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LG smart TVs caught logging audio with screen off and snooping on local devices
(www.notebookcheck.net)
this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2026
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Back in the 90's we had designated computer desks, where the big ass CRT and big ass desktop PC lived. Most people would use a surge protector power strip with a master power switch, and they would use that one switch to turn on and off the CRT monitor, PC, printer, desk lamp, etc..
That seems like a great idea right about how.
Both of my lg TVs are rooted. Anyway to just disable this through that? Dont see anything in the homebrew channel
Stuff like this is why I'm still holding on to my old TV for dear life. It's seen better days but it's at least easily repairable.
The amp went bad which causes the internal speakers to give up after a couple of minutes, so I just run it with a soundbar. Then one of the cats broke the optical port for it, so now it's taped on lol. The panel still works great, so I think I'll just replace the main board on it to keep it going for a few more years.
Once something on it finally goes where repairing it becomes unviable, then I've no idea where to go from there. I guess I'll just keep buying used TVs and fix them up.
As people say in these threads everytime, just don't give your tv Internet access.
Seems smart to avoid LG as well.
It's still listening and recording. The recent Gamers Nexus video shows that the just store everything locally until they find a way to send it. They're always scanning the radio for other access points too.
My Visio TV developed a thing where the OSD menus freeze up and the controls unresponsive frequently - it's not connected to WiFi. Its my opinion that some internal drive is filled up with my watch data that a factory reset cannot fix, and I suspect the lack of disk space is why it's freezing. I can't* prove this, but I suspect it to be.
*I might possibly have the skills to, but my time is devoted to other tasks, and I don't want to deprive my household of the living room TV just because I want to tear it apart.
High risk low reward. the eFlash would almost certainly be wiped in a reset. If you did get to it, it's not removable. If you unsoldered it, the new one could need a base load on it for it to work. You could probably buy a used board from another TV, but it could well already have issues. Getting the screen off and back on in one piece isn't trivial.
A friend of mine recapped his 75" Took most of a day, it did fix the tv, but he complained that it was definitely not worth it.
go one step further and open it up and unplug the wifi antennas, just to curtail it even further.
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That's why my TV doesn't get wifi access, and I use a third-party device like an Amazon Fire to do all my streaming, so at least it's Amazon who gets my data, not LG.
/s
This is why I always block devices that have no business being on the internet at MAC level.
You'll also have to make sure to properly destroy it afterwards. If you re-sell it, the next owner might connect it to the internet and all the stored data will get uploaded.
Also there's tech like Amazon Sidewalk that allows devices to talk to other devices nearby in a mesh, bypassing your router entirely.
There's a lot of misinformation in the comments here.
- LG have been caught using the Internet connection of connected devices (like windows computers) to snoop on your network.
- Because of that, it has access to your network even if you remove the wifi module or do not connect the TV directly to your network.
- Lobotomizing the TV will not necessarily fix this issue, but I still think it's a good start. It may be beneficial to switch to a different operating system or just ban the TV from accessing certain parts of the Eco system on your computer.
- Removing Bluetooth, wifi, and microphone modules will be beneficial in the long run because this will not be the last time a company tries this and it's not limited to LG. If you are technically inclined or can follow a YouTube video, go for it.
This all happens the moment you plug that HDMI (or DisplayPort for people who purchased an LG computer monitor) right into an internet-enabled laptop through a protocol called EDID, also known as "Extended Display Identification Data," which by itself is totally harmless!
It simply tells your operating system what kind of monitor is connected, what its capabilities are, it's serial number. That's it!
Inside Windows, when you go to Device Manager, it might not seem like much. Just a generic PnP device attached as a monitor.
Dive a little more into Device Manager, and we see where EDID does its magic; we found that this particular Microsoft Box is hooked up to some kind of Samsung monitor. Now, Samsung might have some kind of driver that would help take advantage of my monitor. But this Samsung is so old they simply do not care.
Yeah, it's installing drivers on WINDOWS.
So, caveat two is don't connect these things to an internet-connected WINDOWS machine.
Good point.
But, as others have said, if you do successfully air gap one of these things, it might stop working because a hard drive is full, or more directly because it can't phone home and is designed to lock you out in that case.
LG have been caught using the Internet connection of connected devices (like windows computers) to snoop on your network.
Do you have any sources for that? Not doubting it just curious about how that works.
Waiting for the "No idea how this happened, we're sorry and promise to make this better in future versions" moment - instead of admitting that this is just part of their business model.
Hoping for prosecution from the EU and at least one other country.
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and guess who will (potentially) have legal action taken against them? i'll give you a hint: it won't be LG!
My "big" TV is a 55", 14-year-old Toshiba dumb display. It still works as well as it ever has, but it's not OLED and it's not 100", so sometimes I think maybe...
But, then I read articles like this, and decide against it.
My LG TV runs WebOS, which is a linux distro. I have been wondering how hard it is to root and replace with a distro of my own choosing. I had thought because my TV is pretty old that I was safe from the more sophisticated spying, but last week it interrupted what I was watching and would not let me continue using it without agreeing to new terms of use. This revived my interest in rooting it.
https://cani.rootmy.tv/ - I just recently bought an LG for the first time, with eyes wide open, and used this site to get root on it, as well as VLANing it with a strict block list, but also an allow list only based policy, and strict no external DNS requests policies.
Also worth knowing that when accepting their policies many of them are optional and are just data slurping consent , think it was the top 2 compulsory in my region out of about 5.
I saw this linked the other day. I haven’t looked into it deeply or done it.
I rooted my C1 years ago. I spent weeks afterwards worried that I just destroyed the warranty of a $1,500 TV.
But today, I've never felt so justified.
I didn't know LG webOS rooting was a thing, that's interesting to know.
There is an open source version of webOS, although I don't know how it compares to the stock LG version. Maybe there will eventually be something like a LineageOS equivalent.
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