Technology
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Now if I could just a "dumb" TV that doesn't have a bunch of built in apps, which apparently is now a huge ask. I just want my TV to display whatever HDMI port is currently selected. Not nag me about connecting it to WiFi every time I turn it on.
But then how would they get that sweet sweet metric data they can resell? Think of the megacorps!
and not spy on me
Look into commercial displays. They are meant for store fronts and guest areas. These screens are typically built a bit more robust than consumer TVs. They may only have one of each input ports, may lack soundboard and built-in tuners, but they have sleeker designs and lack smartTV bloatware. You may need more peripheral equipment for the screen to function as a home use TV. Just do a little research and see if this works for your setup.
This might not be a solution that fits your needs, but personally this is why I buy computer monitors instead of TVs now
I just disabled the "smart" features on my Samsung S95B and set it to run the last used "app." Which is just the last used input.
It's not perfect, but combined with HDMI CEC I almost never need to go into the ugly menu. I don't mind the smart menus of the older TVs when it was a separate part of the TV you could ignore. But the integration in these new TVs where inputs are treated like another smart app and you have to go past apps to get to picture settings is just bad design.
Not to mention serving ads for each manufacturer's own streaming apps on a device someone spent a lot of money on us completely unethical. But at least disabling the Internet features took care of that issue.
Yikes! So you mean you just can't switch inputs without the smart TV side anymore? Time to avoid the Samsungs then...
You can switch inputs. But it forces you to go through the home screen to do so. And to make things worse, game consoles are relegated to a different section of the home screen (there's gaming and media).
It's an awful user experience initially. But once I disabled a lot of it and just got a Roku, it's a great TV. But I wasn't going to spend the extra nearly $1k to get the Sony QD-OLED, and I have beef with LG since they made me wait nearly four months trying to get a refrigerator repaired or replaced under warranty (and it was a no cool problem... Not like a broken ice maker or something). So I stay away from LG.