My TV’s getting on a decade old. It’s getting bad burn in around the corners. It’s time is coming, and I’m prepared to replace it. In an ideal world I’d get a 4K HDR TV with OLED. Is it possible to get a high quality TV that doesn’t have smart features? They’re completely redundant for me so I’d hope that I could save money that way.
I had to plug an Ethernet cable into my vizio TV and soundbar to stop them from broadcasting an open WiFi network constantly. You may also be able to “skip” accepting the EULA when you first turn the TV on, but I don’t trust them to not spy on me.
I put my TV in a separate VLAN on my network to stop it from being able to phone home or talk to the rest of my network. I don’t know what kind of router you have, but many can allow you to block certain ports to stop the spying too.
Look up tvs for campers and RVs. They don’t use name brand, they are all knockoffs. And I’m pretty sure they aren’t smart tvs. Otherwise, never hook the tv up to the internet, or remove the physical input/antenna off of the board.
Making a TV a smart TV costs companies next to nothing as its just cheap software. Your best bet is to check out brands like Westinghouse or Element. But I will warn you that you aren’t guaranteed to get years and years out of those TVs as the panels often go bad. You’ve got to remember that you get what you pay for, and for someone like yourself who keeps products as long as possible, you should buy something with good craftsmanship. Just don’t buy a Vizio, ive had terrible experiences with those American pieces of crap.
I got a smart TV for free. I connected it to my WiFi, and then blocked it from actually accessing the internet at my router. I’ve read places (I don’t remember where) that some smart devices will connect to any open WiFi to report back home otherwise. This might not be actually true.
