A Roku software update blocked antenna TV access without an internet connection, exposing how smart TV business models prioritize connectivity and data over basic broadcast functionality that should work offline by default.
That’s how they make money
Never buy a smart tv… Pretty simple
Assuming you still can, I mean, the only modern-day ‘dumb TVs’ in existence are large conference room monitors, and those are actually about the same price as a high-end TV in some cases while having mostly the same capabilities, OK, I guess that’s viable.
Looks like you want a “Commercial Display” or “Hospitality TV”.
And yes it costs more money, but that’s because you’re not trading your privacy and security for a discount on the tv.
Apparently a projector is a common choice too, that’s what I use. Zero option to connect to the internet, mine cost $40 new @ 1080p… It’s not the best resolution but it’s great for watching movies. Mine is just connected to my computer directly, no need for any of those streaming apps thanks to qbittorent.
…
I’ll be deep in the cold cold ground before I buy any device that requires an app or requires internet.If you’re in the market for a high-end TV, it’s not even a discount price-wise in some cases as most high-end TVs are in the same price range as one of those commercial displays, you’re basically spending the same type of money on one of those commercial displays that you would on a high-end TV, but you’re getting a dumb display in return.
The one thing I find funny here is that the TV couldn’t have possibly received the update that introduced this problem unless it was connected to the Internet, so the victim in this case is a person who only watches OTA TV (because otherwise they’d have to click “ok” on the pop up to access the streaming apps, which they obviously don’t want to do), but keeps their smart TV online at all times.
The article is right though, smart TV’s have always been (or at least rapidly became) a predatory marketing technique targeting the poor.
One of my monitor is a smart tv that I block internet access to. Only way to use one of these damn things. Unfortunately I looked into new tv and no seems to be selling the dumb ones.
How long until they make it so you can’t even turn one on without internet access?
A lot of lower end smart tvs use droid so you can’t even use the cunt without singing up / in
Im surprised it’s not already a requirement for every TV. Honestly, I think you have to buy a projector at this point to get something big and dumb.
Or a large conference room monitor.
The company told TechRadar it plans to fix the issue, framing it as unintentional rather than a deliberate product decision.
I’ll keep hammering this, because suckers still eat it for breakfast, as shown by Roku’s bullshit:
Intentions don’t fucking matter. Doubly so if coming from a company, or someone speaking in the name of one. What matters is what you do. And Roku is unreasonably gating access to broadcasted TV, regardless of its “intentions”.
By the way anyone buying Roku is a sucker and deserve to be treated as one.
If this is real, it’s not helped by the fact that they’re trying to put DRM in ATSC3 either.
They aren’t trying, they already did it. ATSC 3 broadcasts are encrypted in a lot of cities in the US. The FCC should have never allowed that.
laughs in my Roku being firewalled off from the internet
I don’t get or need software updates when I only watch Jellyfin anyway
Exactly this. It’s a really good box for the price that gives your living room monitor superpowers, but no one should buy a monitor with that extra bullshit built in!
I’ll take just a screen only, hold the superpowers. Unfortunately you can’t buy that anymore, or at least not at a reasonable price.
sadly true.
Mine was never ever connected to the internet. HDMI is all I needed and wanted. What evil they’re doing now is making you connect it to the internet on first boot.
I’d bet the next step is that it has to be able to phone home at increasingly frequent intervals to allow functionality such as playing content from connected ports.
This is brought to you by the same company that’s developed technology to detect if an hdmi connection is paused so that it can be interrupted to inject ads…
Oh man. Let me tell you about what I saw from the Roku I got back in 2020 or so.
I got a pihole before or shortly after my Roku. The PiHole showed my most blocked device being… the Roku. Almost over 4000 DNS requests denied, especially after I fully blocked them on the PiHole because I got tired of their ads being shown when all I’m turning the damn thing on for is Plex/Jellyfin.
They don’t like that one bit! Get this, for the time to be accurate, it MUST have connection to their servers. Not just once, mind you. Every day I leave my house, I turn off things, the Roku being one of them. I turn it off by turning off the extension it is plugged into. Every time I turned it back on, it would just show the time you cut it off at. So, if it was 8 AM when you turned it off, and it is now 9 PM, well, the clock on the Roku would still be around 8 AM.
So, yeah. Now, I just use my Steam Deck as my watching device, hooked up to the dock. Added benefit of not having to “sideload” (read install) a YouTube IPA onto my phone. Fuckers.
Stallman was right.
🤘
lemme guess… you can’t rollback or reset and load the original oob firmware, either.
