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Comment by maccard | Hacker News Reader

I have a very nice television (C series LG), with apps built in to the TV. It has a feature where it shows your “currently watched” for various apps - iPlayer, prime, 4OD, etc. but each app implements their own account select choice prompt that block those features from working. Prime very regularly shows me 5 seconds of content, then the account switch, then an ad.

It’s a horrible, horrible UX and is a perfect example of PM’s going wild and not being pushed back on by other disciplines. It’s such a shame.

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Nothing good can come from giving your TV Internet access.

Get a $50 raspberry pi, NUC, or Android box.

unfortunately the tv's firmware and remote control won't work on that

Depending on how the HDMI-CEC is implemented, it actually might work.

HDMI-CEC is almost 20 years old and we're still saying "it might work".

My previous TV only had one CEC port, which was also the ARC port. I had a receiver that conencted via HDMI meaning that CEC was only usable on that device, and not on any other things that were connected to it.

> Nothing good can come from giving your TV Internet access.

> Get a <...> Android box.

Why are you ok for Google to spy on you but not LG?

There's absolutely 0 guarantee that a no name android box isn't doing the same, if not worse than what LG and Samsung are doing.

Another device adds another failure point, possibly another remote (lets be honest, HDMI-CEC is not reliable. It's been almost 20 years and device support is still spotty and bug ridden on both sides), extra complexity, extra space. You might want that choice and freedom, and that's absolutely fine, but I'd rather not thanks.

No-name Android TV box is definitively spying on you: https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2023/01/preinstalled-...

If you go the route of an Android box then be careful with what brand you buy. A couple of years ago a lot of no-name ones came with malware installed.

https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2023/01/preinstalled-...

It doesn't matter! I literally never connected my LG TV to wifi, but then after my Apple TV updated, the eARC pass through stopped working and wouldn't work until I updated the TV, which was only passing through the HDMI signal...

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