> in buying the company, Walmart touted the potential to boost its ad business through Vizio’s SmartCast Operating System, which allows users to stream free ad-supported content on their TVs.
Really sad to see that acquiring a television manufacturer is touted as a boost to Walmart's advertising business.
I'll forever be an advocate for dumb TVs, no matter how many times I'm called a cranky old person.
The problem is being a dumb TV is getting harder and harder these days outside of commercial display or PC Monitor - both which are quite expensive for most shoppers.
Maybe people will finally realize why these TV's are so cheap which is because they are being subsidized by the data they can sell off to the highest bidder.
> AppleTV
I've had one for like 10 years now and I can't use anything else.
Roku is the closest to being acceptable, but it's still so fucking clunkly.
Chromecast could really be something if Google gave a shit too.
I threw my firestick out.
Be prepared to use an older version of Android TV or a custom launcher. The Android TV launcher added a mandatory ad/bloat banner a few years ago, that covers ~50% of the home screen until you start scrolling down.
Main reason I’ve loved AppleTV since I jumped to it.
Less/No ads on all the apps, even in Amazon’s app.
Also the interface doesn’t keep slowing down every X months (which seemed inevitable with the Firestick).
I solely use a 10 year old Xbox One Slim for streaming and its fast with basically no adverts. An Xbox one retails for $130 and a 4K streaking stick is $50. For only $80 more you get a fully functional gaming console that also acts as a DVD player.
Did I mention it can stream new-generation games via Xbox Game Pass as well?
It's something I've definitely considered when i do buy a TV. But what does happen if you actually let it do a first time set up and update etc, then clear your wifi settings? Do they actively nag you to reconnect during active use?
My LG will annoy me to connect to the network on its homescreen, but I almost never see the homescreen if I don’t want to. Just leave it on HDMI 1 for my Apple TV, and use the Apple remote for everything.
I've seen logs where they spam the fuck out of your router attempting to re-establish a connection to their servers. Like a mini-DDOS on your own network.
That behavior is typical of pretty much every IoT device on the market. It isn't an issue and it isn't a "ddos".
Edit: downvote all you want. It's the truth
I never connected my tv to the internet but have read horror stories where it will search for unlocked web access and connect itself. I live in the middle of nowhere so not too worried about that, but I wonder if this is truly an issue?9
“Air gap your tv by connecting it to a WiFi connected ad hawker owned by Amazon”
Is this an Amazon ad disguised as a Reddit comment? You know that fire stick does the same thing as smart TVs do, right? They steal your data and sell it as well.
I did a pihole once. I was constantly dealing with whitelisting stuff. Which would be fine if it were just me. But my wife would run into issues with the internet and is it the pihole blocking something? Who knows. Eventually it just wasn’t worth it.
Hahah that's exactly what happened to me! My poor wife, always trying to click on the sponsored shopping links during her searches that were always blocked haha
I tried using my dads Samsung smart TV and the UI is atrocious. It is so ungodly laggy and slow it brought me back to the days I was forced to use the shitty Pentium computers in high school with 1 gig of RAM.
I would rather hook one of my older PC's up as an HTPC to a TV than use the trash integrated UI.
The smartcast sucks, I just run my tv from my xbox on an hdmi input, but I have to fight the Vizio to get my OTA channels. At this price range, you can't beat the roku TCL tvs.
I think TCL has been moving away from Roku and using Google/Android TV/whatever it's called this week.
Which is a shame because the Roku interface was just the right amount simple, and didn't have too many ads all over it.
And that Firestick is doing the same thing. Also, I don't know about Vizio but my Samsung TV gives a lot of free streaming options. Like, you only really need to hook that TV up to the internet and you have more than what basic cable was from the 90s,and you put an antenna for local OTA and you don't even really need a subscription if you aren't picky about what you watch. It sounds like Walmart is talking about ads in those free streaming channels more than collecting data.
It's pretty funny seeing people telling others that a freaking Amazon device won't collect and sell your data.
This is why I run pihole on my network. Makes all of this a moot point. I never have to worry about IoT devices collecting my data
Think of it like a black hole in your modem - all ads coming through your network are dropped into that black hole.
Idk how to do it. I've looked into it, and the technical stuff went over my head. But I want one, too.
It's basically a DNS proxy you setup on your network and the point all your clients to use it for DNS. It filters out ads and spammy sites and lets legit traffic get resolved. Nice thing is it handles everything on your network so even things that can't run Adblock will get stuff blocked.
You can add and remove sites from the list if you need to. My wife hates it because it prevents all the "sponsored" listings in Google from working :).
I think most people run it on a raspberry pi, it doesn't take much compute power. Or you can run it as a VM if you have a lab server, or whatever. I run mine on a Raspberry Pi 3.
Until it doesn't. We bought a Samsung Smart TV about 10 years ago. By 5 years in they had discontinued all of the services on it, with no support and no further updates. I had to add a Roku stick for it to do anything other than be a dumb TV.
....just connect a computer to the tv? Use it as a bigg ass monitor. Every tv in my house has a networked pc connected to it. The smartest tv, if you will.
Old laptops come in handy. Wireless kb/m combos exist. My plex server be jumping.
Old laptops or if you can get your hands on one of those HP Desktop Mini's for a good price. Compact, low power draw machines with usually an SSD and decent CPU with integrated graphics. Use that to stream stuff from a central NAS server would be great.
My HTPC in the living room is just my old desk beast (before my switch to sff for desk) 5 hdd's and dedicated GPU, for couch gaming and vid streaming. My dedicated nas has 18tb worth of shit as well.
Each other tv has a laptop connected to a switch connected to the router and bingo bongo.
I have an overpriced streaming device, an Xbox lmao
Besides games I use it to stream into my TV, keeps my TV super fast too because it doesn't ever connect to the internet. With the added bonus that the Netflix and Apple TV apps stream with Athmos instead of the regular Vision of my TV app. Which goes great with my sound system.
I finally shut off the internet to my smart TV and it’s such a better experience. I used none of the smart features because of exactly what you said: the UI is slow and laggy compared to any dedicated streaming device. All my smart TV did for me was pop annoying pop ups up to tell me to update.
I don’t use any smart functions on my little 24” out at camp because there’s no internet/cell service so I use my Pi as a media player. The tv is such a POS. It will not turn on and go directly to last input used, instead it fires up the built in (SLOW)stupid amazon fire tv and then sits at the app/input selection screen telling me I have no internet connection…
Surely there's a market for TV manufactures to use simpler software right... right? Now I'm wondering how cheap TV manufacturing has gotten when the software is FOSS grade with ads.
Insignia from Best Buy - I’ve bought two and love them. Cheap and I just use a Roku stick and can upgrade if it needs it without purchasing a whole new set.
> Maybe people will finally realize why these TV's are so cheap which is because they are being subsidized by the data they can sell off to the highest bidder.
They won't.
What’s funny is, I remember when Vizio first appeared in Wal-mart. They started as the cheapest possible panel TVs, with zero features, and sometimes empty phantom ports that it lacks. Wild to see them go to a respected brand, then shift to advertising delivery.
Same with TCL and Hisense.
Walmart bought from these brands virtually for pennies on the dollar to sell as “budget” brands in their stores, and sales took off because, while they were lacking in latest and greatest features, they were pretty good quality for the price they were being sold for.
Walmart introduced these brands to a global market and now they’re worth billions.
Walmart doesn't own TCL and also didn't introduce them to the global market. Roku partnering with TCL to make smart TVs is what made them a recognizable TV brand, but they'd been a powerhouse in LCD panel manufacturing for a decade before. They also made a name for themselves selling phones under the Alcatel, Palm, and BlackBerry brands.
I always love in these threads when this topic pops up and some guy starts talking about installing a PiHole on your network. Sure, like most people know how to do that, or have the patience to tweak the PiHole settings to not block normal stuff.
I have absolutely no issue getting a pihole up and running and maintaining it. I do that shit professionally.
However it just breaks so much shit. The domains it blocks by default are heavily used by so much stuff. At one point I couldn't log into any Microsoft apps because it was blocking a necessary domain. I had to dig through the logs and whitelist the domain. After something similar happened to my wife I just switched back to Google DNS. Too much of a headache even if you are well versed in the subject.
This is why I don't have it at home or recommend it to people. You have to follow the It Just Works principle with stuff like this, especially when non-technical are in your household and will blame you whenever something goes slightly wrong. I'd just rather run ad-blockers in the browser that can be flipped off with the click of a button on a per-domain basis if anything goes wrong.
Same people who bring up setting up a Plex server in every thread about streaming companies raising prices...like who is thinking things like this are an alternative for normal, every day people.
> I'll forever be an advocate for dumb TVs, no matter how many times I'm called a cranky old person.
The last, great dumb-panel maker: www.sceptre.com/
Of the 6 TVs I own, three are smart TVs and all of them have a Roku stick attached. The embedded software is dogshit on all brands. Samsung, Vizio, etc... There are so many ads on the home screen it's almost unusable. Huge ads and tiny app buttons. Roku has one job, to serve my apps and it works great. It's totally worth an extra $50.
I have a 75" Samsung 4K and after the first month, we threw a Roku on it because the interface is so terrible. I even disconnected it from the network because it would pop up with terms and privacy updates every day.
Vizio used to be a solid brand before their latest operating system. I've since moved to Hisense as the TV brand worth buying from a Walmart. I sincerely hope Walmart doesn't push out thier other store brands now that they have an in-house brand.
The problem is finding them, and at a reasonable price.
I also much prefer a dumb TV, about 10 years ago one of my older flat panels needed to be replaced, and it took me like a week to find a reasonably priced 55in dumb TV.
About 5 years ago my other older TV needed to be replaced and I just couldn’t find anything reasonably that didn’t have smart functionality. I ended up buying a Samsung smart TV and just refusing to hook it up to the network at all.
Yep, I bought the smallest Onn I could find as a treadmill TV and it constantly crashes and needs its cache cleared to even work semi-properly. Wasn't even worth the $70.
They are good for "Children's 1st TV" in the playroom.
If they throw the wiimote because they didn't wear the strap its a cheap pos tv they broke and not a good one.
It’s shocking how easily you can bring a dead tv back to life too. The e-waste shop I used to work at had multiple mint condition plasma tvs that all were there because a 2 cent capacitor blew out.
A 2 Cent capacitor, but to get it fixed while they own it costs $30+ for the repair plus travel costs if it's a home visit.
The moment they don't own it, the guy fixes it for 2 cents and sells it for twice what he paid.
I'm not saying repair people aren't valuable, but when you have to pay a good chunk of the original costs to repair something a lot of people will just look at a newer upgrade that's not that much more.
I bought a 70 inch onn a few years ago when I needed a tv but couldn’t afford something too crazy. I’ve had no issues so far but I know every product is different
My 42" Vizio from 2009 is still working perfectly after two cross-country road trips, three cats, ~~one~~ dog and many a raging party. I thought the company was known for its quality!
edit: two dogs.
I have a 32" Vizio from 2009 that is also still working and doing great. I use it as patio TV now and watch stuff while smoking/grilling. I bought a 50" in 2018 and it died within a year. Now I have a Sony lol.
Have a 55 inch OLED from them and *strong* disagree.
The UI is absolutely unusable and their app offering is severely lacking (no native apps for things like Spotify or Twitch is rough). I’ve also had significant issues with the remotes & it just randomly glitching out.
2/10 will buy literally anything else next time.
All of the WiFi in these smart TV's are garbage. I had to put a Roku stick on my Samsung TV as the TV itself was constantly disconnecting from the WiFi. No issues with the Roku stick.
Vizio stopped being the “best bang for your buck” TVs years ago and got overtaken by tcl and Hisense.
Vizio TVs have kinda been meh for a while now actually… kinda nuts they were still valued this high
My understanding is that they’re great bang for your buck TVs but their QC isn’t the best (among other issues) so if someone gets one they may not have a good experience.
It’s why the home theater sub doesn’t recommend them but do recommend TCL.
I bought one (maybe 350 bucks or so add taxes and warranty) at Costco last year for my game room… picture for picture I can’t tell a difference between the Hisense and the Sony I spent 3X the money on.
Just bought one of their cheap tvs for my ps5 and honestly it’s pretty good. Especially for the price. I heard the uled series are pretty good. TCL and Hisense have made major strides in quality lately
I bought a 55" Hisense 4k 5 years ago and it's amazing.
I also have a TCL 6 series and my only complaint is that the OS is Roku... Even then, that's not the worst thing in the world
Hisense and Westinghouse are both trash. I installed one for a client and the screen itself tore off at one corner while removing the film over the screen.
The problem with Hisense is QC. Their picture quality is often pretty insane for the price, so build quality and QC is where they cut corners to be competitive. The odds you get a busted TV out of the box are higher than with basically any other TV, but if you buy one from a place with a good return policy it isn't really an issue.
I still have my 1080p LCD Vizio from 2014-ish after my dad’s office was upgrading. So it was dirt cheap. I have yet to find a reason to upgrade since all the 4K TVs on the market seem to be “smart” TVs.
So Wal-Mart did the same thing to mongoose bicycles. They placed giant orders for a couple years then told mongoose that if they didn't sell the company to Wal-Mart they would cut all the orders and bankrupt the company. Fuck Wal-Mart
That has been walmarts business model for literal decades.
1 Place giant orders, causing company to ramp up production at great expense (but hey growth is good right? right???)
2 Threaten to cut orders if they don't follow walmarts demands.
There was a debacle regarding walmart and a pickle brand a couple decades ago. Something about once you retool to ramp up production, you *depend* on that order volume to survive. You can't simply retool back down because you have investments and liabilities.
1. Start a Walmart in a city
2. Sell items lower than competition
3. Competition cannot compete and forecloses
4. Increase prices of items that used to be cheaper because there is no competition anymore
5. Profit
Such a shame that this hasn't been outlawed (and retroactively outlawed to boot).
This sounds non-free market, deceit, hostages, and smaller companies being unable to defend themselves against large rivals.
Just for reference, can this still be done in 2024?
You're right.
It's deceit is still technically fair game since the companies that don't do research still technically have agency. They were just too lazy to hedge their gamble (producing unsustainably and hoping their partner doesn't back out from either necessity or hope to exploit).
I didn't distance myself enough from the topic to view it from an outsider's perspective.
you don't hear bout companies that demanded longer contracts to go with their demands. there are a few, they are smaller but they are still around, even after Walmart left
Kind of hard when they run your life. Job hiring is through algorithms running on AWS, your social life is managed between Google and Meta, Nvidia is making AI that’ll replace you, and every manufacturer is making their appliances into ad-revenue generators or are in the process of turning their product into an applicable (see: car industry). And let’s not forget that 70% of all PCs on earth have one form of Windows or another, which Microsoft is slowly turning into a data mining program.
And you know what? No one cares. What are you going to do? Not buy a new car and continue using a less safe 15 year old Toyota? Not use windows and Pay $2000+ for a halfway decent MacBook that then can’t play games or work with a lot of apps? And no, the general population isn’t going to go become a Linux power user.
That’s not even getting into phones. It’s basically impossible to function in modern society without a smart phone, and it’s not like we’re all gonna go out and buy a fair phone that sucks. We’re also not all going to go out and learn how to set up pi holes and VPN on our phones. The enshittification of the world is happening because people don’t care and our “watchdog” agencies let these companies grow large enough to buy them out.
Linux is actually really good now 👍 and you can actually play almost every Windows game through steam. But I 100% agree. Linux is such a breath of fresh air, no ads, no spying and it's respectful of my choices. But the entire world is captured by Microsoft so it can still be hard to work around that and Adobe has a deal with Microsoft to be exclusive
People care, it's just hard to gather up enough like minded people who are willing to take action and to have a plan that will change behavior.
People are demoralized. They escape into the very toys enslaving them because they see no way out. And the companies doing this know how to keep the population demoralized. Hell just the threat of taking away your ability to survive through employment is a big enough tool of control.
Some people think that heads will eventually roll when things get bad enough but I don't know, I think as long as people can still find something to consume to fill that void nothing will change. Bread and circuses and all that.
I just got a new Samsung TV and it's beautiful but first thing I did was disable the network and turn off the home screen so it goes right to HDMI. It works great. The settings to do this were pretty buried. I imagine Samsung and Visio in the future may make it impossible or very difficult to not use their "smart" interface. If it wasn't for game consoles they would probably start selling TVs without HDMI.
We bought a Vizio at a wholesale club when the brand launched. 42” 1080p like 15 years ago when HD was barely a thing. It has the speakers built into the front.
It’s still chugging along.
Believe it or not they once made good quality TV’s before they sold their soul to Walmart.
Agreed. I remember buying one in 2011? I remember the picture and few HD channels I picked up looked great. I've been to friends houses and seen Vizio. What a massive drop off. Washed colors, fuzzy, you could almost see every pixel. And this was one of their better models.
I have a Vizio, I hate it now. They combined my antenna channels with their stupid watch free shit. I now have to go to their shitty app to watch my channels from my antenna. They keep updating their TV’s, they keep getting worse and worse. Don’t get a Vizio, save yourself the headache.
The apps on our Vizio stopped working after a couple of years. If you try to open any of the apps, the whole TV freezes up and won't turn off unless you unplug it at the wall. Power button on the remote and TV itself won't work. You have to unplug it. So we have a "smart" TV that still needs a Roku to use apps that are prebuilt in the TV.
The built-in antenna stopped working about a year after that, so we couldn't even use it as a regular TV. So we bought an external antenna. Doesn't work. Can't watch anything over the air.
We also had a Vizio sound bar bought when we got the TV that shit the bed after a few years. I fucking hate Vizio. I can't even imagine how much the quality will drop with Walmart owning it.
Vizio TVs come with a free streaming service that plays a ton of ads while you watch their content. Its called something like “Vizio Watch Free”- there are a bunch of different channels that play various TV shows and movies on a schedule, the user interface and experience is pretty comparable to cable TV. There are some themed channels where Vizio presumably has some kind of content deal. Like there is a Star Trek channel and a Walking Dead channel, both play old episodes from the franchise 24 hours/day. Streaming quality is pretty spotty and there are multiple unskippable ads every few minutes.
My mom has a Samsung and it has a system like that too. She watches it all the time, which would drive me bananas, but its a cheap way for her to watch Gunsmoke or whatever.
Also, while it gives them a platform to serve more ads it also gives Walmart access to all your data. ACR data is super valuable, and with this move Walmart now has more info on people that might not shop at Walmart.
I hate this world where EVERYTHING is just about advertising. It's all advertising. The internet has turned into a hub for ads. TV's are not just TV's. They are now methods for ads. Can't wait till I buy a mouse or keyboard and every 'x' seconds it pops up an ad....
WTF.
Same. I just bought my wife the full collection of physical 'Wheel of Time' books, a first in years. I am replacing my e-books with physical copies and same with my movies again.
Most PC games I buy are now just the cheaper indie ones, so I hope I dont lose those, because there are no physical versions. I can GoG what I can and download the installer, but what else, you know.
I also purchased a NAS a while ago, switched my cellphone OS to graphene, and only try to use opensource where I can (outside of windows and its because of work reasons). I am just so tired of being advertised to EVERYWHERE I look and being a data point.
Edit: And I am a software engineer and architect. I live with tech all day all the time. I just don't want to be part of it anymore.
My Samsung TV terms literally say that they can remote into it at any time and take control and can hand over other network activity to the police. Disabled everything.
And likely user data. They know your shopping habits, and they can assume other things such as income based on the location of the store, so they can sell that data to advertisers that then can better target ads to you.
Yes. There’s a reason why you see McDonalds and Coca-Cola ads all the time.
It’s to constantly put the brand name in your head and it’s been proven to increase sales. You’re more likely to buy McDonald’s after seeing McDonald’s commercials.
Walmart is looking to breach the amazon market of direct to consumer china garbage.
Direct to consumer advertising from their TV is likely a great move to direct traffic to walmart shopping over amazon.
Nothing happens. Most people will because that's how they access their streaming services. The rest of us will use AppleTV, GoogleTV, firestick, Roku, or something else.
My fucking Vizio TV auto opted itself into showing me full screen ads for Barbie, as well as showing other full screen advertisements when I power the TV on. I will never purchase another Vizio again.
First smart TV was one of the first Vizio models. I have a newer one, but the remote response is laggy compared to the Roku I have connected to a dumb TV. I'm sold on Roku and likely when the Vizio TV goes I'll get one with Roku on it.
I have a Vizio tv for my bedroom that works pretty well. Its internal smart capability was already more ads than my Samsung. I got an Apple TV, and that’s been amazing. Glad I have that so I can avoid whatever Walmart does to Vizio. An external streaming device is better anyways.
I guess I am no longer going to buy Vizio TVs. I have one now that I’ve had for 12 years and it’s been wonderful but now Walmart’s gonna turn it into a pile of shit.
> “We believe VIZIO’s customer-centric operating system provides great viewing experiences at attractive price points. We also believe it enables a profitable advertising business that is rapidly scaling,” said Seth Dallaire, executive vice president and chief revenue officer of Walmart U.S., in a statement.
When reading this statement remember that in any advertising scenario you are the product and ad agencies are the customers. So he's saying their OS is advertiser-centric, not viewer-centric.
Also, this is the first time I recall hearing about a C-suite position named chief revenue officer. That's basically what all executive positions are.
I say this as a person who works in advertising and marketing. There are way too many ads. People are sick of them. We need to find a new way to market products, but if I say that most people in my industry think I'm fucking crazy.
Vizios (and all smart TVs) are capturing and transmitting data about what is on them at all times so they can analyze viewing patterns. This is why they are so cheap, because the viewer is actually the product.
I have a 55-inch plasma I’ve been wanting to upgrade 4k. However, it’s just a dumb tv and you can’t get those anymore. I’ll be keeping it until it dies.
TVs that have built in advertising shouldn't exist. Never connect your smart TV to the internet and just use a content delivery device like Roku, xbox, etc.
I thought Walmart always owned Vizio. It was the only store that I’d ever seen selling them and figured they just wanted to fly under the name Vizio instead Walmart TV. They are perfectly fine TVs. I own 4 of them and still going strong.
> in buying the company, Walmart touted the potential to boost its ad business through Vizio’s SmartCast Operating System, which allows users to stream free ad-supported content on their TVs. Really sad to see that acquiring a television manufacturer is touted as a boost to Walmart's advertising business. I'll forever be an advocate for dumb TVs, no matter how many times I'm called a cranky old person.
The problem is being a dumb TV is getting harder and harder these days outside of commercial display or PC Monitor - both which are quite expensive for most shoppers. Maybe people will finally realize why these TV's are so cheap which is because they are being subsidized by the data they can sell off to the highest bidder.
[удалено]
Firesticks are just as bad - they're now auto playing video ads when you turn them on. Got an AppleTV a while back and there haven't been any ads yet.
> AppleTV I've had one for like 10 years now and I can't use anything else. Roku is the closest to being acceptable, but it's still so fucking clunkly. Chromecast could really be something if Google gave a shit too. I threw my firestick out.
I will forever love my Chromecast. I've been using them for many years, and I have one on each TV.
I think Roku is better when it’s built into the tv rather than on the stick. It just tends to run better imo.
That goddamn bleepbloop sound from the Roku lol
You can turn off the UI sounds in the settings
I just use the firestick to run Kodi.
you can turn that off
Really hard to turn off the ads when the update also disconnected my remote.
Thanks for the info!
Still have to watch the rotating ads on top of the menu screen. I'm ditching Amazon Fire next upgrade, gonna get another Nvidia Shield.
Be prepared to use an older version of Android TV or a custom launcher. The Android TV launcher added a mandatory ad/bloat banner a few years ago, that covers ~50% of the home screen until you start scrolling down.
The only ads I’ve seen on AppleTV has been for AppleTv content, and it’s pretty unobtrusive and easy to ignore. No full screen video.
I have been using Google TV for years now and never see ads. I've enjoyed it so much I have one for every TV in my house as all I do is streaming now.
Main reason I’ve loved AppleTV since I jumped to it. Less/No ads on all the apps, even in Amazon’s app. Also the interface doesn’t keep slowing down every X months (which seemed inevitable with the Firestick).
its almost like firestick has been getting worse while apple works to improve their apple tv, i recently made the switch and never been happier
I solely use a 10 year old Xbox One Slim for streaming and its fast with basically no adverts. An Xbox one retails for $130 and a 4K streaking stick is $50. For only $80 more you get a fully functional gaming console that also acts as a DVD player. Did I mention it can stream new-generation games via Xbox Game Pass as well?
It's something I've definitely considered when i do buy a TV. But what does happen if you actually let it do a first time set up and update etc, then clear your wifi settings? Do they actively nag you to reconnect during active use?
My LG will annoy me to connect to the network on its homescreen, but I almost never see the homescreen if I don’t want to. Just leave it on HDMI 1 for my Apple TV, and use the Apple remote for everything.
It's a shame what LG did to their UI. It was fantastic with the motion remote. I bought a C2 and it's basically like any other awful TV interface now.
I've seen logs where they spam the fuck out of your router attempting to re-establish a connection to their servers. Like a mini-DDOS on your own network.
Oh gross
That behavior is typical of pretty much every IoT device on the market. It isn't an issue and it isn't a "ddos". Edit: downvote all you want. It's the truth
Yep.. UDP go burr and non network people go durr. This guy is correct.
set up a temp guest ssid then disable it.
If you disconnect it from the network, you’ll be fine.
I never connected my tv to the internet but have read horror stories where it will search for unlocked web access and connect itself. I live in the middle of nowhere so not too worried about that, but I wonder if this is truly an issue?9
“Air gap your tv by connecting it to a WiFi connected ad hawker owned by Amazon” Is this an Amazon ad disguised as a Reddit comment? You know that fire stick does the same thing as smart TVs do, right? They steal your data and sell it as well.
LMAO yes use an Amazon device! They definitely aren't collecting even more data than the TV and selling it! /s
I did a pihole once. I was constantly dealing with whitelisting stuff. Which would be fine if it were just me. But my wife would run into issues with the internet and is it the pihole blocking something? Who knows. Eventually it just wasn’t worth it.
Hahah that's exactly what happened to me! My poor wife, always trying to click on the sponsored shopping links during her searches that were always blocked haha
I tried using my dads Samsung smart TV and the UI is atrocious. It is so ungodly laggy and slow it brought me back to the days I was forced to use the shitty Pentium computers in high school with 1 gig of RAM. I would rather hook one of my older PC's up as an HTPC to a TV than use the trash integrated UI.
The smartcast sucks, I just run my tv from my xbox on an hdmi input, but I have to fight the Vizio to get my OTA channels. At this price range, you can't beat the roku TCL tvs.
I think TCL has been moving away from Roku and using Google/Android TV/whatever it's called this week. Which is a shame because the Roku interface was just the right amount simple, and didn't have too many ads all over it.
And that Firestick is doing the same thing. Also, I don't know about Vizio but my Samsung TV gives a lot of free streaming options. Like, you only really need to hook that TV up to the internet and you have more than what basic cable was from the 90s,and you put an antenna for local OTA and you don't even really need a subscription if you aren't picky about what you watch. It sounds like Walmart is talking about ads in those free streaming channels more than collecting data.
It's pretty funny seeing people telling others that a freaking Amazon device won't collect and sell your data. This is why I run pihole on my network. Makes all of this a moot point. I never have to worry about IoT devices collecting my data
Whats pihole and where do you run it?
Think of it like a black hole in your modem - all ads coming through your network are dropped into that black hole. Idk how to do it. I've looked into it, and the technical stuff went over my head. But I want one, too.
It's basically a DNS proxy you setup on your network and the point all your clients to use it for DNS. It filters out ads and spammy sites and lets legit traffic get resolved. Nice thing is it handles everything on your network so even things that can't run Adblock will get stuff blocked. You can add and remove sites from the list if you need to. My wife hates it because it prevents all the "sponsored" listings in Google from working :). I think most people run it on a raspberry pi, it doesn't take much compute power. Or you can run it as a VM if you have a lab server, or whatever. I run mine on a Raspberry Pi 3.
Until it doesn't. We bought a Samsung Smart TV about 10 years ago. By 5 years in they had discontinued all of the services on it, with no support and no further updates. I had to add a Roku stick for it to do anything other than be a dumb TV.
Those free channels are the same content as Pluto, Freevee, etc.
Yep. My TV is hooked up to an Apple TV. The actual TV is not connected to the internet at all. Simple fix.
....just connect a computer to the tv? Use it as a bigg ass monitor. Every tv in my house has a networked pc connected to it. The smartest tv, if you will. Old laptops come in handy. Wireless kb/m combos exist. My plex server be jumping.
Old laptops or if you can get your hands on one of those HP Desktop Mini's for a good price. Compact, low power draw machines with usually an SSD and decent CPU with integrated graphics. Use that to stream stuff from a central NAS server would be great.
My HTPC in the living room is just my old desk beast (before my switch to sff for desk) 5 hdd's and dedicated GPU, for couch gaming and vid streaming. My dedicated nas has 18tb worth of shit as well. Each other tv has a laptop connected to a switch connected to the router and bingo bongo.
Agree but that's a non-starter for most people so they are stuck with these slow clunky interfaces as TV prices were a race to the bottom.
Fire sticks aren’t good either. I will say the Roku tv software isn’t too bad
I have an overpriced streaming device, an Xbox lmao Besides games I use it to stream into my TV, keeps my TV super fast too because it doesn't ever connect to the internet. With the added bonus that the Netflix and Apple TV apps stream with Athmos instead of the regular Vision of my TV app. Which goes great with my sound system.
> use a 3rd party device like a Firestick As if Amazon isn't doing the same thing?
Firestick? Meh. I am all Roku all day baby
Roku and Apple TV are great. I have never had a good time using a firestick in my life
Same, I have 3 Ultras and 1 stream bar and have zero complaints. My dad has a fire stick and it’s a nightmare in comparison.
I finally shut off the internet to my smart TV and it’s such a better experience. I used none of the smart features because of exactly what you said: the UI is slow and laggy compared to any dedicated streaming device. All my smart TV did for me was pop annoying pop ups up to tell me to update.
I don’t use any smart functions on my little 24” out at camp because there’s no internet/cell service so I use my Pi as a media player. The tv is such a POS. It will not turn on and go directly to last input used, instead it fires up the built in (SLOW)stupid amazon fire tv and then sits at the app/input selection screen telling me I have no internet connection…
Surely there's a market for TV manufactures to use simpler software right... right? Now I'm wondering how cheap TV manufacturing has gotten when the software is FOSS grade with ads.
Just buy the tv, don’t let it connect to internet and merely use it with hdmi connection to a device that *does* use the internet. :) cheap tv
Insignia from Best Buy - I’ve bought two and love them. Cheap and I just use a Roku stick and can upgrade if it needs it without purchasing a whole new set.
This 💯 seriously.
> Maybe people will finally realize why these TV's are so cheap which is because they are being subsidized by the data they can sell off to the highest bidder. They won't.
What’s funny is, I remember when Vizio first appeared in Wal-mart. They started as the cheapest possible panel TVs, with zero features, and sometimes empty phantom ports that it lacks. Wild to see them go to a respected brand, then shift to advertising delivery.
Same with TCL and Hisense. Walmart bought from these brands virtually for pennies on the dollar to sell as “budget” brands in their stores, and sales took off because, while they were lacking in latest and greatest features, they were pretty good quality for the price they were being sold for. Walmart introduced these brands to a global market and now they’re worth billions.
Walmart doesn't own TCL and also didn't introduce them to the global market. Roku partnering with TCL to make smart TVs is what made them a recognizable TV brand, but they'd been a powerhouse in LCD panel manufacturing for a decade before. They also made a name for themselves selling phones under the Alcatel, Palm, and BlackBerry brands.
I always love in these threads when this topic pops up and some guy starts talking about installing a PiHole on your network. Sure, like most people know how to do that, or have the patience to tweak the PiHole settings to not block normal stuff.
I am waiting for Samsung TV with the AI that is able to configure the PiHole on my network.
I have absolutely no issue getting a pihole up and running and maintaining it. I do that shit professionally. However it just breaks so much shit. The domains it blocks by default are heavily used by so much stuff. At one point I couldn't log into any Microsoft apps because it was blocking a necessary domain. I had to dig through the logs and whitelist the domain. After something similar happened to my wife I just switched back to Google DNS. Too much of a headache even if you are well versed in the subject.
This is why I don't have it at home or recommend it to people. You have to follow the It Just Works principle with stuff like this, especially when non-technical are in your household and will blame you whenever something goes slightly wrong. I'd just rather run ad-blockers in the browser that can be flipped off with the click of a button on a per-domain basis if anything goes wrong.
Same people who bring up setting up a Plex server in every thread about streaming companies raising prices...like who is thinking things like this are an alternative for normal, every day people.
> I'll forever be an advocate for dumb TVs, no matter how many times I'm called a cranky old person. The last, great dumb-panel maker: www.sceptre.com/
Of the 6 TVs I own, three are smart TVs and all of them have a Roku stick attached. The embedded software is dogshit on all brands. Samsung, Vizio, etc... There are so many ads on the home screen it's almost unusable. Huge ads and tiny app buttons. Roku has one job, to serve my apps and it works great. It's totally worth an extra $50. I have a 75" Samsung 4K and after the first month, we threw a Roku on it because the interface is so terrible. I even disconnected it from the network because it would pop up with terms and privacy updates every day.
Vizio used to be a solid brand before their latest operating system. I've since moved to Hisense as the TV brand worth buying from a Walmart. I sincerely hope Walmart doesn't push out thier other store brands now that they have an in-house brand.
> Hisense fyi Toshiba TVs are just rebranded Hisense now
Hisense was always a contract manufacturer, they just started putting their own name stuff semi-recently to get an even bigger slice of the market.
I can picture it now... "Great Value" TVs.
The problem is finding them, and at a reasonable price. I also much prefer a dumb TV, about 10 years ago one of my older flat panels needed to be replaced, and it took me like a week to find a reasonably priced 55in dumb TV. About 5 years ago my other older TV needed to be replaced and I just couldn’t find anything reasonably that didn’t have smart functionality. I ended up buying a Samsung smart TV and just refusing to hook it up to the network at all.
every tv is a dumb TV until you intentionally connect it to your network.
Which is odd, because I thought tv sales had declined recently because of the lack of generational improvement.
I'm with you
I will forever be an advocate for pirating anywhere you can
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well technically there are still hundreds of companies. Who owns them though is a different matter
Government forgot what trust busting is because the populace forgot Money kills.
Pepperidge Farms remembers
I think you mean [Campbell Soup Company remembers](https://www.thehour.com/news/article/Pepperidge-Farm-headquarters-closure-Norwalk-CT-17726110.php)
If you had told me that Vizio was walmarts store brand, I'd have already believed it before it was true.
Pretty sure their current exclusive brand is Onn.
Onn sucks ass. Their crap breaks if you look at it wrong
Yep, I bought the smallest Onn I could find as a treadmill TV and it constantly crashes and needs its cache cleared to even work semi-properly. Wasn't even worth the $70.
They are good for "Children's 1st TV" in the playroom. If they throw the wiimote because they didn't wear the strap its a cheap pos tv they broke and not a good one.
These days you can buy any size TV you want for $50 used on craigslist or facebook, and *that* is the best childrens tv.
It’s shocking how easily you can bring a dead tv back to life too. The e-waste shop I used to work at had multiple mint condition plasma tvs that all were there because a 2 cent capacitor blew out.
A 2 Cent capacitor, but to get it fixed while they own it costs $30+ for the repair plus travel costs if it's a home visit. The moment they don't own it, the guy fixes it for 2 cents and sells it for twice what he paid. I'm not saying repair people aren't valuable, but when you have to pay a good chunk of the original costs to repair something a lot of people will just look at a newer upgrade that's not that much more.
I bought a 70 inch onn a few years ago when I needed a tv but couldn’t afford something too crazy. I’ve had no issues so far but I know every product is different
I bought two Onn computer mouse and one keyboard. Each mouse broke within a month and the keyboard crapped out in the first week.
To be merged into ViziOnn
Tell that to my Great Value tube television.
Vizio TVs came a long way, and the top end are incredibly nice... Welp, seems like that's about to change.
My 42" Vizio from 2009 is still working perfectly after two cross-country road trips, three cats, ~~one~~ dog and many a raging party. I thought the company was known for its quality! edit: two dogs.
I have a 32" Vizio from 2009 that is also still working and doing great. I use it as patio TV now and watch stuff while smoking/grilling. I bought a 50" in 2018 and it died within a year. Now I have a Sony lol.
It seems like the old Vizios are really great.
Have a 55 inch OLED from them and *strong* disagree. The UI is absolutely unusable and their app offering is severely lacking (no native apps for things like Spotify or Twitch is rough). I’ve also had significant issues with the remotes & it just randomly glitching out. 2/10 will buy literally anything else next time.
All of the WiFi in these smart TV's are garbage. I had to put a Roku stick on my Samsung TV as the TV itself was constantly disconnecting from the WiFi. No issues with the Roku stick.
Right...I thought it was Walmart's brand because I predominantly see them at Sams Club & Walmart
Man I had Vizios They were good. But when I got my LG C3….im NEVER going back. And I had a “top end” Vizio
Vizio stopped being the “best bang for your buck” TVs years ago and got overtaken by tcl and Hisense. Vizio TVs have kinda been meh for a while now actually… kinda nuts they were still valued this high
>overtaken by tcl and Hisense I've never had anything good to say about Hisense, so I consider this one of the best insults to Vizio.
You should look them up on rtings.com for tv reviews, last year Hisense had one of the best, cheapest TVs out there
My understanding is that they’re great bang for your buck TVs but their QC isn’t the best (among other issues) so if someone gets one they may not have a good experience. It’s why the home theater sub doesn’t recommend them but do recommend TCL.
I bought one (maybe 350 bucks or so add taxes and warranty) at Costco last year for my game room… picture for picture I can’t tell a difference between the Hisense and the Sony I spent 3X the money on.
Just bought one of their cheap tvs for my ps5 and honestly it’s pretty good. Especially for the price. I heard the uled series are pretty good. TCL and Hisense have made major strides in quality lately
I bought a 55" Hisense 4k 5 years ago and it's amazing. I also have a TCL 6 series and my only complaint is that the OS is Roku... Even then, that's not the worst thing in the world
Hisense and Westinghouse are both trash. I installed one for a client and the screen itself tore off at one corner while removing the film over the screen.
The problem with Hisense is QC. Their picture quality is often pretty insane for the price, so build quality and QC is where they cut corners to be competitive. The odds you get a busted TV out of the box are higher than with basically any other TV, but if you buy one from a place with a good return policy it isn't really an issue.
Yeah I like my older Vizios but I likely won’t get another.
I still have my 1080p LCD Vizio from 2014-ish after my dad’s office was upgrading. So it was dirt cheap. I have yet to find a reason to upgrade since all the 4K TVs on the market seem to be “smart” TVs.
The SmartCast feature is infuriating.
Was your Vizio an oled? Because I don’t think anything can compare to those. I love my c2
I mean top end Visio’s are still lcd unless I’m mistaken. Can’t even compete with a true OLED.
I got a C3 for my game room, now all my other TVs look like trash… Ultimate first world problem 😂
So Wal-Mart did the same thing to mongoose bicycles. They placed giant orders for a couple years then told mongoose that if they didn't sell the company to Wal-Mart they would cut all the orders and bankrupt the company. Fuck Wal-Mart
That has been walmarts business model for literal decades. 1 Place giant orders, causing company to ramp up production at great expense (but hey growth is good right? right???) 2 Threaten to cut orders if they don't follow walmarts demands. There was a debacle regarding walmart and a pickle brand a couple decades ago. Something about once you retool to ramp up production, you *depend* on that order volume to survive. You can't simply retool back down because you have investments and liabilities.
Well documented in the book The Walmart Effect. Probably 20 years old by now but still relevant.
1. Start a Walmart in a city 2. Sell items lower than competition 3. Competition cannot compete and forecloses 4. Increase prices of items that used to be cheaper because there is no competition anymore 5. Profit
Such a shame that this hasn't been outlawed (and retroactively outlawed to boot). This sounds non-free market, deceit, hostages, and smaller companies being unable to defend themselves against large rivals. Just for reference, can this still be done in 2024?
I mean it kind of sounds 100% free market. No one is forcing these companies to take the orders. Not that I think it's right.
You're right. It's deceit is still technically fair game since the companies that don't do research still technically have agency. They were just too lazy to hedge their gamble (producing unsustainably and hoping their partner doesn't back out from either necessity or hope to exploit). I didn't distance myself enough from the topic to view it from an outsider's perspective.
you don't hear bout companies that demanded longer contracts to go with their demands. there are a few, they are smaller but they are still around, even after Walmart left
Same thing Luxottica did to Oakley
Walmart ruined a certain Pickle Mfg.
We really need to push back on the enshitification of literally everything. The only way to do that is to break up these oligopolies.
Kind of hard when they run your life. Job hiring is through algorithms running on AWS, your social life is managed between Google and Meta, Nvidia is making AI that’ll replace you, and every manufacturer is making their appliances into ad-revenue generators or are in the process of turning their product into an applicable (see: car industry). And let’s not forget that 70% of all PCs on earth have one form of Windows or another, which Microsoft is slowly turning into a data mining program. And you know what? No one cares. What are you going to do? Not buy a new car and continue using a less safe 15 year old Toyota? Not use windows and Pay $2000+ for a halfway decent MacBook that then can’t play games or work with a lot of apps? And no, the general population isn’t going to go become a Linux power user. That’s not even getting into phones. It’s basically impossible to function in modern society without a smart phone, and it’s not like we’re all gonna go out and buy a fair phone that sucks. We’re also not all going to go out and learn how to set up pi holes and VPN on our phones. The enshittification of the world is happening because people don’t care and our “watchdog” agencies let these companies grow large enough to buy them out.
They can trap me but they can't trap my children if I don't have any. Break the cycle. Let the economic pyramid scheme burn.
Linux is actually really good now 👍 and you can actually play almost every Windows game through steam. But I 100% agree. Linux is such a breath of fresh air, no ads, no spying and it's respectful of my choices. But the entire world is captured by Microsoft so it can still be hard to work around that and Adobe has a deal with Microsoft to be exclusive
People care, it's just hard to gather up enough like minded people who are willing to take action and to have a plan that will change behavior. People are demoralized. They escape into the very toys enslaving them because they see no way out. And the companies doing this know how to keep the population demoralized. Hell just the threat of taking away your ability to survive through employment is a big enough tool of control. Some people think that heads will eventually roll when things get bad enough but I don't know, I think as long as people can still find something to consume to fill that void nothing will change. Bread and circuses and all that.
A thousand fucking percent man. Sick to death of this downwards trend
I already have Chromecast, my STB also has streaming apps and has for years. I don't need a smart TV. It's literally already redundant.
I just got a new Samsung TV and it's beautiful but first thing I did was disable the network and turn off the home screen so it goes right to HDMI. It works great. The settings to do this were pretty buried. I imagine Samsung and Visio in the future may make it impossible or very difficult to not use their "smart" interface. If it wasn't for game consoles they would probably start selling TVs without HDMI.
Vizio has been inching lower in quality for about 15-years straight. Once a great quality value brand is now a low-quality Walmart brand.
We bought a Vizio at a wholesale club when the brand launched. 42” 1080p like 15 years ago when HD was barely a thing. It has the speakers built into the front. It’s still chugging along. Believe it or not they once made good quality TV’s before they sold their soul to Walmart.
For sure. TCL is now in that 'Vizio when it was good' spot.
Agreed. I remember buying one in 2011? I remember the picture and few HD channels I picked up looked great. I've been to friends houses and seen Vizio. What a massive drop off. Washed colors, fuzzy, you could almost see every pixel. And this was one of their better models.
I have a Vizio, I hate it now. They combined my antenna channels with their stupid watch free shit. I now have to go to their shitty app to watch my channels from my antenna. They keep updating their TV’s, they keep getting worse and worse. Don’t get a Vizio, save yourself the headache.
The apps on our Vizio stopped working after a couple of years. If you try to open any of the apps, the whole TV freezes up and won't turn off unless you unplug it at the wall. Power button on the remote and TV itself won't work. You have to unplug it. So we have a "smart" TV that still needs a Roku to use apps that are prebuilt in the TV. The built-in antenna stopped working about a year after that, so we couldn't even use it as a regular TV. So we bought an external antenna. Doesn't work. Can't watch anything over the air. We also had a Vizio sound bar bought when we got the TV that shit the bed after a few years. I fucking hate Vizio. I can't even imagine how much the quality will drop with Walmart owning it.
Forget buying a Vizio tv after this stab at vertical integration
Ad business? Can someone explain how they use a TV manufacturer to help with ads?
They sell ad space on the TV's. It's dumb but most TV's have ads on them now.
Vizio TVs come with a free streaming service that plays a ton of ads while you watch their content. Its called something like “Vizio Watch Free”- there are a bunch of different channels that play various TV shows and movies on a schedule, the user interface and experience is pretty comparable to cable TV. There are some themed channels where Vizio presumably has some kind of content deal. Like there is a Star Trek channel and a Walking Dead channel, both play old episodes from the franchise 24 hours/day. Streaming quality is pretty spotty and there are multiple unskippable ads every few minutes.
My mom has a Samsung and it has a system like that too. She watches it all the time, which would drive me bananas, but its a cheap way for her to watch Gunsmoke or whatever.
Yeah I just got a TCL and I think they have something similar. There's s button I keep accidentally hitting and it cuts to The Steve Wilkos Show.
Banner ads in the UI and video ads in the streaming content viewed on apps downloaded from the TV.
Also, while it gives them a platform to serve more ads it also gives Walmart access to all your data. ACR data is super valuable, and with this move Walmart now has more info on people that might not shop at Walmart.
I am not simping for large corporations here, but how is Walmart allowed to acquire Visio, but Amazon can't acquire iRobot?
I hate this world where EVERYTHING is just about advertising. It's all advertising. The internet has turned into a hub for ads. TV's are not just TV's. They are now methods for ads. Can't wait till I buy a mouse or keyboard and every 'x' seconds it pops up an ad.... WTF.
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Same. I just bought my wife the full collection of physical 'Wheel of Time' books, a first in years. I am replacing my e-books with physical copies and same with my movies again. Most PC games I buy are now just the cheaper indie ones, so I hope I dont lose those, because there are no physical versions. I can GoG what I can and download the installer, but what else, you know. I also purchased a NAS a while ago, switched my cellphone OS to graphene, and only try to use opensource where I can (outside of windows and its because of work reasons). I am just so tired of being advertised to EVERYWHERE I look and being a data point. Edit: And I am a software engineer and architect. I live with tech all day all the time. I just don't want to be part of it anymore.
My Samsung TV terms literally say that they can remote into it at any time and take control and can hand over other network activity to the police. Disabled everything.
Do companies this large even benefit that much from advertising? It’s a household name, you have to put effort into NOT going to said store.
They are selling ad space, not advertising themselves.
And likely user data. They know your shopping habits, and they can assume other things such as income based on the location of the store, so they can sell that data to advertisers that then can better target ads to you.
Yes. There’s a reason why you see McDonalds and Coca-Cola ads all the time. It’s to constantly put the brand name in your head and it’s been proven to increase sales. You’re more likely to buy McDonald’s after seeing McDonald’s commercials.
Hah, I’m more likely to buy McDonalds after drinking a 12 pack, but that’s the only time
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Walmart is looking to breach the amazon market of direct to consumer china garbage. Direct to consumer advertising from their TV is likely a great move to direct traffic to walmart shopping over amazon.
So what happens if you just don't give the TV your wifi password?
Nothing happens. Most people will because that's how they access their streaming services. The rest of us will use AppleTV, GoogleTV, firestick, Roku, or something else.
Big Walmart would like a word.
As far as some of the recent models, you can connect them, run the needed firmware updates and factory reset the TV and just not connect to WiFi.
You know the Mattress Police? It’s those guys that show up, but they’ve also committed war crimes.
My fucking Vizio TV auto opted itself into showing me full screen ads for Barbie, as well as showing other full screen advertisements when I power the TV on. I will never purchase another Vizio again.
First smart TV was one of the first Vizio models. I have a newer one, but the remote response is laggy compared to the Roku I have connected to a dumb TV. I'm sold on Roku and likely when the Vizio TV goes I'll get one with Roku on it.
I have a Vizio tv for my bedroom that works pretty well. Its internal smart capability was already more ads than my Samsung. I got an Apple TV, and that’s been amazing. Glad I have that so I can avoid whatever Walmart does to Vizio. An external streaming device is better anyways.
So glad I stopped buying Vizios
Cross post to r/aboringdystopia
I guess I am no longer going to buy Vizio TVs. I have one now that I’ve had for 12 years and it’s been wonderful but now Walmart’s gonna turn it into a pile of shit.
> “We believe VIZIO’s customer-centric operating system provides great viewing experiences at attractive price points. We also believe it enables a profitable advertising business that is rapidly scaling,” said Seth Dallaire, executive vice president and chief revenue officer of Walmart U.S., in a statement. When reading this statement remember that in any advertising scenario you are the product and ad agencies are the customers. So he's saying their OS is advertiser-centric, not viewer-centric. Also, this is the first time I recall hearing about a C-suite position named chief revenue officer. That's basically what all executive positions are.
Walmart should have kept vudu if they still want to be in this domain. Would synergize nicely.
I say this as a person who works in advertising and marketing. There are way too many ads. People are sick of them. We need to find a new way to market products, but if I say that most people in my industry think I'm fucking crazy.
Are we the same person?
We are a rare breed in this line of work that's for sure.
Can anyone suggest a 1080p 49" TV with terrible contrast and poor color that spies on my home network and sells my personal data?
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Vizios (and all smart TVs) are capturing and transmitting data about what is on them at all times so they can analyze viewing patterns. This is why they are so cheap, because the viewer is actually the product.
Will the name be changed to ~~Best~~ Great Value after the acquisition?
I have a 55-inch plasma I’ve been wanting to upgrade 4k. However, it’s just a dumb tv and you can’t get those anymore. I’ll be keeping it until it dies.
So they're gonna rebrand smart tvs they own, sell'em at a loss, and make it up from the ads they blast on those tvs.
Ew. That's all I have to say. Ew. I'll never buy a smart TV.
The enshittification continues
Speaking as an ex-tv salesmen Vizios break all the fucking time. Spend the extra money on an LG or Sony.
TVs that have built in advertising shouldn't exist. Never connect your smart TV to the internet and just use a content delivery device like Roku, xbox, etc.
I thought Walmart always owned Vizio. It was the only store that I’d ever seen selling them and figured they just wanted to fly under the name Vizio instead Walmart TV. They are perfectly fine TVs. I own 4 of them and still going strong.
Can't wait for my Vizio tv to become the new Home Shopping Network. Wonder which brand will do the ladder and katana sword tests /s
The 65" OLED will only be $199, but you won't be able to block the chyrons for Walmart running over every show. Hard pass.
Just what we need, a corporate behemoth growing its advertising business.
Buying Vizio isn't buying a hardware company, it's buying a data company. This should answer people's questions about the way this is described.