"To be fair, smart TVs still work as TVs, even if the entire "smart" portion is broken. I'm entertaining buying a new TV soon, since mine is on the out after almost 10 years. I'd prefer to buy a non-smart TV, but honestly all the top models include it now, so it's pretty much unavoidable."
You can opt out of using the smart features, but the presence of wifi and bluetooth stacks and cameras and microphones means that you are living with a long list of vulnerabilities and potential intrusive/abusive behavior.
The good news is, display manufacturers all make very, very high end models at relatively low prices without any smart features or gizmos at all: they are called signage displays.
Think of the screens at the airport with the tiny bezels ... you can buy those. They're awesome.
But aren't they way more expensive for given specs than regular consumer TVs? I looked one time and they were like twice the price for a given size/resolution.
I couldn't tell if that was because they are engineered to be on all the time, or if manufacturers just jack up the list price so they can maintain margin on discounted bulk pricing for 3,000 panels or whatever.
> ...the presence of wifi and bluetooth stacks and cameras and microphones means that you are living with a long list of vulnerabilities...
No, you just turn those off. I bought a TV recently and didn't have any option (for this particular model line) of getting a "non-smart" version. I simply turned off the TV's networking. The only cables attached to the TV are power and HDMI, so it's effectively a dumb TV with zero attack surface.
> You can opt out of using the smart features, but the presence of wifi and bluetooth stacks and cameras and microphones means that you are living with a long list of vulnerabilities and potential intrusive/abusive behavior.
2020's hottest new major: Archaeological Computer Security
You can opt out of using the smart features, but the presence of wifi and bluetooth stacks and cameras and microphones means that you are living with a long list of vulnerabilities and potential intrusive/abusive behavior.
The good news is, display manufacturers all make very, very high end models at relatively low prices without any smart features or gizmos at all: they are called signage displays.
Think of the screens at the airport with the tiny bezels ... you can buy those. They're awesome.