Contrary experience from me: i hate my samsung frame, especially because of the ads. And more especially because of that samsung tv channel which autostarts. And I hate it even more because these ads change the menu in such a way that you cannot navigate it blindly because it inserts itself as a button mid way in the menu bar. You cannot disable or disable those things easily. Built in airplay is unstable.

Bought and connected an apple tv, always switch on the tv with that. Most problems solved.

If you disable internet access for the device at the router level, the ads, the autostarting tv, etc all go away.

I have considered doing the same, but I decided to stick with the default since I love the Art Mode. I also bought it primarily as decoration, so it serves its purpose just fine. (I wouldn't buy it as primary TV however, because of the previously mentioned OS annoyances)

I got my Frame with the house we bought. I never put it on my network. It's irritating that it powers-on many times to the wall art display function versus just being a TV. I definitely wouldn't have bought it standalone.

>It's irritating that it powers-on many times to the wall art display function versus just being a TV.

I personally love the Art Mode, but while browsing the service menu I've noticed that you can permanently disable it. You can make the secret menu appear by pressing some special combination or by pressing 2 buttons on the service remote[0].

[0] https://www.amazon.com/AA81-00243A-Replaced-Service-Control-...

I'll check that out. Thank you.

I actually like the idea of art mode, but I'd only want to use something like that if it were a passive technology like e-ink. Otherwise I think the electricity use and wear and tear on the display would eat at me. The device is well built and the presentation is lovely, but I just can't stomach the idea of it burning electricity all the time. (I don't know what its standby draw is, sadly. I do have a lot of stuff on power strips because I worry about standby draw. You're making me realize that this TV, being built-in to the wall, has escaped that scrutiny.)

Agree. I have two recent Samsung smart tvs. The screen quality I like (OLED) but everything else about them I hate. I use a PS5 as an entry point for the tv, after the atrocious “tv boot up to functional time” which is a phrase I never considered having to say 20 years ago.

Ads? I thought HN crowd already know how to use a pihole or at least adguard dns. I got Samsung TV's in every room because they are easy to use with a Galaxy phone, using it as a remote and a keyboard. Also wireless DEX is soooo underrated. Want a specific app on tv? no problem. I'm basically using them as displays for my phone.

I've set up a Proton VPN wireguard connection for my TV with Tracker+Ad block on my router. I'm still somehow getting served ads, despite the VPN working properly. Maybe there's a bug in my router config. I will review it later.

(In Proton's Wireguard Configuration Wizard, I've selected "Block malware, ads, & trackers" - see: https://protonvpn.com/support/netshield)

My smart TV is used as a dumb TV and not connected to the internet because I cannot trust it to work in my interests...

It's not 2015 anymore, advertisers aren't relying on DNS requests that a Pihole or AdGuard can block.

yes, most are.

Either Google, and other advertisers, put me in the "uses adblockers, be aggressive with ads" pool, or they've moved on to using DoH/DoT/etc in general. I've been able to confirm this by observing Google and other Android apps making TLS connections to known DoH/DoT/etc IPs, and blocking them worked.

At that point, you need more complex routing than what a simple DNS blocklist can provide via Pihole, and if you want good throughput, you're going to want real networking hardware and not a RPi.