this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2026
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Just an FYI to anyone looking, you can still actually buy mostly-dumb TVs.
I was looking for a TV to buy for my parents last year and it seemed like the only options available were "smart TVs," and I begrudgingly ended up buying a Philips ambilight unit. I was pleasantly surprised by how dumb the Titan OS on it was. Sure, it had WiFi, and the usual Netflix and other streaming apps, but I just didn't connect it to the WiFi, and from then on it was just a souped up version of their 15 year old TV. It did ask to be connected to WiFi, but stopped after being told no a few times.
I'm sure other manufacturers have similar "smart on paper, but dumb in reality" OSes, as it seems to mostly be a cost cutting exercise. The hardware in the TV would need to be more expensive to run an actual smart platform. So the manufacturers just make a low end thing that ticks the right boxes to be able to call it smart for marketing, thinking that's what people want.
Sceptre! They make dumb TVs! They're great! More expensive tho
I have a Sceptre ultra wide that was priced much more affordably then its competitors. I've long searched for more Sceptre products with little success.
Pro tip: Look for a hospitality TV, they come in smart and non-smart versions. Generally they're made tougher also. You do pay more vs a Walmart pos though.
Pro tip 2: Avoid the Samsung ones, their quality control is shit.
also don't buy LG, as they design devices that will brick themselves with no way to recover the firmware and will simply tell you you're shit out of luck
I dont know I had my LG C4 for 2 years now and it's one of the best pictures Ive had.
Oh yeah my LG OLED TV is fantastic for picture quality. although I'm still getting used to judder, and don't know how to fix that on panning shots. no combination of settings seem to work for me.
but I bought that before the sound system and before I had first-hand experience of how few fucks LG gave about me as a customer
I usually just search for my TV models calibration settings. Either reddit or some av forum usually has some good settings that work for me.
I've had a Dolby atmos boxed 5.1 sound bar with sub and rear speaker from Hisense since I got it. I think maybe once a year it losses handshake but just restart everything seems to fix it
unfortunately nobody else's recommendations have worked so I sat there rewatching several shots over and over again with different settings lol
Do you know which models or years?
they did this to my two year old soundbar a year ago, which made the entire 5.1 setup useless since it's all driven by the soundbar
Deeper protip:
Commercial Display
Best protip:
Don't buy a TV
Be careful with commercial displays, the refresh rate might be ridiculously low.
Oh you can get 120 refresh rates on them
And OLED too
Just a matter of being willing to spend 5x-10x what you would for a data harvester
And brightness is pitiful because it's going to be on 24/7
That's still fucking awful.
It doesn't stop it just goes away then occasional will ask to connect. I just fucking no and move on. Wish could disable it even asking that.
That's fine if you only want to watch TV. For streaming you will either need to connect it to the internet or use some external device that will be connected. Most people will actually want to use streaming so "it's dumb until you connect it" doesn't really help.
The one big advantage is that it can be something you can completely control. A very tiny htpc or even a raspberry pi without the need of much storage that will forever work on floss and will never be remotely discontinued, show ads against your will, or sell your personal data.
People will technical skills can do many great things. For the rest it's either smart TV or some set top box and internet connection.
Technical skills including:
Yes, those count as technical skills and there are many, many people for whom it’s too big a hurdle.
picking out a decent micro PC that actually works is hard.
Getting a pc install (presumably windows) configured in a way that will display in the TV legibly from the couch is hard.
Requiring a keyboard and mouse to use your TV from the couch is weird and off-putting. Most people won’t want to and some people will have difficulty understanding what they’re supposed to do with these objects
The technical competence bar for getting a TV plugged in and working is just ridiculously, ridiculously low, and that’s for a reason
I think you missed the part about "very tiny htpc or even a raspberry pi without the need of much storage that will forever work on floss and will never be remotely discontinued, show ads against your will, or sell your personal data" because off the shelf PC with windows and default browser is definitely not that.
You could do that on a Windows PC as well of course the not being outdated part won't be the case.
For someone unwilling to even think about trying something you've never done before I would just suggest a $20 ONN streaming stick you can set up stremio with one YouTube video and like 10 minutes.
Sorry, being on c/technology I made some assumptions here. I was mostly talking to people who want a dumb tv and hook up an external smart device to it, like a media centre, an android box, or an iptv box.
This is generally agreed to be a better solution as it lets you actually control your media stack, and it provides longevity. A regular smart tv will be outdated and slow within a few years, while a dumb tv can last maybe three times longer unless something inside it actually fails.
If you want to use external smart device it doesn't really matter how smart the TV is. The only problem are TVs that refuse to work without internet connection but this doesn't really depend on how smart they are either.