I'm using an LG OLED TV (2018 model I think) with an Apple TV, and it's working pretty much exactly like a dumb screen. I haven't connected the TV to the network, and I control everything with the Apple TV remote - it turns on the TV via HDMI CEC as needed, and when I turn off the Apple TV the TV turns off too. I've also connected my home theater system via HDMI ARC to get better sound, and CEC turns on and off the speakers too.

All I see of the LG interface during normal use is a small box in the top right corner that says "Apple TV" on boot and "Denon available" or something like that when the speaker systems has booted.

Also, the screen turns on quickly so there's practically no waiting for anything.

I was thinking of getting one of those in-store displays instead of a TV, but they don't usually have HDR.

A++++, would buy again!

I'm using a Raspi4 with Libreelec (this is kodi) and I have had pretty much a similar experience (but with a bunch of OSS quirks of course). A nice surprise is that I can actually control the kodi interface with my TV remote

Thanks for posting this, I'll keep it in mind. It's funny how annoying it is when a TV takes 10 seconds to "boot up"

LG seems to be the least crappy option here.

But if you're willing to spend some extra $$, you can get a "meeting room display" with the same panel, but zero smart features and no speakers.

Do you mean from LG specifically? Just had a quick google search for "meeting room display 4k hdr" and Sony Bravia professional displays including playing "online content with no need for external devices"

LG is the sane choice for regular TVs.

Meeting room displays you can buy from anyone, they're just basically really big monitors without any smart features. The only downside is that, they're a good 100-200% more expensive than the exact same panel with smart features =/

When my old 720p 42" Sony Bravia conks out, I'm just going to end up buying a second hand NEC Commercial display. I made the mistake of buying a Sony 4K Android TV for my bedroom and the performance is just dreadful with repeated crashes.

I've already got many NEC panels around the office and they're fantastic.

I would recommend getting a projector if you have the space!

As long as you don’t connect it to the internet, can’t do much harm.

Though HDMI has evolved into a supper chatty protocol with information going both ways. HDMI doesn’t allow a TV to access the internet connection of a laptop or ps4 connected to it, right?

(UK) my new Virgin media cable box came with a hdmi cable that said "hdmi with ethernet" on the side. It's plugged into my TV (which has WiFi disabled) and as far as I can tell it's not leaking a gateway or anything but it could well be. Regardless: security nightmare.

The HDMI with ethernet thing is probably a lot more benign than you would think. Ethernet is simply one of the many protocols that HDMI can use for its communication across that wire, in addition to the video feed; as a result that ends up on the package. Very few television sets even support the feature in any capacity; it's generally more practical to just use wifi.

Besides that, a cable company's set top box doesn't need to use any fancy HDMI tricks to snoop on what you're watching at any given moment: the cable box does that for them. This doesn't give them any information other than the channel you have selected at any given moment (and whether the TV's actually on), but that's enough for ad tracking and viewership ratings, and that's usually all the network cares about.

(Note that I still find that whole feedback loop a bit uncomfortable; I won't ever have a cable subscription myself. But I have a hard time believing those cheap set top boxes are sophisticated enough to extract frame data from arbitrarily televisions over HEC; the compatibility issues alone would be a nightmare to code around.)

>Besides that, a cable company's set top box doesn't need to use any fancy HDMI tricks to snoop on what you're watching at any given moment: the cable box does that for them.

I believe they were worried about the reverse - the (isolated, wifi-disabled) Smart TV using ethernet-over-HDMI to phone home.

About a year ago I looked into getting a monitor to replace a living room TV for use with an Apple TV and a game console, as I have no interest in built-in speakers and smart features. But I couldn’t find anything that had the specs of good modern TVs: decent screen size, minimal frame, HDR, wide viewing angles, reasonable price. Nothing even came close.

I have a Humax "monitor". It only has 4 HDMI inputs and a USB input (never used it, probably for viewing things on a random USB stick).

If you have a separate box for TV anyways, its perfect. Don't need anything else.

Otherwise, you can simply not connect your smart TV to the internet. Just leave it unconnected and use it as if it is a dumb TV.

Roku TVs can operate in a dumb mode -- during guided setup, you can opt to not connect to the network, and they won't try to connect from that point on. There are still some ads that show up occasionally on the home screen, but they're built into the OS ROM and are to encourage connecting.

I have been told commercial/ Professional displays without TV tuners are a safe bet.

Example - https://www.samsung.com/in/business/smart-signage/profession...

What you're looking for is a monitor.

Except for a monitor you are likely to pay thrice as much as for a TV of comparable screen size.

It doesn't end there; while I was looking for a monitor I found several models running Android! One can not be too careful these days.

That said, it is still possible to get a Dumb TV, say up to 55'. Larger devices are almost exclusively ~~spies~~ smart.

You can still buy a Dumb TV, for example from Sencor.

https://www.sencor.com/ultra-hd-televisions?smarttv=false

There is not a lot of options though. And getting a DumbTV larger than 55' is near-impossible.

I've got a old-ish smart Samsung and I've never configured the Internet, but can still plug USB keys to it and play movies, etc. Newer TVs might insist on an Internet connection, though, to use any "smart" features.

You can just get a smart TV and don't connect it to your network. They still have HDMI ports so you can connect whatever you want.

This is what I do. Bought a Samsung, never connected it to the network, and just use HDMIs. I've never had an issue with it

I use a odroid c2 with a usb harddrive for my media with libreelec, then I have a playstation to use for amazon / netflix video.

Some Atyme models are 4K monitors only, not even wifi... I have 5 of them.