Interesting – didn’t know that

Generally yes, but as that gains popularity, the industry will look elsewhere to get their connection.

The world is bathed in cellular data networks and WiFi. I’d suggest that we aren’t that far off from TVs that are connected without your knowledge.

And even if you find that tinfoil-hattish, the key point is: having the hardware in your house to begin with is a security risk. Why must I buy a TV with a camera in it when I literally have no personal use case for a camera in my TV?

Someone a while back on a thread not dissimilar from this one suggested looking into commercial display screens. A kind of BYO solution to the smart TV problems.

…all what wires? Back to cable? Not sure what you are referring to. I have a single HDMI cable plugged in to a dumb TV from a computer I control. All content comes in through that (with the benefit of things like ad blocking).

Smart TVs have features designed in part to collect data on you and facilitate things like serving you ads. Why would I want that as opposed to a TV without such “features”?

It wouldn’t be an issue if the industry still offered dumb TVs, but by and large, they don’t (for good reason – they can profit off of the collected data).

I have been surprised at how good some of the early LED backlighting can look versus OLED. My understanding is that the backlight in dark areas on my Samsung can be shut off independently area by area, so while the black point isn’t as dark as an OLED, it is way darker than on a lot of other displays I have seen. So it’s a good example of good enough for me.

My Samsung is a 40". I definitely wish it was bigger but not enough to jump into the smart TV soup.

I am hanging on to my 1080p Samsung for dear life. It is about 12 years old, but the picture quality is still fantastic with LED backlighting and it has – get this – no smart “features”.