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andrewblossom | 1 month ago

This can be solved by using any number of 3rd-party streaming devices: Apple TV, Google TV Streamer, NVIDIA Shield, ...

I've never experienced an TV OS that was reliably better than one of the above, though a Roku-OS TV came close.

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mjparrott|1 month ago

I tried to look for a 'dumb' tv for a long time to get to a setup like this. The ultimate setup would be 1) a totally dumb and stupid tv + 2) a streaming box like Apple TV or whatever. I just want the audio/visual aspect of the screen, nothing else.

WorldMaker|1 month ago

My trick has been a simpler/faster/dumber HDMI switch that isn't the TV so that you can leave the TV on a single HDMI input and delegate any input switching to the the switch rather than the slow TV UI.

That adds extra complexity in terms of an extra remote. In my case, the simpler/faster HDMI switch is also the surround sound receiver so that moves volume as well to the simpler, dumber remote.

It's not ideal either, but reducing use of the TV's terrible UI is reducing temptation to just go back to the TV's terrible apps. (Also as the sibling option points out, the other trick is isolating the TV out of the network entirely. Sometimes the UI gets even slower to "punish" you for not allowing its smart features and ads to work, or the UI is just badly written and relies on a lot of synchronous waits for network calls for things like telemetry [six of one, half dozen of the other], which gets back to reasons to use a dumb input switch and get away from the TV's own UI.)

c22|1 month ago

You can purchase commercial signage displays that are just dumb screens, but the markup is quite high. Easier to just get one of the 'smart' ones and never let it connect to the internet.

cc81|1 month ago

You don't need to connect it to the Internet or use the built in OS for anything else than just navigate to your box. I just use my NVIDIA Shield for everything.

al_borland|1 month ago

Dumb TVs really don’t exist anymore. You just have to buy a smart one and treat it like it’s dumb.

Over Christmas my mom was complaining about her TV and I found a setting to have it start up with the last used input, which meant no more dealing with the smart interface and motion remote. I have an LG as well, but I wasn’t able to find the same setting available, unfortunately. Thought the automatic selection seems to work decently well when I turn on a device.

I have an old Samsung from 2017 that’s dumb. I mainly bought it because it was the size I needed (~40”), smaller than most people these days want.

wafflemaker|1 month ago

Given enough determination, you can learn how to locate antennas in the TV and remove them, which would render the TV dumb for all intents and purposes.

I have no experience with it, it just might be less work to remove antennas from any TV than finding a dumb TV in 2026.

walthamstow|1 month ago

If you never connect it to the internet, all TVs are dumb. I have an airgapped Panasonic powered by Nvidia Shield for years.

The only issue I ever had was Google adding ads to the front page of the Android TV launcher. Easily fixed by using a different launcher.

apparent|1 month ago

True, but when you want to change any of the TV settings you have to deal with the sluggish UI. I have memorized the key presses to toggle between two different brightness presets, including the amount of time I have to pause between each keypress. If I press the buttons without waiting sufficiently long, it goes sideways.