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Hisense TVs force owners to watch intrusive ads when switching inputs, visiting the home screen, or even changing channels — practice infuriates consumers, brand denies wrongdoing (www.tomshardware.com)
submitted 6 months ago by to c/aboringdystopia@mander.xyz
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[+] 13 points 6 months ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)
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    [–] 9 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

    This is why I never connect a TV to the Internet. I usually get an Android TV (EDIT: note NOT "Google TV") box that I can mod to my heart's content to run my apps on. If that ever stops being an option, I'll connect the TV to my router, but with the router set to block Internet access to everything except what's needed to cast to it with pi-hole or similar playing the enforcer role.

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    [–] 8 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    Really hurts to see...

    I remember Hisense popping up ~20 years ago and being an amazing value.

    They absolutely dominated the late 1080p source era for dirt cheap screens that held their own again the main brands. Absolutely zero upscaling or features, just decent screens at great prices.

    I'm assuming at some point venture capitalist bought them out and that's why they're trying to squeeze ever penny out of customers.

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  • [–] 6 points 6 months ago

    I must have gotten one after the enshitification. I bought a HiSense TV during the pandemic and the unit I got was trouble from nearly day 1. A line of pixels went dead all the way across the screen. I tried to work with their warranty department and they asked for a picture of the problem.

    Ok, easy enough. Take the picture and send. They reply, "can you take a picture with better lighting of the bezel?" Ok, no problem. Gerry better lighting, snap picture, send off. They reply, "can you get better lighting on the bezel?" Seriously? Fine, get the TV under really good lighting, take picture, send. "Can you get better lighting on the bezel?" WTF? Ok, I'll admit I don't have 50,000 candle power spot lights on it, but this is just obvious stalling. Each round of pictures and request for more is taking weeks.

    During this time, the TV OS sees several updates and the underpowered nature of the system is starting to slow. The menus aren't just sluggish, they are downright unusable. The home screen is now half ads. I finally decided, "fuck it" took the TV to the dump and bought something else.

    Thankfully, the TV was only around $500. Not cheap, but the cost of the education in not buying crap didn't hurt too much.

    tl;dr: Fuck HiSense

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    • [–] 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (3 children)

    The only smart TVs anyone should be getting are ones running Google TV that can have the default launcher replaced with an ad-free option such as Projectivy Launcher.

    If Google locks down Android APK installations further, even Google TV might no longer be viable, but for now it is the only option with a user-friendly TV interface (versus using a Linux device) with an app library not limited to the degree that Roku and Apple TV devices are.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (1 child)

    I couldn't replace the launcher on my Onn Google TV box (the model with the built-in Google Home Mini), unless there's some way of doing it via ADB? This is why I prefer Android vs Google TV, but if that's only the case for the Onn device, then that may broaden my options significantly.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago

    The Launcher Manager app is also necessary to change the default launcher to the custom one you choose. Here's a guide I wrote a while ago on my recommended configuration steps.

    It should work on both Android TV and Google TV; they're both Android, just different official launchers, so the best device to run is the one with the latest version of Android and the highest specs.

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    • [–] 1 point 6 months ago

    And yet people will keep buying that shit.

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    [–] -1 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    If every CEO who made the decision to implement enshittification suddenly dropped dead (of natural causes, surely) shortly thereafter, maybe it would stop happening.

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