“I do fear that the pressure to make better TVs will be lost…”…
Don’t forget no software updates after 3 years.
Don’t use your TV’s interface for anything other than changing inputs. Television software is well-known for privacy infringement.
It looks like the only option these days is to connect your HTPC (doesn’t have to be super fancy, a Raspberry Pi based solution works just fine) and never connect the TV to the internet (and keep PiHole running on your local network just in case).
Absolutely. Tell your friends and family members too: Don’t connect your TV to the internet. They are slow, buggy, insecure, and a privacy nightmare.
HTPCs are ideal, but unfortunately they are can be a little cumbersome for people who just want to maximize convenience.
Streaming sticks are equally bad on privacy, but they generally perform better (than TVs), are supported longer, and most importantly: they can be easily swapped out if they stop meeting your needs.
That being said, what kind of HTPC distros do y’all recommend? I’ve been using an NVIDIA Shield Pro for a while and I’ll probably go Linux HTPC when this thing finally dies.
and most importantly: they can be easily swapped out if they stop meeting your needs.
Important enough to repeat.
I have gone thru 3 different streaming devices over the lige of my current TV.
Each suffered, after several years, from needing to have an updated app to continue supporting one or another streaming service that no longer had an app available for that hardware.
That fault is mostly on the streaming services for updating something in their stream but only providing an updated app for a small list of hardware vendors/models.
If I was relying on built-in streaming hardware in my TV, it would have become e-waste many years ago.
Are there good remote options for these yet? Imo this is a solution that will never see wide adoption until it’s as convenient as smart tvs or sticks
Buy PC monitors instead. Problem solved.
I keep seeing people say, “don’t connect your TV to the internet. Of course, this is good advice, and I follow it, but y’all know that pretty soon the TV won’t work unless it’s connected, right? I mean, that has to be coming.
Hopefully, the market will decide during transition. Keurig tried to use barcoded pods to ensure customers would exclusively purchase first-party coffee. Those coffee makers stopped selling and Nespresso had a market boom. Keurig returned to producing the non-barcoded machines a year later.
My TCL did this like 4 years ago. I went to sell it so I updated it, factory reset it… and it literally wouldn’t get past the setup until it had connectivity. I didn’t fight with it though. I just powered it off and handed it too a buyer who probably didn’t think twice about it.
Any recommendations for the captive dns? Can I run it on the same pi as pihole?
My router blocks any port 53 traffic out that isn’t using the pihole then forwards it to the pihole. That way hard coded shit like IoT devices etc are all forced to use the pihole.
In no place in the world having internet is mandatory. That reasoning, although credible considering the world we are experiencing, makes no sense.
I still find plenty of non-smart TVs in the market. Not name brand and all below the 40 inch mark but fine enough for watching a show.
What else do we need?
I am not buying a tv that shows me ads. Ever.
You can buy commercial televisions that have only functional software, long uptime ratings, and an absurd amount of inputs. They’re designed to be advertisement displays so they can have some lag, and some have low color accuracy, but they’re barebones workhorses.
