LG to Ban Residential Proxies from Smart TV Apps – Krebs on Security

Just an FYI to anyone looking, you can still actually buy mostly-dumb TVs.

I was looking for a TV to buy for my parents last year and it seemed like the only options available were “smart TVs,” and I begrudgingly ended up buying a Philips ambilight unit. I was pleasantly surprised by how dumb the Titan OS on it was. Sure, it had WiFi, and the usual Netflix and other streaming apps, but I just didn’t connect it to the WiFi, and from then on it was just a souped up version of their 15 year old TV. It did ask to be connected to WiFi, but stopped after being told no a few times.

I’m sure other manufacturers have similar “smart on paper, but dumb in reality” OSes, as it seems to mostly be a cost cutting exercise. The hardware in the TV would need to be more expensive to run an actual smart platform. So the manufacturers just make a low end thing that ticks the right boxes to be able to call it smart for marketing, thinking that’s what people want.

Sceptre! They make dumb TVs! They’re great! More expensive tho