Walmart wants to connect what people stream "directly with retail interaction."
  • rumba@lemmy.zipEnglish
    22 minutes

    And if I don’t want to use their smart features?

    this seems like it might be a win

  • Zedd_Prophecy@lemmy.worldEnglish
    51 minutes

    My mini pc or laptop connected via HDMI to a projector setup makes me more happy every day when I see crap like this. Bonus is you can move it to the patio for outside movie night and it’s a whopping five pounds. Same goes for moving apartments because I’ve always moved too often.

  • NarrativeBear@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5 hours

    Don’t plug in a Ethernet cord, and don’t connect it to Wifi.

    Now you have a fully functional TV screen that wont be artificially bricked with OS updates.

    Get a dedicated “streaming device” like a Nvidia Sheild, Android TV, Apple TV, or Roku and you are good to go.

    • cley_faye@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2 hours

      Until the next one refuses to even pass through HDMI if it’s not connected.

      Just don’t buy shitty devices.

      • iegod@lemmy.zipEnglish
        1 hour

        You give up control this way. Dedicated devices are superior.

    • garretble@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4 hours

      Yep. Just don’t connect it. Or connect it once a year to get some firmware updates if one wants (or better yet use a USB stick).

      I have a good Samsung TV, but when I had it connected to the internet the UI would be painfully slow every time I needed to switch inputs (I have most things running through my receiver, but my PC was straight into the TV). Turning off all internet functions vastly improved my experience with this TV.

  • 🌞 Alexander Daychilde 🌞@lemmy.worldEnglish
    7 hours

    I use a TV for my monitor - last job I worked I really needed the screen real estate for excel.

    I hate hate hate when I shut the computer off or power goes off and when the TV comes back on, it auto-plays some “free” streaming channel, which is ALWAYS fascist propaganda. I rush to turn that shit off just as quickly as I can. Fuck that shit.

    • somenonewho@feddit.orgEnglish
      3 hours

      While i would generally agree I’ve fiddle with htpc and stuff for solo long. Then I broke down a few years ago and bought a cheap TV with GoogleTV (version 10 or something) on it. I removed some bloat via ADB but it still is GoogleTV do I get some ads on the home screen. However I installed SmartTube, Kodi, Jellyfin but also Netflix and Amazon Prime since those are the two services I still subscribed to. And I have to admit I’m a happy camper. I got used to ignoring the ads on the home screen and being able to directly play Netflix/YouTube … whatever without setting up a browser or something on top of Kodi or whatever is just such a breeze.

    • Lianodel@ttrpg.networkEnglish
      6 hours

      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.

    • atrielienz@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7 hours

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

  • Lemmyng@lemmy.worldEnglish
    14 hours

    You’d be better off buying a non-smart Samsung commercial TV from eBay and getting a $20 Onn 4K TV Box from Walmart. The latter can be Degoogled and sideloaded with Stremio, Cloudstream, or your streaming app of choice to make it the ultimate privacy-respecting media center.

    • sunnytimes@lemmy.caEnglish
      8 hours

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

  • ChicoSuave@lemmy.worldEnglish
    16 hours

    So Vizio is offering dumb TVs without Walmart accounts? I am actually kind of interested.

    • Peffse@lemmy.worldEnglish
      16 hours

      Vizio is likely offering unusually large paperweights without Walmart accounts.

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

      • Deacon@lemmy.worldEnglish
        16 hours

        In a functioning society I think that would be criminal.

      • yeehaw@lemmy.caEnglish
        14 hours

        Just don’t connect it to the internet 🤷‍♂️

  • jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    18 hours

    Walmart acquired Vizio with the express purpose of using TV’s to serve ads. In fact, that is exactly what they said they were going to do.

    No surprises here.