
So how does this affect smart phones? ;-)
We also get longer warranties than most other countries. Even if a brand says you only get a 1 year warranty, our consumer protection laws say a warranty has to apply for "as long as seems reasonable", so for most technology that's 2 years.
Warranties are separate from your automatic consumer guarantees. The consumer guarantees which apply regardless of any warranties suppliers sell or give to you, apply for a reasonable time depending on the nature of the goods or services. This means consumer guarantees may continue to apply after the time period for the warranty has expired.*
https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/consumer-rights-guarantees...
You can ask for a replacement or refund if the problem with the product is major.
What is a major problem?
A product or good has a major problem when:
it has a problem that would have stopped someone from buying it if they’d known about it
it has multiple minor problems that, when taken as a whole, would have stopped someone from buying it if they’d known about them
it is significantly different from the sample or description it is substantially unfit for its common purpose and can’t easily be fixed within a reasonable time
it doesn’t do what you asked for and can’t easily be fixed within a reasonable time; or it is unsafe.
https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/consumer-rights-guarantees...
There is no specific time when the consumer guarantees no longer apply to products. They may apply even after the manufacturer's warranty period has past. The length of the consumer guarantee period depends on a number of factors including:
how much time has passed since the consumer bought the product the type of product how a consumer is likely to use the product the length of time for which it is reasonable for the product to be used the amount of use it could reasonably be expected to tolerate before the failure becomes noticeable.
https://business.gov.au/Products-and-services/Fair-trading/A...
I was also one of the people who bought a Samsung TV that didn't have ads, then suddenly had ads. That also got me an instant refund with no questions.
In both cases I printed out a copy of the product website where they published the changed features (eg the changelog or PR release or whatever I could find) and I also printed off a couple forums/media-articles talking about the changes. The stores didn't question it or have any issues with refunding me, I guess they just then file with the manufacturer for their own refund.
When I turned it on, there was a big dim spot on the top edge of the panel. It had to be exchanged.
From Wikipedia:
> The federal minimum standards for full warranties are waived if the warrantor can show that the problem associated with a warranted consumer product was caused by damage while in the possession of the consumer, or by unreasonable use, including a failure to provide reasonable and necessary maintenance.
The MM act also provides for awarding attorney's fees in a lawsuit against a manufacturer for violations of the act. Pretty sweet.
Separately, there are implied warranties of merchantability and fitness under the uniform commercial code.
US customers are almost completely ignorant of this. It really steams my cabbage when I see people heap praise on a company for warrantying an item that failed horribly, just outside the warranty period, and was an item that is usually quite durable and long-lasting.
As long as it can show images and play sound correctly, those are really non-issues as I'm using Android TV boxes anyway. So disconnect the TV from internet and use a TV box instead, all issue resolved.
In the EU, I'm fairly sure it doesn't.
One question though, “liking” something is subjective and ripe for abuse. Use the TV for 5 years and then return it back because consumer wants to take unfair advantage of the law.
It can grossly backfire.
My own view on regulation of markets is that it is just an incorporation of externalities into the market (better reflecting the actual “costs”)
No one thinks about externalities or loopholes. The entire house-of-cards is built for better polling and public approval, not about actually improving anything.
Ultimately public loses, politicians gain polling points, and corporations exploit loopholes that are designed into the system.
But HN usually never fails to have a kneejerk reaction to any discomfort with "let's legislate it".
We should question anyone that wants to implement legistation without proper debate and vigilence. Instead, we are frothing for legislation at every opportunity, but I don't see solid public debate about it. Revolving door in DC is spinning faster by the day, but no one seems to care.
He told me that TV manufacturers knew how to make TV screens so thin and light you could hang them on the wall like a picture. He said they weren't bringing them to market because they were making plenty of money selling cathode-ray tubes.
The first LCD laptops rolled along into shops about 1990, but it was at least 2000 before flat-panel TVs appeared.
TV manufacturers have been in cartel-mode for at least 50 years.
smaller retailers might not have the same terms with their vendors, but for the big ones they can and will pass that through to the original vendor, and that stuff is all tracked. return rates are a big metric that vendors use to measure customer satisfaction and figure out what they can get away with.
You just can't abuse the policy. It may take them years to detect that abuse, but they'll stop you when they do.
source? walmart's return policy explicitly says the return period is 90 days.
https://www.walmart.com/help/article/walmart-standard-return...
policy is the least they can do. if you're being a jerk and the want to get rid of you, they can quote policy. if they want to help, they can.
This works for isolated issues because they are isolated issues.
and then when they make their next round of stocking decisions, they're looking at vizio return rates and negotiating accordingly - either ordering less product, or requesting lower prices.
And naturally, if they are offended or upset at the product too (ads?! after you bought it?!), they may become your advocate... and go well beyond just being nice and helpful.
Employees may be empowered but that doesn't mean they'll help. It's a lot of trouble to take your TV off the wall, get all the accessories together, and cart it in to the store. If the employee on duty doesn't feel like helping, you're out of luck.
* most of local news is just "native advertising" anyway, like that piece on the latest kitchen shelves or the upcoming "fleet week" or the local basketball team's star.
That's not nearly drastic enough. Customers should have the right to know what potential updates to the product do in advance, to refuse any particular update to the product, and to roll it back if they don't like it, as well as making any other update to the product they want. That's how products have worked for thousands of years, it's how computer products work when they're running free software, and it's an absolute bare minimum to preserve basic liberal rights like freedom of speech and freedom of association. A future world where X Æ A-Xii Musk can have your Tesla car reprogrammed to scan what you say in the car for possible anti-Tesla sentiment is not a free world.*
The fact that even getting your money back after manufacturers vandalize your product after purchase to spy on you sounds "drastic" to many of us is an indication of how far we've fallen into a dystopian future even Stallman wasn't pessimistic enough to imagine 20 years ago.
Unfortunately, I don't know how we can get these rights in practice without requiring all software in consumer products to be open source/free software, and the software industry is currently organized in a way that is extremely hostile to that course of action. To a significant extent it wouldn't require positive action by regulators; merely refusing to enforce copyright on software would get us most of the way there. Someone would still have to figure out how to update the Vizio Flash chip and reverse-engineer the Vizio drivers, while a successfully enforced GPLv3 would require Vizio to help them, but at least without software copyright they could do it without any fear of legal repercussions. And Linux isn't under GPLv3, iOS isn't under any GPL, and enforcement of even the weaker GPLv2 against Vizio has so far been unsuccessful.
So, at least for the next couple of decades, we are sort of doomed to endure this sort of thing. Maybe a new free software movement founded today could change these things for the better starting 20 or 30 years from now.
______
* Maybe X Æ A-Xii is such a good person that he would never do such a thing, but historically speaking, structural guarantees of individual liberty have been much more effective at promoting the public welfare than ceding unlimited power to either rulers (who we hope are benevolent) or to "the will of the people", as amply demonstrated by the blood-drenched history of human dictatorships. Some rulers really are benevolent, but nobody remains in power forever. There's no guarantee X Æ A-Xii's heir will be so benevolent.
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2018/04/ftc-s...
However, yes, Magnuson-Moss also specifies that manufacturers must honor a warranty unless they can prove the failure happened due to damage or misuse caused by the customer. That (I believe) is why jailbreaking alone can't invalidate a warranty by itself.
The crackdown on "warranty void if removed" stickers is better than nothing, but your rights don't mean a thing if you don't know you have them.
Now, 'Your privacy and focus is ours even if you pay for our HARDWARE'.
Unless, consumers start seeing advertisements as an insult to their intellect this will get worse.
What kind of soulless automaton can write corp-speak garbage like this?
I wonder what Adam Bergman would think if his dentist took a piss in his mouth and then charged him for “industry-leading oral antiseptics”.
The Romans did it first
The kind of automaton that made a business plan thinking they can sell user data but is realizing that they can’t do that effectively.
I heard from a bird that heard from a bird that Netflix barred these companies from collecting and selling movie watching statistics Or they’ll yank the app from their tvs. I’d not be surprised if this is becoming more prevalent with Disney plus and other apps becoming far more walled up and putting in similar clauses (and more more and more people spend their time in these apps instead of cable ). Thus they’re desperately trying to find crappier revenue streams now that they have established tvs to be as cheap as they are now. Vizio isn’t some dumb corporate, im sure they know what such a move will do to their brand image.
We have an amazing ability to justify things that benefit us. I often wonder how many people in advertising and marketing can justify what they do for a living, whereas I view much of that industry as a blight on society.
Or, as it seems in this case, they wait until after the TV has developed a good reputation and sold in large numbers, before enabling the ads.
If you need a large screen, you can still buy a smart TV but simply never connect it to the internet. Or better yet, take it apart and rip out the wifi antenna so it won't connect to your neighbor's open network on its own.
With Facebook, it's not that simple. You're either on there, or missing out and inconveniencing others.
As in, would refuse to function unless you do?
I think the answer has to be, simply never buy a TV that you wouldn't be completely satisfied with as a dumb HDMI display. Cos even if it's not abuse like this, eventually the built in functionality will break, or become too insecure to keep active on your network.
In fact it goes for just about any appliance these days: whether it's your fridge, microwave, dryer, doorbell or anything else, if it doesn't have a "dumb" offline mode where you are still completely happy with what it does, don't buy it.
2. don't connect it to the internet
3. enjoy your "dumb" TV
- Firmware updates are more annoying to do. LG has added some new features via firmware updates, like Dolby Vision at 120 Hz, but since I've never updated my firmware I'm behind. I believe I could update via USB but like I said, the downside is it's more annoying to do.
- The TV still wants to be smart. Every time I turn on my LG CX I get a bar of apps that pop up along the bottom of the screen. Half the time this auto-dismisses in a few seconds, but the other half of the time it persists and I have to manually dismiss it. It's a minor inconvenience, but it's one of those annoying reminders that my "dumb" TV isn't dumb enough.
But overall, I'd highly recommend others doing something similar. Though I've heard of some TVs auto-connecting to networks like Amazon Sidewalk, so perhaps this approach won't always work.
Also I bought a service remote for something like $4. With that you can change some hidden settings and make it start faster (I never see the app bar when connecting to my PC, for example).
It's surely bad for TVs to do this. But I'm not quite sure what the issue is if it has no idea who I am.
I also have a TCL tv (didn't buy this one, it was provided by my landlord). It is connected to wifi - it was already connected when I moved in. I use it once a week or so to play Netflix through my laptop. I've never seen adverts on it so I haven't disconnected it.
I have seen people mention that it might depend on the region. But I'm in Vietnam where I don't think there's any amazing level of consumer protection around advertising.
I own a Vizio TV. I put a wifi password on it when I first got it, but took it off later on when my TV started turning on in the middle of the night.
Since then, even through a factory reset, it's somehow automatically downloaded firmware updates and installed them.
They've changed how the power button worked, and other UI changes.
The system menu reports no wifi set up.
Mine went a step further where you couldn't use it before downloading the app and setting it up with the app. I put up with it because I just go straight into my console as soon as I boot up but man was that the most infuriating experience.
I just loathe the idea of having a TV that (1) is going to have a smartphone-class SoC built-in that I won't even use for anything and (2) is going to be yet another computing device I don't control.
I begrudgingly tolerate the fact that my PS4 and my phone are computers I don't control, because at least they offer functionality that's useful to me, but I draw the line at smart TVs because they aren't even useful in the first place. I'm just going to use my PS4 for everything on it anyway, but then I'll have have another device where I have to worry about software updates and shitty anti-consumer practices.
/rant
I'm not sure what you give up with these other than the OS.
I'd recommend against that one. While it's the same panel as the LG OLED, the software is much worse, with an aggressive backlight limiter that can't be turned off and progressively dims the screen, and a panel refresh cycle that demands turning the monitor off every few hours (and doesn't happen automatically when the panel is turned off by the computer going to sleep).
I'd love to find a high-quality 4k+ OLED (or ideally QD-OLED) panel with no associated "smarts".
Pretty soon though I feel like even this "loophole" will be closed and TV manufacturers will start placing ads even on HDMI outputs.
They're not exceedingly rare. A tad more expensive, yes, but not hard to find.
The brand is called Sceptre, they sell them at Wal Mart.
Am I missing something? Maybe that brand doesn't exist in the US?
There aren't many reviews of the sets - Consumer Reports doesn't even track a single one right now - and what you can find is mostly mediocre to negative.
Seems to me that GDPR wasn't strong enough to actually beat adtech
Personally i dont think it's 100% certain that all consumerized technical products start abusing their customers.
Personally it feels really early in on this one. The free hand in this product segment is just exploring what it can do what it can get away with. Markets are conversations. I expect this one is not, like you podit, at an end, but rather just beginning. Perhaps this move survives but seems like it'll be hard to keep going, to defend.
This is ridiculous and is so anti-user. I hope a new upstart company comes along to just sell simple TVs.
If managers want to sell tvs without ads, they absolutely can. If the board (which represents the shareholders) disagrees with that decision, they can fire the managers, but there’s no “law” requiring them to chase profits. That really lets normal greedy bullshit off the hook too easily - laws don’t cause anti consumer behavior, garden variety assholes do because it makes them more money.
This stupid meme needs to die. The management of companies has a fiduciary duty to act in the best interests of shareholders. That does not imply any legal requirement to maximize profit.
Companies can easily argue the point on stuff like this. Raw profit isn’t the only thing you can do for shareholder value.
A legal requirement to maximize profits would be insane. Amazon couldn’t have spent a decade forgoing profits to build up R&D. Chipotle wouLd have to use cheaper chicken. Companies couldn’t donate to causes. It simply doesn’t work that way. (As someone else has pointed out elsewhere on this thread, the Supreme Court agrees.)
To quote the U.S. Supreme Court opinion in the recent Hobby Lobby case: “Modern corporate law does not require for-profit corporations to pursue profit at the expense of everything else, and many do not.”
https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-co...
I mean if they must show ads to make money, legally, maybe they need to actually force you to swipe a credit card every time you want to watch? That's more money, they're legally obligated.
Maybe instead of a video stream, you turn on the TV and it just steals your identity and steals your wallet - that's profit, right?
Just because everyone else jumps off a bridge does not make you legally obligated to do the same.
https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/VZIO/vizio-holding...
In the first half of 2018, LG Electronics' operating profit margin on their TV segment was 12.4% due to strong OLED sales[0].
0: http://www.businesskorea.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=2...
For comparison, Apple is at 31%, Walmart is at 4.5%.
I appreciate thin TVs that mount on the wall but the Vizio is a bit thicker and has room for a quality set of speakers that, in my opinion, outperform a Denon soundbar we have kicking around the house.
My take is that from one end to another end somebody thought carefully about what features to put in that would make the TV valuable to users.
Things like this new ad "trend" makes you think the "smart" in "smart TV" was just a reference to their marketing ploy.
This but for everything.
Everything is so full of bullshit no one asked for these days. Refrigerators. Ovens. Cars. Microwaves. TVs. Computers.
You name it, it's full of garbage that both took a lot of effort to put there AND makes the product worse.
It's like capitalism has contracted herpes.
My fridge has a digital display, always on, so I can calibrate the temperature of the fridge and freezer. This replaced a simpler and more reliable analog knob in older fridges.
They cut corners by building the freezer shelves out of as little plastic as possible. Bits of plastic chip off over time, and the drawer itself is held together with tiny plastic clips that invariably break.
The mechanical thermostats in refrigerators are inaccurate and failure prone (after a number of years). A digital thermostat increases life/reliability of the unit, even if it (very slightly) increases power consumption.
They're not Smart TVs, but then Smart TVs aren't Smart TVs, they're shitty computers that spy on you.
I wanted 4k120 444 10bit w/a decent contrast ratio and couldn't find any hotel TVs approaching that, but plenty of consumer """smart""" stuff.
I ended up getting a flagship sony TV, which looks pretty good... when it's not busy crashing or glitching out due to its embarrassingly terrible software. Of course I don't give it Internet access; that seems like a disaster waiting to happen.
Okay, a sound bar might be a reasonable investment but... my new Sceptre TV doesn't do HDMI-ARC, which means a soundbar is a big ongoing hassle, for the life of the TV.
I still give Sceptre credit that they have VGA inputs, and handle DVI converted to HDMI properly (separate audio input), which it seems all other manufacturers just shrug off and don't care to support, even if their know-nothing support reps may tell you otherwise.
It's a legitimate offering in the market for those who don't want to spend much. I purchased a Visio TV for my bedroom, where I only use Plex and therefore expected very little interaction with their ad platform (I was right).
It's dumb but the best option ATM is to buy the best TV for the money and just use it with an Nvidia Shield. When TVs start locking down basic functions behind EULAs and/or use built-in cellular connections then we'll have a huge issue.
The ad being tested in the linked article is an interactive ad by Fox TV when the viewer is done watching a specific Fox TV show and the end credits are rolling letting viewers know they can watch additional episodes of that show within the FOXNOW app on their smart TV.
That said it took a moment for me to realize what people were complaining about. That banner is basically identical to what they've put in TV shows for decades, the only difference being that this one mentions streaming and is interactive, while the TV ones tell you when the show airs and aren't interactive.
("But wait," you might ask, "why do you get to decide which features are good and bad? I found that ad very useful - I had no idea one could watch Fox TV shows on the Fox TV app!" The answer is: can you disable it? If not, it's a misfeature.)
TVs have a design life of three years and often ship design changes during different manufacturing runs, so jail breaking every variation of every device when the manufacturer is potentially working against you isn’t feasible. It’s a small percentage of the population that could do any one model of one device.
I’d also suggest dropping “smart TVs” in favor of monitors and a sound bar might be a an option, however Roku already took it to the next level by implementing a similar scheme on their devices. If Amazon, Google, and Apple followed then you’d just be in the same situation again. So again IMO better to attack the problem in general rather then a particular make or model.
I really prefer the free market to correct this kind of abuse, but I'm not sure how that works when they're all doing it. Theoretically everyone could just stop buying TVs but that's not going to happen. So it's just death by a thousand papercuts (abuses) I guess. Very sad.
I seem to recall Samsung sending me notification banners on my Galaxy phone several years ago, around the holiday season, to buy more Samsung shit. From that moment on, I disliked them.
It has happened which is why manufacturers are struggling now and doing nonsense like this to allow them to sell TVs at the old market prices from back when a TV wouldn’t last that long.
Neither TV has ever been allowed on a network.
This is a completely solvable problem; spend an extra $20, get a Chromecast, and never deal with this again.
I actually bought a Vizio TV years ago on the basis that it was sold with extremely unobtrusive software -- it had Chromecast support and a configuration/remote app you could put on your phone, but otherwise it did what you told it to do and stayed out of your way. They actually released a firmware upgrade six months or so later that added a crappy smart TV interface that has gotten increasingly crappy and intrusive over the years. It was infuriating. I had no way to opt out.
I guess I'm willing to try smart tv features but the vizio kept getting into broken blank screen states. it works perfectly fine as a dumb device though.
The menu is annoying (Samsungs) and complains about not being “setup” but it works just fine.
I don’t understand this take. I think it's pretty clear a lot of people use Netflix and YouTube and it's incredibly obvious that they wouldn't want to add an extra $100 for a lesser (read: non-integrated) experience to use it on their TV when the TV can do it natively. Of course I'm going to connect my TV to the internet, that's the only thing I use it for.
I think the only solution here would be for appliance vendors to have a "nutrition box" for privacy and advertising, so the user can pick the least obtrusive TV and the vendor cannot just add ads later.
But in the US I don't see that happening this decade.
A decent Roku can be had for $25 on discount. I think it is $35 regular price. And I'll bet it's better than what most smart TVs offer. I haven't used modern smart TVs, but several years ago, the inbuilt apps sucked. Netflix is more likely going to update its Roku app than some app on some TV. Indeed, those friends of mine who bought smart TVs 10 years ago got burnt by this within 2-3 years of purchase.
There are also bugs that get fixed through updates. (HDMI CEC is notorious for this -- an update might fix something but break something else.)
Some years ago there was a paper about transmitting malicious TV signals and getting code exploitation on TVs. That could result in a hacked TV that then starts attacking your streaming box to enable networking etc.
One reason might be if the TV channels are delivered over IP to an app running on the TV. One could move the app to a streaming box, but that would be largely functionally equivalent since it would still require the same underlying platform.
This is the case with my TV provider (https://www.init7.net/en/support/faq/TV7-Voraussetzungen/).
Now, ads haven't been an issue. However, unwanted Android TV updates have (I've now disabled them).
Samsung sells "commercial signage displays" which are kind of dumb TVs. The BE55T-H for example is 55in 4k for $600, stripped down OS / basically just HDMI in. BE65T-H is 65in for $800.
They're also intended for always-on semi-static content from what I understand, which is nice.
While perhaps true, the extra price you’re paying is all in how they need to reach the same margins without that TV showing ads or otherwise having smart features they can sell.
But that’s the base price people would compare against. A 50% premium to get rid of that creepy stuff is pretty heavy, though it may be less for higher end stuff or newer models.
Whether that's actually true would depend on the picture quality. Paying $800 for a TV that has similar picture quality to a $300 walmart black friday TV is not "reasonable" at all.
https://www.samsung.com/us/business/displays/pro-tv/bh-serie...
https://www.samsung.com/us/televisions-home-theater/tvs/qled...
Might go some way to explain the costs.
And the money is only there is the customers are still there.
If they're getting up and walking away with their money (or even demanding it returned for a loss of value), an anti-consumer decision isn't so easy to justify.
I'm never going to buy a TV that tracks what I watch, let alone one that exploits that information to advertise to me.
Just get a stupid Roku stick, Amazon Stick, Apple TV, whatever.
It's obviously not right that they're doing this, but the solution is very simple and probably a better experience anyway.
I have never interacted with any device that did something as egregious as adding a banner on live TV.
This thread reminded me of the issue and I’m currently looking into how this can be disabled. Apparently there is a Roku setting that can disable these ad inserts — if that doesn’t work, off with Roku’s internet privilege. Apple TV’s UX is leagues better anyway.
I’ve stood in one before the interior surfaces went up - such an insane amount of copper. They had a guard observing it 24/7.
"Carry this 30 lbs box out to your car for me and I'll give you $100..."
Sounds like an excellent deal to me. I can't imagine many grocery store employees ever get that big of a tip.
Still not a great ROI for the criminal risk being taken, but the people taking this stuff live in very different circumstances than myself and presumably yourself.
The cage material has to be made of a conductor like copper or silver. And it would probably have to be grounded too.
This website sells copper mesh with 0.63mm size 150mm x 455mm for £6.05 + tax (~$8 US). https://modelshop.co.uk/Shop/Item/Copper-mesh-woven/ITM6558
A 3m x 3m x 3m room is 54 sq m. You'd need about 791 sheets of the copper 0.63mm mesh + staples to nail is to the walls. Minus the area of the door. Cost about $6,328 + tax.
Steel window screen coated in copper might work even better and could be made by electroplating first a nickel flash and then the copper layer, avoiding the expense of vacuum coating. I'm not clear enough on the physics to be sure, and maybe it would be worse, but the skin depth in even ordinary steel is about an order of magnitude smaller because of its magnetic permeability.
"Booster bags" for shoplifting use (ungrounded!) aluminum foil. I think the reason they have to be several layers thick is that anti-shoplifting RFID tags operate at a much lower frequency, and aluminum foil is typically only 10 microns thick.
A Faraday Cage does not need to be grounded.
With 5G, they're adding lots of antenna's to boost connectivity. I suspect IOT 5G costs will continually go down over time relative to inflation.
Around 2010 the Amazon Kindle 3G with keyboard had a cellular connection for buying books, and it also had an experimentat web browser with worldwide free internet access.
I don't know who pays but it already happens, it's not new to 5G.
Funny how Vizio already got fined for almost exactly this. But now it's back as a ""feature"" for advertising.
Some years ago there was a paper about transmitting malicious TV signals and getting code exploitation on TVs, so that is another thing to worry about.
1 = https://zatznotfunny.com/2005-11/tivo-cc-tagging-patent-appl...
That just seems super creepy.
I wish that everyone is as creeped out as you. may be that would affect some change.
You "still have time to voice your concerns" when you contact the appropriate government officials, the reseller who sold you the TV, etc.
Someone trying to spy on you and defraud you doesn't get to set the rules for when you're allowed to object.
Imagine a hearing impaired person not seeing a message that a tornado is approaching their immediate area.
Hopefully it's just a poor attempt at an April Fool's joke, and not real.
Wow at that.
For one thing, getting prime time coverage of ads, w/o having to pay networks is pretty amazing but how it's done (Just the spin of it all) is just pure evil and that spin - I don't think any ads benefit viewers though.
They are selling you a below-cost TV and making it up in ads, same as Microsoft selling you a below-cost Xbox and making it up in accessory sales.
I don't think it's correct to say there's not benefit. The benefit of YouTube ads is that you have unlimited 4K content available for free (below cost of bandwidth).
While you may say you'll pay 600 bucks for that 55" TV with no ads, most consumers will disagree with you and they show it through behavior.
If most YouTube users were Premium subscribers, it would more than double revenue. Premium subscribers are worth more to Google than free ones are in ads revenue, by a lot. Monetized channels receive orders of magnitude more revenue per view from Premium subscribers than free ones.
I'm starting to think that if creating a crowdsale of a dumb tv panel might be a profitable project.
One disgruntled plumber or maid and suddenly you’ve got Bezos dropping a deuce complete with toilet view all over the internet.
However, if past is prologue then they will probably be off the market in a year.
0 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwYPO_SN0C0
1 - https://www.bestbuy.com/site/google/learn-about-google-tv/pc...
Well, the thing is buggy as hell. It can't connect to the network (wired or WiFi) several times per month. Cycling power does not fix it. The only reliable solution I found is to unplug the ethernet cable, and plug it back in.
When it does come back, it will do weird things. For example, when you last turned it off the volume was set to 7 (out of 100). If you have to the thing to get it to connect to the network it will, every few times, blast you at 100% volume even though the volume bar says 5, 7, 15, whatever. You have to jump on the remote and click it down. Just one click at it is back to normal volume.
And then there's all the garbage on the home screen. I want none of it. I just want the few services we are subscribed to and icons for the input connected to the external PC, playstation and WII. That's it. Just a handful of icons would do. Instead, my $2,000 bought me a circus act every single time I turn on the TV.
I really want to not buy a Vizio ever again. And then you realize they are all the same. Not sure what to do other than, as they say in the movies, "science the shit out of it" and design a full replacement main board for the thing and toss their electronics and software in the trash.
If people are going to prioritize cost while making their purchase decision, it is obvious that the manufacturers are going to see how much they can push.
If people stop buying such TVs, they will stop. So, stop buying such TVs.
No thanks not for me. Maybe I'll get a projector.
It seems to me that if you stop paying companies working against your interest money, or only pay them money for products that aren't against your interest, you're probably going to do a lot better in the long run in terms of protecting your interest from unethical corporate raiders.
Welcome to dark patterns.
I work in helpdesk for an ISP by the way. I see what smart tvs do, and it aint pretty.
It’s amazing to me that anyone would knowingly be ok with their tv spying on what content is being showed to serve ads, somethings that literally no-one except advertisers asked for.
The privacy implication of these systems is huge. Profiles about viewing habits can tell a lot about someone’s political and religious affiliations.
Having nebulous third parties manage these databases, probably badly, risking leaks, providing ad and government agencies yet another intimate way to monitor and profile citizens…
I hope some government body like maybe some EU body is going to highlight the risks these technologies pose to all of us.
Samsung does the same, and it seems the race is on for manufacturers to provide these ‘features’ as a way to remain competitive and get additional revenue streams.
I bought a Sony Bravia BZ40H Digital Signage Display. It does have Google's Android TV crap but unlike consumer TVs I refused the agreement when asked and the TV works perfectly fine without talking to any Google services or spying on us even though it is connected to the network (I check its traffic). It also has an API, though I haven't made use of it yet. We use it as a dumb monitor to an AppleTV and so far it has worked OK. It doesn't pop anything onto the screen - that would detract from its use as digital signage after all :)
I went with this model because I specifically wanted a "Digital Signage" display that had a reasonably good panel (a lot of them are garbage).
This is nothing new , second screen technology is now 10 years old. There are multiple ways
1. Gen 1 ,was more like Use audio cues from TV with phone or remote mic picking up for showing relevant ads 2. Gen 2 ,Use ACR (automatic content recognition ) to identify what you are watching and do ad analytics or present ads/ notification to devices using same wifi/login etc.
To escape from any of these , you need to disable ACR and smart recommendations in Roku, LG, Samsung , Vizio, Fire tv etc.. or buy a dumb Tv.
Almost all smart tv have one or more ACRs. They do a screengrab or audio grab every few seconds and send to check fingerprint to identify what’s watched. Also every video you watch from streaming platforms have tracking Id inside from Nielsen Gracenote or something similar and reports back the data as you watch them along with information of which devices it’s being watched on.
So technically it can identify your video that’s being played on tv - is from any pirated website or torrent. HDMI CEC also can coordinate to recognize if it was played from a real Blu-ray or not. Might be able escape if you go HDMI without CEC on smart tv, or go to same argument buy Dumb TV.
Put it this way , As long as you are using internet connected devices/TV , you are not escaping tracking what you are watching.
My current monitor is a 4K TCL Roku TV, but it's only connection is an HDMI cable to the PCs video card.
If you've already gone down this path, just block it on your wifi hotspot/etc. I've got a pile of ways I block things, from wifi blocking, nameserver blocking, to full blown firewall rules blocking IP ranges.
Solves untold grief too, no longer do my windows machines update on their schedule, they don't report usage metrics to MS/etc. Same with my LG tv, it doesn't get to talk to LG services except when I allow it (which is rarely). It just has some generic LG backsplash on the left hand side where it has in the past wanted to display ad's (although they backed off it at one point, but by then it was too late and lost its privileges.
Some will hop on any open wifi they can reach-- better hope no one spins up a open hotspot within range.
You can still slide load but they clearly want to be able to spy on you and shovel ads in your face. This for a $3k TV I paid for. It's as bad as Windows 11.
Further, Sony also wants to spy on you via some service who's name I forgot. AFAIK you can opt out (well, they ask you to agree with a bunch of stuff when you first turn on the TV and I didn't)
It's infuriating but I don't know where you can get any TV with high end features that doesn't have all the smart TV crap. You can get industrial displays but they aren't top end panels.
First: It's from April 1.
Second: What's described is not Vizio inserting their own ads wherever they feel like. It's a way for the network to show interactive ads in their ad breaks, instead of the usual "dead video".
So, assuming this is not an April Fools thing, the viewer doesn't get more ads, the ads they get are sometimes interactive.
Here you go, from March 31, 2022 01:28 PM Eastern Daylight Time https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220331005913/en/
It's effectively more surveillance even if it's more "more ads".
I read it as "as many ads, but now some are interactive".
Each stage of design cuts into the already razor thin margins. And for what? To get data on a few people that don’t connect their tv to the internet?
WiFi chips plus a deal with one of the big ISPs that already uses customer-site equipment to provide their own hotspot network app would be more economical and cover most urban and many suburban areas quite well.
See the recommendations on this thread for the additional work you'll have to do: https://discourse.pi-hole.net/t/recommended-strategy-for-cli...
Some consumer routers may not allow the configuration necessary at all.
Root My TV: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29938520
PiHole: https://pi-hole.net/
Usually not from the tv maker, but still a big banner at the bottom with a cheesy animation of the sitcom star or whatever?
Certainly never seen that just mid broadcast on a TV show
Note of course that even common Linux distributions have privacy issues, here are the ones that we knows about for Debian:
No more hidden updates for me or my family. Fight and complain to the dealer. Returned tvs is how we get these marketing morons and douche nozzles to shutup
Samsung does this nowadays too but at least they show ads in g their own content (they broadcast some TV channels) which I think is fine. I can choose to just not watch their content.
This is nothing new , second screen technology is now 10 years old. There are multiple ways
1. Gen 1 ,was more like Use audio cues from TV with phone or remote mic picking up for showing relevant ads 2. Gen 2 ,Use ACR (automatic content recognition ) to identify what you are watching and do ad analytics or present ads/ notification to devices using same wifi/login etc. It can even present with a add to shopping cart button on tv or phone , while an ad is playing.
To escape from any of these , you need to disable ACR and smart recommendations in Roku, LG, Samsung , Vizio, Fire tv etc.. or buy a dumb Tv.
Almost all smart tv have one or more ACRs. They do a screengrab or audio grab every few seconds and send to check fingerprint to identify what’s watched. Also almost every video you watch on TV has tracking Id inside from Nielsen Gracenote or something similar and reports back the data as you watch them along with information of which devices it’s being watched on.
So technically they have the capability to identify your video that’s being played on tv - is from any pirated website or torrent. HDMI CEC also can coordinate to recognize if it was played from a real Blu-ray or not. Might be able escape if you go HDMI without CEC on smart tv, or go to same argument buy Dumb TV.
Put it this way , As long as you are using internet connected devices/TV , you are not escaping being tracked of what you are watching.
We now have TVs that have cameras built in.
We now have TVs that display ads without our consent.
When do we get the TVs that cannot be turned off?
Big Brother awaits.
I'd like to upgrade to a TV with 4K and HDR eventually but guessing it won't be that easy unless I use a monitor instead.
Fine print should not be able to excuse this.
I wish they made themselves dumb tvs, it seems to be a good fit for their business.
If they do this in countries covered with reasonable privacy laws (e.g. the EU), go directly to regulators.
I got one for free, and I regret it.
Navigating the menus is painfully slow. After a few weeks, it started losing about 1-3 scan lines per week. It's unusable at this point, only about 18 months old.
Nvidia Shield + "Console Gaming Monitor" (from e.g. Gigabyte, LG, etc)
Yes it's more expensive, but that's how much they'd make from you with ads.
The general premise, though, is to get a non-smart ‘commercial’ TV without ads and use your own streaming box, maybe even a PC (with a proper OS-GPU-hdmi DRM chain), to control your experience.
0: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/forums/shield-tv/9/2595...
But if I needed live TV I'd just connect a satellite receiver box to our AV receiver as second input, just like we've connected our Switch, Wii, N64 and the emulator RPi.
Sadly, an Amazon FireTV update is disabling this for firetv
The real best way to avoid this is disable it in the settings and filter the device on your network then use something like a Shield TV for the smarts, unless you particularly want your TV to be a console gaming monitor in which case that's a fine substitute just not an initial assumption to avoid ads. So far (and likely forever given the average consumer) it has not been cost effective to serve these ads out of band and jurisdictional requirements on requiring opt-out (or defaulting to opt-in) have been getting better not worse on top of that.
Note on something like the Shield (and regardless of display) if you truly want a 100% ad free experience you will need to unlock the bootloader and either patch the official OS or install a stock Android TV image. Either of these options will disable official access to certain content/qualities but at that point you're probably avoiding those sources anyways as such content sources are themselves covered in ads. That or an OTA adapter for non-smart content in which case you're still going to get ads OTA, but at least not additional ones from your viewing device.
That's true, but those are features you'll want anyway. You'll want 24-120Hz VRR to watch both cinematic films and content like Gemini at the appropriate framerate, you'll want proper HDR support to get a cinema-like movie quality, and you'll want reduced input lag for when you connect your gaming console to it.
The NVIDIA Shield is actually perfectly ad-free in my experience (I've got the Shield 2019 non-pro), but the recent Android update forced some ads on the new Google TV launcher (luckily you can disable that just fine). I'm not sure what you mean regarding ads otherwise.
> The real best way to avoid this is disable it in the settings and filter the device on your network then use something like a Shield TV for the smarts
That's actually a bad recommendation, because then you'll still have to deal with the painfully slow startup times of a smart TV whenever you want to watch content and the TV actually modifying the image (most cheaper TVs don't offer a mode that avoids sharpening/softening/interpolating/color correcting/etc). And regular TVs often don't allow color calibration with an external probe either.
I mean sure, people WANT them. Generally that's not why they are buying budget Vizio TVs though, it's because they are low cost. The tradeoff is they don't do all of these things. Get a normal TV that does and suddenly the price differential is going to change dramatically.
> The NVIDIA Shield is actually perfectly ad-free in my experience (I've got the Shield 2019 non-pro), but the recent Android update forced some ads on the new Google TV launcher (luckily you can disable that just fine). I'm not sure what you mean regarding ads otherwise.
Well, as you say, when you turn on the device the first thing you get is home screen ads. Taking that back the first thing you get when you turn it on is offers for sponsored apps and then some pre-installed ones anyways, after that initial setup you get home screen ads when you turn it on. Then you get whatever ads are in the service apps themselves. Take for example the default apps Amazon Prime and Hulu, the former gives in app banner ads for paid items based on your ad profile and the latter will push anything from TV like ads down to just service upgrade tie ins depending on your subscription level.
> That's actually a bad recommendation, because then you'll still have to deal with the painfully slow startup times of a smart TV whenever you want to watch content
I recommend either turning the TV on at the store or watching a review before buying it. The TVs I have display the picture quicker than my pg32uqx gaming monitor but there are many TVs that won't. Similarly there are many monitors with garbage initialization times as well. Both monitor and TV are allowed to enter deep sleep mode in my case rather than hard power off, each was a god awful wait otherwise.
> and the TV actually modifying the image (most cheaper TVs don't offer a mode that avoids sharpening/softening/interpolating/color correcting/etc). And regular TVs often don't allow color calibration with an external probe either.
I recently got a dirt cheap $300 43" 4k TV for the Niece/Nephew recently, game mode and a few settings disabled most of the processing. As far as color calibration with an external probe... refer back to the price, I'm not expecting the display pass HDR1000 validation with a 98%+ wide gamut accuracy I'm expecting it to not be $900 and it's not just default built in ads removing 2/3 of the price it's the real market space differentiator - cut corners to save cost.
I imagine they'd get sued though
Oh hell no. I will never, ever, ever buy any product from any company who does this kind of bullshit. Are you listening, Vizio? I mean forever. I'd rather go buy a 40-year-old tube TV than deal with this.
Allowing ANY ads of this nature is 100% evil. This just isn't even up for debate, so I am surprised you're trying.
I just have a pc connected.
If you don't want ads, don't buy this device.
And no one seemed to have thought "wait, I'm being a complete cunt here – every user who will have this 'feature' inflicted upon will hate it!"
Sorry-but-not-sorry for the strong language, but I've taken to hold people individually responsible for this kind of stuff. Excepting people in social/financial circumstances where they don't really have a choice, if you're doing this kind of stuff then you're just being a gigantic twat. These people are all fairly well paid, so none of this "just doing muh job" nonsense.
I just don't understand how people can do this kind of thing – I'm not surprised because I've seen it many times before, I just don't understand it.
The most logical explanation I can come up with is that there are compensation incentives tied to financial performance (or even just project completion), and this sort of thing will probably boost the financials enough to trigger those payouts. When enough money's on the line, I'm sure it's easy to wave away any feelings about the end user.
Fortunately, in this case we know exactly who to direct the complaints toward.
you are assuming people make their TV-buying choice with complete information
does the cheap TV have a big "NEW! SHOWS EXTRA ADS!" announcement on the outside of the box, or in any of its promotional material? no, of course not.
also: "Vizio TVs are now showing banner ads over live TV" means they didn't use to do this. people bought these TVs not knowing they would receive an update to show ads at some point in the future.
this free-market "consumers made an informed decision about the trade-offs of a cheaper TV" argument is absolute hogwash.
I've worked for about 9 different tech companies in my career and I only truly believed in maybe 2-3 leadership teams after a year working there. Execs are politicians at the end of the day, the only difference is that they're chasing profit instead of votes.
> These people are all fairly well paid, so none of this "just doing muh job" nonsense.
Changing jobs is time-consuming and stressful, and there's a lot more to a job than just total comp. Flexible hours, company culture, etc. also play a role. The reality is that if you've been around this industry long enough, there's a semi-decent chance that you have a company on your resume that you might not be proud to admit working for, either due to public or internal knowledge.