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Comment by linsomniac | Hacker News Reader

Reminder: They make them, they tend to be "monitors", "digital signage" or "commercial". You do have to pay a premium for them, for a variety of reasons.

There may be other options, I have a friend that 6-10 years ago got a TV, then opened it up and removed a USB stick that implemented all the smart features.

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> You do have to pay a premium for them, for a variety of reasons.

It's not that you pay a premium for the bullshit-free version, but rather that you get a discount for buying the bullshit-packed version.

Both statements are true. As a baseline it's good to consider the price of the regular TV's before they got smart.

You do also pay a premium because they use use panels designed for 24/7 operation, sunlight readability etc.

Another data point: Before all the smart TV stuff you would tend to pay significantly more for an A/V monitor (basically a TV without the tuner) than you would for a regular TV.

When talking about digital signage in particular, it's clearly a premium because it's such a big price difference. A discount for the bullshit would be much smaller.

Digital signage have embedded computers now too. It's only a matter of time before they have mandatory analytics and advertising.

Wouldn't that be pretty good value add? A mic feeding data to some AI model and then camera to track how many people use it or stop and watch.

You seem to be downvoted by ad haters - ads being a sensitive topic - but in the context of a device made specifically for delivering ads, I agree it seems like a good idea.

In the context of being a reasonable human going about my business - I wouldn't want one anywhere near me.

I think they got downvoted because they misunderstood the idea. "mandatory" analytics and advertising would be working for the manufacturer, not the owner. To be an (antisocial) value-add it would have to work for the owner.

Why would a business purchase a digital signage display that forced them to show someone else's ads?

TVs intended for digital signage usually contain modular computers meant to be controlled by the user.

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