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Show HN: Making a smart TV dumb and then smart

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112 pointsanimalhot81 comments

A recent (unwanted) webOS update that got installed on TV prompted me to start going down the rabbit hole of writing new TV software. After a couple of weekends and massive help from 4 different models, finally managed to get v1 working.

My daughter enjoys navigating TV through speech while I get to browse on the biggest screen at home.

While all of the code was written by ML models, there were decisions I had to help with. In specific: using WebRTC to cut down latency, repurposing vendor logic for buffering voice samples and designing user experience.

It was liberating to finally free the TV of bloatware and make it truly personalized!

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So, de-bloating the TV and removing all the ads, etc… is good. None of that requires an Internet connection, and no TV should ever need an Internet connection. And here, I can see that might take you writing some software to achieve that goal. I would try to just choose a better vendor of TV hardware, but I know that’s not always an option.

As for putting the smarts back in, why not just plug in a small but trusted device that can output HDMI and can give you the smart output that you want? This could be a media server front end (obviously not Plex, but one of the many Plex alternatives), or a trusted software solution from another source? This part doesn’t seem to require writing any software, just choosing a suitable alternative and configuring it.

For me, that would be an AppleTV device, but I know that this community is not going to like that vendor.

$7000 DGX Spark as a media PC, what a world. Surely there's cheaper hardware that can run a decent voice assistant.

valid point; DGX spark is slowly becoming the brain of my household and is multipurpose.

I am also developing a harness for coding and chat so it helps a ton to have a local model and fine tuning it for cases.

Additionally am trying to wean off homekit/googlehome and build a local network (possibly air gapped from internet), so the device helps experiment.

Tbf you could get them as low as $3500 a few weeks ago

We need to stop saying "dumb TV" because for the general public smart = good, dumb = bad. What about turning the tables and calling them safe TVs, as opposed to (implied) unsafe "smart" TVs?

This is a side topic, but relevant to those of us who care about UI/UX:

I have a webos TV and notice that it comes with free Samsung IPTV channels. But they are unusable because of the delay in switching between channels! This relatively minor detail could be the difference between a killer app that could grow and monetize, vs something that users try and give up on.

I'm sure there are ways to make it as fast as cable TV, even if it initially degraded the video or had other consequences.

Found this a few days ago as well.

https://github.com/Gathin23/cleanyourtv/tree/main

This is cool, but beware this takes a long time to complete even with an agent.

And the result I didn't find particularly pretty to look at

So they recommend that you debloat your TV by pasting a rather lengthy prompt into your coding agent, that'll take a long time to sort things out.

And then, near the bottom of the page, they provide a 9 lines of shell script that according to them does "everything the agent does". Uhh.. okay? I guess the agent would be for trouble shooting, but I'm not really sold on this modern of delivering software yet.

https://github.com/Gathin23/cleanyourtv/tree/main#doing-it-b...

I don’t know, I think that I might prefer the prompt over the slop it produces.

At least the slop it produces would be deterministic.

Give it time. Someone will make a website referencing TV make/models to match BASH scripts doing the job cleanly, predictably. :)

a lot of folks are trying this and am glad we finally have options!

What are the best brands / models to buy right now to install webOS?

webOS is under LGs stewardship; I find their OLED displays to be gorgeous. However, there software leaves much to desire

their*

Curious about Netflix, does it limit the resolution because it is not an “official” app or something like this?

Also, it says you have to have system root of the tv, how does one get root access to the LG TV?

> how does one get root access to the LG TV?

https://cani.rootmy.tv/

Netflix works fine. While rooting, this does not replace the app store and these are official apps

My advice for everyone…. If you have to buy a new one …

just never connect it to the internet.

Wait 6 months or 6 days

And then root it till you own it for real.

Just used slopbro and did all 3 in my place. Kept on Ethernet point to point connected to my laptop until I had verified I had everything and every packet explained.

(Shout out slopbro and everyone else!!)

Getting Llm + ghidra to check every and document every binary, etc and make sure startup to a running system is understood, logs are rotated properly.

After this … all 3 will probably run one giant rust binary from startup lol

For anyone that can read this, if you have one connected to your network, change your WiFi password and don’t update your devices or bring them on the internet until you pwn/root them yourself.

From here out … everything only via tailscale and nothing should be able to connect inbound. Setup some firewalls.

All I really want my TV to do is turn on, quickly and reliably, and display whatever is plugged into HDMI1. The market is flooded with “Smart” (actually Surveillance) TVs so not buying one isn’t really practical.

You can buy what are called digital signage displays which are mostly just that. A quick search shows a 65" Samsung model available in US retail for $1400.

Digital signage displays are not TVs though. They are much more expensive and frequently don't have features that dumb TVs had 40 years ago such as speakers, TV tuners, and multiple inputs.

Part of the reason they're more expensive is that they're not subsided by ad revenue.

Neither were dumb TVs in the 90s, but they were still somehow affordable.

The price of the median purchased TV in 1997 was ~$4000, in nominal (1997) dollars. The price of the median TV in 2026 is ~$800.

So before we account for inflation, consumers are paying about one-fifth the price for a TV now. When we account for inflation, consumers are paying 3.7% of the price for a TV that they did in 1997. And it’s not even the same TV!

An apples-for-apples comparison, a 44” flatscreen TV with 1080i input was $45,000 in 1997 dollars, whereas the current price for a comparable model is $220. (The 2026 model is still better, with a lower operating cost and no burn-in, but it was the worst I could find.)

TVs today are significantly cheaper than those in the 90s. It’s not the TV’s fault they’re unaffordable.

> The price of the median purchased TV in 1997 was ~$4000, in nominal (1997) dollars

I'm sorry, what? How does this pass the sniff test? Are you saying people spent four thousand 1997 dollars for a tv? Or the equivalent of $4000 of 2026 dollars? Either way, that is extremely high and 1997 was not that long ago.

Nominal dollars refers to the sticker price, in dollars at the time. 1997 was thirty years ago. TVs back then were a large ticket item!

Yes people spent that much for a TV in 1997.

Not as a median, they didn't.

Right? I was there. My family had a tv. We didn't not spend the equivalent price of a honda civic on it.

You can't get a Honda Civic for $4k now. And you couldn't get one for $1.9k in 1997 equivalent dollars[0]. Perhaps you're thinking second hand. And forget that a 35" Sony CRT-TV was $3.8k in 1997 (2x average sale), or a 42" plasma was $23k (more than 12x average sale). Not everyone bought/replaced a TV around the time.. continued with their 25" 1992 screen.. and they were smart if they survived until ~2005 when prices drastically shifted.

[0]: https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/2026?endYear=1997...

I'd like to present a newspaper insert from Circuit City in 1997 that advertised the televisions they offered: https://web.archive.org/web/20261025051358/https://i.ebayimg...

Front page at https://web.archive.org/web/20261025052016/https://i.ebayimg...

A 35-inch Sony TV was $1.4k, or ~$2.9k today.

25-inch GE sets were $219, or ~$458 today.

And the original comment was the "median price of $4k".

Yep. And to be justifiably curt: It's fucking bullshit.

At best, it's deliberately manipulative. At worst, it's a pack of lies.

The median bullshit quotient here is: Festering.

> The price of the median purchased TV in 1997 was ~$4000, in nominal (1997) dollars.

I think you added a zero, where is this figure from?

The Sony KV-32FS120, a high-end set in 2004, had an MSRP of 600 USD.[1] (remember, HD hadn't really happened yet, so anything with that feature wasn't a normal consumer item until at least 2005 (unles you were in Japan)) 1080i basically didn't exist in 1997, unless you lived in Japan, where it had barely got of the ground. The modern day comparison is a 100 inch 8K OLED. Your median is so far off base I have a hard time we live in the same world.

[2] https://crtdatabase.com/crts/sony/sony-kv-32fs120

But I think that's the point? One thing I find silly is seeing all these smart TVs with "fancy" speakers sitting behind a sound bar that has a Roku/fire TV/Chromecast plugged in. Paying twice for devices with a large overlap in features...

I already don't use the speakers, TV tuner, or multiple inputs of my TV. That's what I have a sound system and streaming box for.

Ok, but in this context it's EXACTLY what the user wants for a TV. Everything can go to an HDMI switch, including external tuners, and you'll have a soundbar because TV speakers are GARBAGE today.

Go buy an AVR and get yourself a proper 5.1.2 home theater (even in a living room); and then the TV will be just a dumb display with the AVR acting as multiplexer.

Perfect.

That matches exactly how I've used every television I've owned for 20-ish years: I don't have the outside antenna I'd need for ATSC reception here so a tuner is useless, and I don't ever wish to hear the slightest utterance from a television speaker so speakers are useless, and I don't need it to have multiple inputs (but the digital signage displays usually seem to have a few, anyway, just as PC monitors do).

TV speakers have been been absolute crap ever since TVs have been flat, good riddance.

A quick search shows…

I’ve noticed that very few people recommending signage displays as a substitute for a traditional TV ever say, “here’s the one I bought…”

That’s because one will quickly discover that signage displays aren’t very good TVs.

I have a 55" LG Wallpaper signage display on my living room wall right now, with just an Apple TV plugged in, and it's fantastic. Cost $5000, 3.65mm thick, no smart features at all.

And at only 10x the price!

I wonder if your comment suggests a re-framing of the TV's name. Start referring to them as "Surveillance TVs" in all contexts. Maybe the idea will spread?

Just call them telescreens.

Not everyone has read 1984, so it's accurate but not horrendously useful.

Not connecting the TV itself to any WiFi/ LAN networks used to help. Is that not the case anymore?

My parents got one from Walmart and to use any of the software interface they needed to login to a Walmart account. Scary.

That doesn’t preclude plugging an Apple TV into HDMI1. If it does, then back in the box it goes.

Does selecting inputs work? That's all I need from a TV. If anything, needing to sign in to use the native interface would be a bonus, because it'd prevent non-technical family members from accidently using it. "Babe, we have Netflix on [the dongle], why'd you sign in on the TV?" is a conversation I've had more than once.

My Sony Google something or other from 2-3 years ago turns on directly to the active HDMI, more or less reliably for most devices, otherwise it'll turn on to the last used HDMI. I never connected it to the internet. I don't buy TVs very often so I was kind of shocked I didn't need the remote anymore to switch inputs when switching between devices. I expect every TV to do this now. It is sad to know that this may not be the case if I ever decide to buy a new TV.

absolutely true. I wanted a dumb one too. It seems these companies are subsidizing their hardware by recouping costs through data collection.

How do you keep webOS from updating itself again and undoing all this? Rooted, or running on top of stock?

it is rooted; am still maintaining the original settings as a backup on laptop and not flashing the TV memory; however, the current code is persistent.

Just get an exisiting tv box or make your own. dumb your tv down and keep it that way smart tvs are a joke

a truly smart tv can be a real enabler especially for kids navigating it. As more and more streaming services take exclusive rights to games/matches, it becomes hard to keep track of where to watch an event. A Smart TV with personalization can help - as long as you can keep it private.

Typing for TVs is hard with a remote. Even Apple TV can be cumbersome. imho, voice is the ideal input source for a tv. But making it truly functional requires connecting to good models!

Not to be that guy, but: a debloated TV is a screen or a projector. There are many great open source solutions for running or hosting media player software yourself.

I have not owned a TV my whole life, because I don't get what it is supposed to add that I can't get with a computer screen or a projector with a retractable screen as well. The latter has the advantage that it does not take space when not in use.

This is cool

A dumb TV connected via HDMI to a Raspberry Pi running Kodi is smart enough for me.

This is the way.

Does DolbyVision or HDR10+ content work in this setup? My understanding is that they won't. I also got a lot of stuttering issue with 1080p x265 content last time I tried hooking up the Pi with my TV.

I would love to get Kodi working with HDR10+ on my Samsung TV without buying those expensive android boxes (which are very expensive and difficult to obtain in my region anyway).

I hit the same stuttering with 1080p x265 on a Pi 4 and it turned out to be software decoding; once hardware HEVC decode was actually enabled in Kodi it played 1080p smoothly, though 10 bit content was hit or miss. HDR10+ is the harder wall: Kodi on Linux basically drops the dynamic metadata and passes plain HDR10, so your Samsung just applies static tone mapping and you lose the peak brightness tricks. If most of your library is HDR10+ rips, a used Shield may still cost less than fighting this despite the price. Curious what your source files are, because remuxes that keep the HDR10 base layer look fine, it is only the dynamic metadata you lose.

I have a mid range samsung (that I bought without much research due to some circumstances) on which HDR does not look good at all, way too dark, but HDR10+ is just amazing.

So right now I am using Jellyfin with HDR10+ web-dls (when I can find them) and blu-ray remuxes for old stuff. But Jellyfin triggers transcodes for vobsub and FLAC/DTS audio which I am trying to avoid if possible. Kodi on my older Sony Android direct played anything I threw at it flawlessly for years. So the only option I found was finding or importing a decent android box, which is a bit difficult and expensive in my region.

> Does DolbyVision or HDR10+ content work in this setup?

I don't know what these things are but I just plug the hdmi cable to my laptop and use a wireless keyboard+trackpad combo[1] as a remote. Never understood the need for a "TV" interface or TV box. I tried Kodi and its alternatives years ago but never found them to be faster to load the apps and browse for content than loading the netflix/prime/hbo web pages in a tab or freetube in a dedicated window, switching tabs or virtual desktops is usually faster than switching apps on one of these interfaces, same for browsing on your filesystem for local content or run a music app.

But what do I know, I am a simple person who likes simple solutions.

[1]the microsoft one that look nearly the same as a Logitech K400. Not sure if it is still sold.

Both of those are HDR standards. If you're using g a good OLED or even mini LED with enough zones, it makes a pretty big difference in the visuals. The support for both are usually locked down unless you're using a compatible device.

I mean: I can be very happy just plugging my laptop into the TV and using mplayer from the command line. That works great for me.

But sometimes, other people (often referred to as "family" and/or "friends") come by and hang out. A TV-centric interface driven by a simple remote is more familiar and easier for them to understand.

(And frankly, I don't want anyone but me futzing around with my laptop at all, ever.)

My wife is not super tech savy but has no problem plugging an hdmi cable and learned the function key to switch monitors modes. "friends" somehow never asked for it as there is no visible screen in my living room and those spending some nights on the couch usually bring their own laptop or phone and whatch whatever they want anyway.

Having said that we are not the typical household with TV turned on 12h a day. We have a screenless kitchen+dinning space separated from the living room. I know it is less popular these days but we prefer it that way, especially when cooking stuff with powerful smell, and it allows us to enjoy having a meal and having a conversation without distraction. Cooking/eating alone we might individually decide to watch something on our phone/tablet/laptop but the unwritten rule is to turn it off when it becomes a family moment. In the living room we are using a video projector instead of a TV so deciding to watch a movie or a TV show is more an active decision to gather together, bring something to eat and drink, turn off the light and watch a specific thing we all agreed on. I might be the only one occasionally turning it on in the evening to play a video game, mostly in the winter when days are short. While we ocasionally have a binge watching couple of days this is a rare occurence and turning on the video projector is typically not even a weekly event. For instance this month I think we only turned it on twice. We never really have moments when someone is alone zapping randomly through channels.

I don't really understand how some people can get bored enough to decide to sit in front of a screen and watch "random" stuff when I barely have time for all my hobbies. For instance when I am watching sports it is usually on replay while I am doing house chores so it is usually on a tablet or laptop in whichever room I happen to be. I will never decide to put aside a hobby or sport I can enjoy myself and watch other people — regardless if they are professional and better at said sport — do it and enjoy it themselves instead of me. I know I used to do that when I was a teenager but this is now a foreign concept to me.

YMMV, it works and in our case bring us a better quality of life: better sleep/rest, more time for conversation with my daughters, more active and enjoyable sexual life with my current partner than with previous ones who were glued to a TV every evening, more time for hobbies and gratification of making stuff ourselves.

Where do you even buy dumb tv at a decent price these days?

A yard sale.

Not looking for a CRT my dude but thanks

I got my last two dumb-flat panels from either Craigslist or yard sales. They're out there. Not too many Yard Sales have CRTs any longer. Or at least, the flat-panels are more common by now.

Getting CRTs from yard sales is getting surprisingly hard if you're in the right (or wrong) part of the world. 1080p flat panels have been in common use for over 15 years by now. It shouldn't surprise you to see some for dirt cheap at yard sales.

https://celloelectronics.com/collections/non-smart-tvs

I got one two weeks ago when my previous dumb tv packed up after 14 years. No complaints so far.

Interesting that smart-less TVs cap out at about 43” overseas as well.

Sceptre still sells dumb TVs in the US.

Bummer I’m not in the us :)

Hopefully you're somewhere that the cello site the other fella posted ships. Sceptre probably also sells them in your locale but I wouldn't know about that.

Can Kodi use widevine yet? I did this years ago, but it was a game of cat and mouse I kept losing. Right now we just plug a linux laptop into the TV via HDMI.

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