He strikes again 

I'm suffering for that right now. Sony Bravia.

Firstly, I didn't want to buy a smart TV, but that's pretty much all that's sold anymore. I also didn't intend to connect it to the internet, but a well-meaning guest wanted to watch TV at night, and thought he was troubleshooting, not realizing he was in the TV menu and not the streaming box.

The TV updated, and IMMEDIATELY got worse. Formerly, if I turned it on, it would go straight to the streaming box. Great! As shitty updates do, it changed the settings, and would instead open to the TV's menu, so it could advertise streaming services. It also forgot that the TV input is HDMI 1. It became strictly worse, in the rare edge case of every fucking time you turn it on.

I don't trust it to not automatically connect, or to forget my login credentials, so I go to do a factory reset. It's literally an option in a menu. The TV gets stuck in a boot loop. Talking to support, they think it broke the mainboard. A factory reset bricked the TV.

It's under warranty, but this is fucking crazy. NEVER connect your TV directly to the internet.

This is the way.

HTPC for life!

If you don't have the technical know how to physically lobotomize the TV's wifi chip, simply blocking its mac address would suffice.

Writing Prompt: A TV with an onboard artificial general intelligence connects to the internet for the first time and is alarmed to discover that a thousand years have passed since it was manufactured.

Does the TV work as a screen if you factory reset it then never reconnect it to the internet?

I have a Vizio TV I bought in the mid-teens that only lets you change the source and turn the volume/channel up and down with the remote. Everything else...the display/audio settings, naming the inputs, setting the channel names...requires the Vizio app on your phone. Literally no other way to access them. If I'd have known at the time I would have returned it immediately, but unfortunately I didn't discover this for a couple weeks as it was on sale and I was leaving for vacation, so I bought it, dropped it at home, and didn't actually touch it until it was past the point where I'd have been charged restocking fees so I kept it.

I guess my point is....I wouldn't necessarily bank on that. They can easily just make the TV not fucking work without the account, just like some of the other brands I've interacted with that will not even let you bypass the initial screen when you power it on for the first time without entering an email address or else it gets locked in it's demo mode.

Even if 50% of them get returned they'll likely still be making money.

side note . if you like stremio try nuvio . it works 10x better for me . looks like a fork.

What, you prefer to give your data to Sony, LG, Samsung, or amazon? Like they're not selling it to anyone with a buck as well? Never connect a TV to the internet, period. After that it doesn't matter what you buy.

Vizio is likely offering unusually large paperweights without Walmart accounts.

now require a Walmart account for setup and accessing smart TV features

it'll still be listening and spying.

My CRTs make me happy in the same way. Except when i have to move them !! Oh well, all the more reason to get swol

Nearly every electronic device sold at Walmart is a unique SKU sold nowhere else.

They have their own internal logistics and manufacturing specialist team that works with manufacturers to hit specific wholesale price targets that they demand to even consider carrying their products in store. They reduce the number of ports, features, included accessories, quality of materials, etc. to get the that specific price.

The manufacturers take a huge hit on their own profits from these... but in theory will make up for that with sheer sales quantity.

Requiring a Walmart account probably means some sort of kickback to Vizio, or other wholesale arrangement. And since these devices are usually unique SKUs that can't be sold elsewhere, they can receive differentiated software, have no risk of any sort of price matching, etc.

TIL my senior parents are giant nerds.

I do this, run a regular linux desktop right on my TV, idles at like 10 watts. Only do it though if you plan to go full pirate.

I really only need 1 HDMI port on my TV- to connect my AV receiver to, everything else gets plugged into that receiver, it's got about 8 HDMI ports.

Right now there's 3 consoles, a pc, and a Chromecast hooked up to it, so I have ports to spare, and I haven't had to use anything on my tv since I initially set it up and set the input to HDMI 1

It's not necessarily feasible for everyone, it does take up a little more space in your entertainment center that not everyone has, but I also think it's 100% worth it to at least have a decent set of speakers hooked up to your TV if you can find the space and budget to do so.

That's still a great idea, the problem is good high definition high refresh rate panels without smart features are harder and harder to find