cross-posted from : https://lemmy.zip/post/71045682
An investigation by Gamers Nexus found LG smart TVs sweep local networks to map phones and nearby devices. Tests also showed the sets can capture microphone audio with the screen off — they then upload data once reconnected to the internet.
Stop. Buying. Bugs.
They’re just working as advertized.
Have you looked at an electronics store recently?
It’s “oops, all bugs!”
AFAIK you can’t even get a dumb Sceptre (which for several years were the last holdout) anymore!
https://www.samsung.com/us/business/commercial-tvs/all-commercial-tvs/
I bought one recently (a non-smart commercial display) and I’ve been loving it.
Gamers nexus showed commercial displays also record audio.
They want data. Data is part of the business plan of making displays.
Let me know when I can get one at a place like Best Buy, Microcenter, or Costco.
Try thrift stores and goodwills. An older TV from the late-2000s still does the same job at a fraction of the price. And more often than not, they have MORE options and features built in than a new TV does.
The odds of finding a 4K 50"+ dumb TV (which is what it would take to be better than the 15-year-old but pretty high-end at the time 1080P 47" dumb TV I already have) at a thrift store seems… unlikely.
More to the point, it does absolutely nothing to refute my point that dumb TVs are entirely unavailable new at retail.
Bought mine off eBay.
I buy nonsmart video projectors. These might be in short supply lately. I don’t buy bugs though.
As advertised? I don’t think any of these companies are literally bragging about spying on you. They’d rather no one ever know it. I only point this out because you make it sound like no one buying these “TVs” is a victim because they were told they’d be spied on. Which is…not what happened.
LG is on my permanent purchase blacklist for years because it’s what they do. They are a malware and spyware company pretending to be a hardware vendor.
Yes, if you have been living under the rock the last decade, I guess you should hire a good lawyer. But it is easier through direct wallet action.
They ALL do this.
This is why I don’t own smart TVs.
Kinda puzzled by this response. I would never buy LG either… I recently heard more stories about them doing shit like this so I knew also, but I am not seeing the need for the negative implications. I simply said they don’t advertise this, and many, many people would never know it.