Technology

58981 readers

3905 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related content.
Be excellent to each another!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

216

TV that doesn't require 'on-line activation' to set up. (midwest.social)

submitted 1 week ago by catfishsushi@midwest.social to c/technology@lemmy.world

77 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I'm going to buy my first new TV in years. Even if it's a 'smart' tv we plan to just use our Roku. I've heard that some TVs require you to connect it to the internet before you can even use a Roku device. For privacy reasons I don't want my TV to EVER have access to my wifi. Is anyone aware of how to know what models/brands of TVs allow me to use it without ever connecting the TV itself to wifi?

If necessary I guess I could connect it to my guest network to 'activate' the TV, set up the Roku to connect to my private network, then change the password to the guest network.

Would rather just have a TV that doesn't even 'phone home' once.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] ccdfa@lemm.ee 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

With a caveat on the shield. It's still android TV so ideally you put your own OS on it if you're worried about that kind of thing.

[–] thirteene@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Shield also refused to update mounting networking drives after Android 14 so they are pretty useless now

[–] UberMentch@lemmy.world -1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

How does that make them useless? They may not work for a use case where you're mounting network drives, but still work perfectly fine if you're using them to connect to a media server.

[–] thirteene@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Nvidia shield was known as king of media servers because it was able to be client and server. Now it's a running on a build from ~2015 that can no longer function as a server. Yes it's a client, but it's old and overpriced now with a bunch of additional Google shitware. If you have one use it, don't buy one.

[–] UberMentch@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

I suppose I don't have enough experience or interest in the Shield as a server, so I'll take your word on that part. I don't disagree that purely as a client, it's overpriced today, although I've always been satisfied with mine. It's always outperformed most other clients I've ever tried. What would you suggest as an alternative now, just a mini pc or something?

[–] thirteene@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

It's bleak, Xbox one is my preferred client and it's quickly degrading. Chromecast has little overhead but requires another client. I've heard older rokus are in demand on eBay. I don't recall if apple TV has a casting feature, but I've heard the ecosystem works for apps. I checked this thread for new recs.