Did your Roku TV decide to strong arm you into giving up your rights or lose your FULLY FUNCTIONING WORKING TV? Because mine did.
It doesn’t matter if you only use it as a dumb panel for an Apple TV, Fire stick, or just to play your gaming console. You either agree or get bent.
Time for a class action suite.
Noooooooo, you just signed that right away! /s
“My cat stepped on the controller, your honor. I never actually saw or agreed to those terms.”
I hope the suite (sounds like sweet) has snacks because I’m hungry. We’ll be waiting there while the law(suit) is pending.
I think you’re qualified for a full refund in most regions if you disagree with the new terms.
Send them a letter via registered mail stating that upon receipt of said letter they waive their right to waive your rights.
That sounds like some sovereign citizen thing
Similar things have worked in countries that aren’t so under the thrall of the mighty corporation. I recall some guy in … Russia? who struck out and reworded a bunch of penalty clauses for a credit card offer he got and mailed it back to the bank, which accepted it and issued the card. Cue much hilarity as he racked up a bunch of charges and then got it thrown out in court. (Actually, here’s a link.. They eventually settled out of court for an undisclosed sum.)
Anyway, I live in Australia so my response to all these kinds of attempts at removal of my consumer rights is a drawn out “yeah, nahhhh”
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Uno reverse card
Smart TVs were supposed to be better than dumb TVs.
Now it’s the complete opposite.
Worst part is, now you can’t find a dumb TV anymore. The closest thing out there are “commercial signage displays” which are just dumb TVs with limited inputs and usually without remotes, but 25-50% more expensive because “commercial” (and because they won’t be able to continue making money by showing you ads and selling your data) and a lot of retailers won’t let you order one without a business account, or force you to order in bulk.
And every Neanderthal I complain to is like “but smart TVs have so many more features,” like, bro, I can make any TV the smartest fucking TV in the world by plugging it into the desktop PC I’m gonna keep right next to it anyway. All the “smart” bullshit just gets in the way. I’ve yet to encounter a smart TV UI that didn’t require a dozen button presses to change inputs and spend two seconds or more re-drawing the UI with EVERY INPUT because they put the cheapest processors they can find in these pieces of shit.
Commercial displays cost more because backlight testing and ratings double or triple. You’re paying more for longer uptime since your display is likely to run 12+ hours a day straight and not for 1-2 hours a day with an occasional 8+ hour usage. You’re also paying actual cost, but a lot of it really has to do with testing and materials that are built to survive consistent and frequent usage, plus centralized management. Lots of people assume it’s the same shit, but it’s completely different and it shows when you buy a consumer off the shelf display and put it in production.
Computer monitors are dumb tv
Show me a 50 inch computer monitor with speakers and multiple hdmi inputs, and I’ll agree with you.
Here you are. Included everything 46"+ because 49" are common and the next category is 52" up where things get rare. Both of these are gigantic and have 4 HDMI ports. Neither have displayport which disqualifies them in my eyes because this kind of shit.
Why would you want speakers though. I mean computer monitors usually come with them but the less said about them the better.
Congratulations on finding a €1500 dumb TV.
Skipping the first couple because they’re ultrawide (probably not the best for TV usage) the cheapest one is the GIGABYTE AORUS FO48U. 2xHDMI, 1x DisplayPort, 1xUSB-C, about a thousand euroons. Expensive? Well, it’s OLED. So is the equally-priced LG UltraGear OLED 48GQ900-B, Three HDMI plus DisplayPort.
Also they’re not dumb TVs they don’t come with tuners, a PCIe version will run you about a hundred bucks, plus the rest of your media server. Or something like 20 bucks (seriously) for a receiver, more like 60 if you want a triple-tuner (DVB-C/T2/S2) that runs Linux (double-check that the bootloader is unlocked, though, can’t be arsed to). And yes of course they’re more expensive they’re not cross-financed by showing you ads. Do you want a TV or a billboard?
Good luck finding a 65 inch computer monitor
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It’s also three times the price of a 65 inch 4k TV.
No, the 65 inch 4K TV is three times cheaper because of the smart features. They sell the data they collect from you, and the ads.
oh no its not on amazon it must not be real
The thing is 5 years old so that’s hardly surprising. I just googled 65 inch monitor and this was the first hit.
Just checked Geizhals and apparently there’s none currently, the largest is the HP Omen X, 64.5". Close enough though I’d say. There’s 55 monitors 46" and higher but only 7 52" and higher.
At that size I’m obliged to ask if you don’t want a projector instead.
microcenter has some absurdly expensive monitors.
Yes. I want one. Not sure why. But I do.
Projectors are so easy. Currently watching Hulu on an 85" screen.
as a projector owner myself, i would not say “so easy”. they are a lot more work to set up, are more unsightly in living spaces, require light control, require more maintenance and cleaning, and even after all that the picture quality is still never going to approach a decent HDR panel. It’s only really worth it if you need/want a 100”+ picture, otherwise you’d be better off with an 85” TV.
Not to mention many of the high end projectors now have the same smart tv features built in
Exactly this!
I’ve heard that if you want a dumb TV, you buy a smart TV with input priority on the hdmi and never connect to the internet.
How accurate is that?
I wouldn’t know, as I’ve been blessed with a couple of dumb tvs from the golden age of dumb tvs for the last 10 years.
Some smart TVs need to be connected before they’ll even start.
The key thing is to make sure you look into that stuff before you buy.
My TV is from the before days, and when it dies I’m not sure what the plan will be. Possibly a large monitor at 3x the price.
The key thing is to make sure you look into that stuff before you buy.
Or better yet, buy it and then return it as defective, ideally repeatedly and gathering a whole bunch of other people to do the same en masse, until companies start losing so much money on this shit that they’re forced to be less shitty.
If only they weren’t so heavy…
Found the youngster or missed a sarcasm tag. I remember a time when my 50 inch was considered leading class for weighing “only” 60 lbs, my tvs before that one all weighed over 100 lbs (CRTs). I literally unironically can throw most tvs upto 65 inches just over my shoulder, and if the boxes weren’t so awkwardly big I could carry a few at a time. TVs may be a lot things but not heavy, most 43 inch tvs are under 20 lbs now.
My hisense google tv connected to an open wifi network and updated without being told to. The update broke CEC and hdmi arc. I cannot adequately express my rage at this moment.
I have no experience with them, but FYI a bunch of people were recommending sceptre for dumb TVs in other threads.
Any tv without internet access is a DumbTV™️, no?
Can’t you plug in your computer into an HDMI port and simply not use the “smart” features?
In most cases, no. You have to use the built in “smart” software to change inputs.
That sucks. I guess I gotta keep my TV running as long a possible then. It’s a smart TV, but I can change ports without the smart features. In fact the smart TV part of it is basically like another port, but I have set to use HDM1 as the default when starting up and I never have to look at the smart interface. TV is over 5 years old now, the smart interface probably runs like shit by now.
Yes, you absolutely can. Or you can use pihole to block ads/updates. Or you can use a raspberry pi with kodi. Or a streaming stick. Or you can use it normally.
Just make sure you buy from a store with a return policy that let’s you test the TV for your use case. Which in the EU is any online retailer, for 14 days.
There are tvs that wait a month before giving you a big manually dismissed popup about not being connected to the internet.
What I don’t get about smart TVs is why you can’t use it with your phone. That’s one of Kodi’s best features. You can just type using your phone keyboard. Typing with a TV remote is a fucking NIGHTMARE.
Sceptre makes dumb TVs.
They are pretty decent too, for the price
They’re also brighter and don’t burn in as easily
So anybody who doesn’t have A FUCKING DESKTOP PC near their TV is a Neanderthal?
I have a smart TV from 2019 and it runs perfectly fine, it’s snappy and convenient. Switching inputs requires 2 button presses (3 if you don’t want to wait 3 seconds to auto-switch to the selected one) or I can automate it with home assistant for a “movie watching” scene for instance, for 0 button presses.
Plus you seem to completely misunderstand what digital signage TV are.
You can (or at least could) put Bravia TVs into “pro mode” and turn off all the shit.
Smart TV was always a dumb idea. Better to control your own equipment.
They are. But not for customers.
I have always opposed smart TVs. Most of my reasoning is because the UI is almost always dogshit slow because the hardware and software is thrown in as an afterthought. But I’ll add this to my reasoning for not getting a smart TV.
A signage TV with a streaming stick/box is perfectly fine for what I need. Jellyfin does not care what I’m playing.
Edit: Also, I did not even notice that there was no option to reject this. It is just a close button. There is no way this shit is enforceable.
I haven’t looked into it, but there’s got to be some open source firmware for a lot of these TVs, right? To improve the UI and remove all spyware and bloatware?
The worst part is that all these Smart TVs run Linux, whose GPL license was explicitly designed to prevent this sort of user-hostile bullshit. Unfortunately, because the Linux contributors decided to stick with version 2 of the license instead of converting to version 3, it’s stuck with a loophole that allows companies to get away with this abuse.
It’s a goddamned travesty.
The GPL ensures user software freedom for us to remove this crap by requiring them to share their source code. Using Linux doesn’t mean they have to follow the GPL unless they make modifications to it.
You need every software contributors to agree to a license change unless the license gives an upgrade option. Most contributors had no choice but to use GPLv2 as it wasn’t “GPLv2-or-later” to start with, maybe it was posdible at one point but they didn’t want to anyway.
The GPL ensures user software freedom for us to remove this crap by requiring them to share their source code. Using Linux doesn’t mean they have to follow the GPL unless they make modifications to it.
That’s not quite the issue.
First of all, the GPL requires you to make the source available if you distribute the software, whether you modify it or not. And in fact TV manufacturers do provide source code, if you dig through their websites to find the disused basement lavatory with the sign saying “beware of the leopard.”
Second, the issue is that the source code isn’t actually going to work if you try to compile it and install it on the device, because they have DRM to prevent anything other than what the manufacturer has cryptographically signed from being allowed to run. See also: Tivoization.
Linux will never go to GPLv3 because Linus is pussywhipped by the Foundation and it’s sponsors
That’s correct. My response was intended to point out proprietary software can run on Linux and GPL doesn’t apply.
I have read arguments in favor of GPL v2 over v3 and found them unconvincing.
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I don’t connect my TV to the internet. Problem solved.
I used to develop smart TV apps.
I still only own dumb TVs. I do not need that bloat.
They are better, but you foolishly assumed that they meant better for the consumer, not better for the seller.
Always was. Just took a little time for the reasons to be apparent to more people.
I wish there were dumb options but since they’re all subsidised with loads of ads, they’re either unaffordable or plain unavailable. They just don’t make them for the consumer market anymore, there’s no demand for it. So they took advantage of that and market the dumb TVs as business TVs at huge markups, like 5+ grands for basic 4K no HDR no VRR no nothing, and they won’t even sell it to you without a registered business account.
Those displays are not televisions - they are for menus at restaurants. They cost a fortune because they are low volume, high reliability devices that come with service contracts and repairable components.
Technology in general is supposed to make our lives easier. It seems many things these days do the opposite.
NOTHING SUSPICIOUS HERE. DO NOT FEAR. SIGN AWAY FUTURE LEGAL PROTECTION BECAUSE THERE IS NOTHING TO FEAR.
The real question is what is Roku doing that might necessitate a jury trial in the first place.
The answer is spying and selling all your data to advertisers. Using ACR they can tell everything passing through that box and display adverts accordingly. Just what you want when watching a DVD.
Are there any good 4k 65"+ TVs without smart features? All the ones I see from LG Samsung Sony or other top rated TV manufacturers are smart TVs.
Sections 1(F) and 1(L) seem like the only ways out/around of this. (IANAL; the bolding emphasis was done by me.)
F. Small Claims. You or Roku may pursue any Claim, except IP Claims, in a small-claims court instead of through arbitration if (i) the Claim meets the jurisdictional requirements of the small claims court and (ii) the small claims court does not permit class or similar representative actions or relief.
L. 30-Day Right to Opt Out. You have the right to opt out of arbitration by sending written notice of your decision to opt out to the following address by mail: General Counsel, Roku Inc., 1701 Junction Court, Suite 100, San Jose, CA 95112 within 30 days of you first becoming subject to these Dispute Resolution Terms. Such notice must include the name of each person opting out and contact information for each such person, the specific product models, software, or services used that are at issue, the email address that you used to set up your Roku account (if you have one), and, if applicable, a copy of your purchase receipt. For clarity, opt-out notices submitted via any method other than mail (including email) will not be effective. If you send timely written notice containing the required information in accordance with this Section 1(L), then neither party will be required to arbitrate the Claims between them.
Any lawyers out there who can speak towards the three bolded parts?
“Dumb” TV + PC + 🏴☠️. life is good
My muscle memory is to hit power-right-ok to open youtube when I turn the tv on, most of the time without looking at it. The other day, it ended up still sitting on the default menu item after I did that. This must have popped up then. Something that can be dismissed without ever actually seeing it is certainly not enforceable.
I thought I linked to my blog post about it, but it just used the image
Roku’s Ultimatum: Surrender Jury Trial Rights or Lose Access to Your TVs
Smart TV’s are stupid scams. I quit watching the big screens in 2018. My phone is larger, at the distance I am comfortable laying down, than the 72in screen on the wall in front of me right now in my family’s living room. In the USA, without LUFS regulations, I’m not interested in watching any content embedded in corporate media advertising streams. (Tom Scott LUFS YT, Wikipedia: LUFS)
Mate, the eye strain of staring at a screen 5" from your face is monumentally higher than being able to relax your vision while staring at a monster screen.
Some of us like to watch with other people.
Well some of us got no other people, so ha! /s
Been there. It sucks. Best of luck finding your crowd.
Recommendations to purchase a smart TV but never connect it to a network are futile, as well. Just like Amazon devices, smart TVs will find an open SSID and then phone home for updates without your knowledge.
My recommendation, when these kind of topics come up, is: either exchange your smart TV for a dumb one, or go to an electronics repair shop to have a board or two exchanged (depending on the make and model, older dumb components may be direct-ish replacements for smart ones).
EDIT: Another option? Try a projector! I was looking for dumb TV options online after writing up this comment, and someone on an old Reddit post recommended it. Great idea.
2nd EDIT: Someone else also recommended buying digital signage, another solid dumb display option.
If I ever have a device connecting to open networks by itself I’m snipping its wifi antenna
Yeah, connecting to open networks seems questionable. If it gets infected and you later connect it to your network, they are clearly at fault. So I doubt they do this.
Don’t underestimate how dumb and greedy corpos can be
“Sorry, we … maybe won’t do it next time. Here’s a sweety and a $5 coupon now please forget about it.”
Newer monitors are also good options. Usually they have enough HDCP compliant ports these days and none of the bullshit.
Pair with a sound bar or surround sound system and you got a great setup.
If my TV has been finding open wifi networks for updates, it sure hasn’t made me aware of it. I’ve heard a lot of people say that they do this, but I’ve yet to see any proof that it’s happening.
Recommendations to purchase a smart TV but never connect it to a network are futile, as well.
Not necessarily. Never connecting it to the internet is much better advice than trying to block it’s connections. After that it’s not (usually) difficult to open the back of the TV and simply disconnect the wifi adapter itself. In my experience it’s either a separate board connected by a ribbon cable or the same type of wifi adapter that is commonly found in laptops. If the antennas can be accessed then so can the adapter.
Yes, great advice. Open a high voltage device and play with its internals while voiding your warranty instead of checks notes… not giving it your Wi-Fi password.
Where do you live that you have free wifi all around?
Opt out per the instructions!
They REQUIRE you to send them via snail mail.
It even specifically states that email is not valid.
