Interesting discussion, but many of the questions have pretty lame default answers. I have a Sony bravia from 2015 for reference.

• The TVs that come with an OS instead of just firmware are smart-TVs in all aspects. Your cable TV or hdmi input is an app just like Netflix is, and is subject to a launcher. You can't make it dumb by disabling stuff.

• You can mostly reject targeted ads and disable personalized data collection. But smart TVs are priced with ads included, so completely turning off everything will require unsupported modding.

• cameras are only found in telepresence hardware, unless you want to be paranoid. Check the feature list. Microphones can be in the remotes of some TVs, but this will usually be advertised as a smart assistent if present.

• I haven't seen any TV actively complain about missing wifi (except for during setup for updates)

• unless you are tricking the TV into thinking it's online, any connection attempts/power usage would be a bug. Do note that smart-TV will by default have a standby-draw influenced by WoL or similar.

• This is pure tinfoil-territory. No hotspot/carrier carries data without being payed for it. It's also not economical when telemetry can be sent over the customers home-wifi in 99% of cases. There is no gain in hiding sim-cards in every TV. Unless you are a person of interest and are sent a modified TV in that case.

Hope this helps.

Personally, I got a large dumb flat TV and use a small PC attached to it with Linux with all the privacy trimmings, VPN, etc. Use a browser, like Librewolf or FF with ArkenFox, along with Freetube on it which we control with KDEConnect from our phones. Once you setup the proper commands on it, it is fly and forget. You can pick a stripped, privacy focused distro, too. Most of my PCs/phones are on WiFi but for that box I plug it to the router via cable, directly, for faster display speeds. You can download other media software and run it through, if you wish.

Power usage is minimal or at least I do not see my power bill go up substantially, or noticeably. Have had this type of setup for over 15 years. Never had to worry about microphones or cameras as there are none to worry about. No terms to agree to that will get changed on a moment's notice, either. No spying or dialing home. Sometimes, the best way to win is just to not play their games. Have 0 complains.

Get a dumb video projector.

We have a HiSense 60” and have never connected it to any network. It works perfectly as a Dumb Monitor with multiple HDMI inputs and HDCP and HDMI-CEC work perfectly with our AppleTV (HDMI 1) and PS5 (HDMI2) We have TOSLink Optical Audio to an Amp(receiver) and it works almost perfectly, until the Amp chucks a hissy-fit because people forget to turn it off.

the only time i let mine connect through my hotspotted phone is to check for and download software updates. last one was about 4 months ago at justover 500mb

Roku TVs have version locked features, so I update them once then reset network settings, which wipes the connection. Then there’s the indicator light which you need to remove. But after that connect an apple tv and use it!

I can't answer all your questions, but this issue with my TCL Android TV is frustrating.

I've had it for 4 years, and due to constant Wi-Fi issues, I keep it deactivated, yet still get occasional notifications.

More concerning, I don't trust the microphone is off, as the LED sometimes stays on, and Bluetooth visibility often resets.

I love how literally nobody is answering your actual question.

I agree that this is problematic and we need TV reviews to include at least some of the information you cite.

If it helps, I have an LG smart TV. It complains if you don't let it access the internet at setup, but if you connect it once and let it do its initial patching, you can decline all agreements and not get nagged until it tries to update again. To keep it from further updates, you can disconnect it from wifi and it doesn't seem to try to reconnect. I can't speak to public wifi because there aren't any open access points near my TV.

In contrast, I have a samsung TV that loses its mind if it can't connect to the internet and becomes basically useless for all the nagging.

No one makes a 65+" oled monitor so before anyone suggests "just buy a monitor" you can't, I have looked.

Up until last year, I would have said get a good quality projector but even projectors have started getting infiltrated with smart "features" now.

Digital signage was also an option but oled options are basically non-existent and they often have matte screens that make the colors kind of mushy.

From what I have read online, the Sony tv offerings seem to be pretty unintrusive and don't really care if you hook them up to the internet. The smart software is android tv based and can potentially be modded/stripped of google services. I have to do some more research though so don't quote me on the above.

Our current TCL/Roku tv is dying and has turned out to be really bad smart/privacy wise and has gotten consistently worse performance wise over time. I'm currently evaluating options for its replacement and the Sony 65" oled is looking like the best one so far.

Samsung is known to be one of the more cancerous of ad-ridden "smart" TVs

I haven't had any issues with my Sony TV but I bought it several years ago and don't really use it (I generally consume content on my PC with 3 monitors). It is not connected to any network.

Buy a store display meant to show logos and menus. Something like these:

https://www.amazon.com/s?rh=n%3A18746933011&language=en_US&brr=1&ie=UTF8&rd=1

I haven’t evaluated any of them; I just know people talk about them being the only tv screens without smarts.

Personally, I say F smart tv's. The smart bit is going to be old and useless in three years. The panel will last me over a decade.

Yes, you can ignore all the nagging and smart stuff and just set it to an hdmi input or something.

Then hooking up a 3rd party smart box is what I recommend.

I was looking for information like that when I last bought a TV in February and couldn't find anything.

I punted and bought a SAMSUNG 65-Inch Class Crystal UHD 4K CU8000 Series (that's like 1/4 of the amazon title) and have not connected it to the internet at all. As far as not being connected to the network, it's… fine.

• There have been no issues with it trying to lock me out of features.
• I didn't try to opt-out, but my intuition tells me that's unlikely.
• No camera that I know of. I think there's a microphone in the remote, but I've never used it, and since I've never connected it to the internet (and I never use the remote) I don't really worry about it.
• I've not experienced any nag screens.
• I have not measured the power usage directly (and would have nothing to compare it to since I'm not willing to connect it to the internet even as an experiment) but I do have it connected to a power-usage sensing outlet strip and it uses dramatically less power than my previous Samsung 42" HD LCD (with florescent backlighting.) So much so that for it to not turn off the switched outlets I had to add my AppleTV to the control outlet (and for extended dark scenes even that's not enough.)
• If it's connecting to networks surreptitiously I would expect to start seeing ads or some change in behavior, which hasn't happened, so I'm going to say probably not.

As far as how good of a TV it is, (which you didn't ask, but since I'm here):
I'm not the most discerning viewer, but I think it's got a good picture. Sometimes I can see the backlight adjust itself on very dark scenes, but it's hardly a show stopper. I have an external speaker system, so really the only thing I do is turn it on and off (with the AppleTV remote). My only other gripe is that it takes a few seconds to decide to display the selected input full screen.

So I just bought a brand new "dumb" TV for $150 off of Amazon (43" 1080 Sceptre). It isn't high end in the slightest, but it IS brand new and not some weird old stock and the picture and sound don't feel too far off from my significantly more expensive higher end LCD TVs. I wanted one that I could put on a rolling stand and move between a few rooms and saw no benefit to 4k at that screen size. Other than that, there are some decent "digital signage" TVs that were decently priced available as well from Samsung and a few other brands. I didn't see anything that was OLED, but I was burned hard (quite literally with burn-in) on earlier OLED gear, so I am avoiding it until the prices get low enough that I can be fine with the chance that it will be crap after 4-5 years of use.

the answer is basically all TVs are subsidized to some degree. A list is somewhat pointless because they all do some sketchy shit and as lg has recently shown they reserve the right to change the terms years after the fact with firmware updates, even if you buy a flagship model that cost 3-5k

Basically you need to use it intelligently. Either don’t connect it to the internet at all, only connect it to an intranet/isolated vlan, or (least effective) block every suspicious outgoing request with your router or a dns thing like adguard/pihole.

The alternatives are to buy a non consumer display (eg something for signage or for like a meeting room in an office) which are usually more durable but also often far more expensive (no ad subsidies), the panel quality is generally noticeably worse (unless you’re buying a mediocre tv), and you lose out on enthusiast features (earc, vrr, etc). Or you can get a solid projector; the cheap projectors are usually kind of junk but nice ones are quite nice and often (but not always, they’re increasingly “smart”) have barebones ui/os. This can be pretty impractical for your living situation though

Just set up a TCL and it has a "basic" option which makes it work without anything. I'm still trying to decide if I should buy a Nvidia shield to pair with it so I enabled it "fully" for now, will probably switch it back. It's basically android so many of these behaviours are just like on android phones

For best privacy, get a monitor and a tv box (like nvidia shield, or roll your own software a single board computer like a raspberry pi). That might be the only way to trust a tv: dont use it at all.