As a rule of thumb, I never connect my smart TVs to the internet. I go chromecast or PC connection.
Some may say there may be improvements, but the streamed ads, and surveillance and phoning home of my behavior, the benefits of privacy certainly outweigh the downsides.
But it's a useful exercise to limit the discussion to TVs exactly because most TVs don't need any Internet connectivity at all! They just need to display input from other devices that are connected to the Internet.
The trend for Smart TVs these days is to leak data like a sieve. The small risk of vulnerabilities in e.g. a TV's HDMI layer being exploited is arguably a price worth paying for privacy.
If you're worried about privacy just don't connect it to the Internet and buy a smart TV stick of your choice instead that you plug into the HDMI port of the TV (or use a Raspberry Pi if you don't trust those either). Problem solved.
Probably 99 % of people are fine with owning a smart TV, so it's clear that manufacturers won't cater to the 1 % that are not fine with it.
I never connect my TVs to the internet because you can't trust the manufacturers to keep them up to date and secure. And they might install more ads as part of a system "update".
I'm currently in the "smart TV but don't connect it to the internet" crowd. I think there are three broad criticisms.
Violating your privacy in unsurprising ways that provide no value to you: obviously when and how you use it, possibly including screenshots and audio fragments to help HQ determine what you're watching
Degrading your experience: basically just ads in places you don't want them that didn't exist when you bought it.
Violating your privacy in "surprising" ways that provide no value to you, and circumventing your efforts to stop it: what other devices are present on your home network, where your home is, connecting to unsecured wifi (or soon mesh networks with your neighbor's TV) to do so.
IMO these are the things to defend against. If they're not happening to you then that's great. It's also fine if they don't bother you. For example, if 3 is happening to me I'm not going to go to the trouble of figuring it out how to stop it, though it will change my future purchasing decisions.
Exactly, never ever connect a smart TV to internet. Instead, connect a Apple TV/FireStick/ChromeCast/Android TV/Raspberry Pi to do the "smart" things and if they break, they will be cheaper and easier to be replaced than a TV.
Foof, this is yet another reason for me to be completely out on smart tvs.
I really don't see the appeal of hooking up my tv to the internet if the only thing I'll get in return is buggy service integrations and, worse, the tv spying on my viewing habits. This is on top of the added potential for security exploits on a poorly maintained device connected to my home network.
I doubt these stories. The number of people who get a smart TV and don’t connect it to the Internet are a minority. It’s just not worth the cost for any company to develop advanced features to spy on that limited subset.
I also have a smart TV that I have never connected to the internet, and I never foresee a reason to either. When I want to use apps on my TV, I use a separate streaming box. If in the future there is a software update for the TV with a cool feature I want (unlikely), I would connect it via ethernet temporarily, perform the update, and then disconnect ethernet.
I would never connect it over WiFi for fear that it wouldn't forget the network. If someone has a smart TV that only supports WiFi, then I would suggest they setup a new WiFi network, temporarily connect the TV to perform the software update, and then disable the WiFi network.
The approach I’ve taken is to just keep my TV off the internet (never join a WiFi network) and make it smart via an Apple TV, which I personally believe to have the strongest privacy protection of any smart TV device.
Another bonus is my TV UI hasn’t changed despite changing and upgrading TV brands.
Netflix is cool, but stuff like SambaTV and showing ads right in the main menu are reasons to keep the smart TV away from both Internet and my home network. Chromecasts and Apple TVs are at least a bit less obvious about it.
Some may say there may be improvements, but the streamed ads, and surveillance and phoning home of my behavior, the benefits of privacy certainly outweigh the downsides.
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